So much for Blue Lives Matter
If you’re wondering how “Christians” can worship a murdering, raping, hate-tweeting, raging criminal who they mistakenly think of as “rich,” how “patriots” can support a man who tries to shortcut the rule of law and subvert the sacred peaceful transition of power, then I have another puzzle for you. How do “Blue Lives Matter,” flag-waving Republicans murder one police officer and rough up 50 others, putting fifteen of them in the hospital?
Just ask DC Metropolitan police officer Michael Fanone. After being torn from a small phalanx of cops protecting the Capitol building on January 6, officer Fanone reports that rioters were screaming out, “Kill him with his own gun!”
“At that point it was like, self-preservation,” Fanone explains, “how do I survive this situation?” After being nearly torn apart, his gear and badge ripped from him, Fanone finally figured out a formula that did the trick. ”I just remember yelling out that I have kids, and that seemed to work.” At that point some members of the mob helped him get out of what was very nearly a life-ending situation.
Fanone summarizes it this way: “People have asked me my thoughts on the individuals in the crowd that helped me or tried to offer some assistance. I think the conclusion I’ve come to is, ‘Thank you, but f*ck you for being there.”
So there you have the Blue Lives Matter crowd. Officer Fanone got lucky that day. He had a fortunate inspiration and remembered that these were also supposed to be the people who were the “Pro-life Anti-abortion” crowd, so maybe mentioning that he had kids might penetrate their dim-witted, insane bloodlust for murder.
They were also part of the same violent mob who beat another police officer, Brian Sicknick, to death with a fire extinguisher. Maybe Sicknick didn’t have kids, or maybe he did and he didn’t have the presence of mind to tell the bloodthirsty scum who robbed him of his life that he had kids. Or maybe he told them and they just didn’t give a crap. When you’re dealing with the Kool-aid drinking mob of glassy-eyed Trump idolaters, anything goes.
So if you’re looking for another “apparent contradiction” (read: screaming hypocrisy) of the Trump claque, here’s another one. So the next time a contemptible, Trump-loving moron shrieks “Blue Lives Matter” as a supposed refutation of Black Lives Matter, remind them of officers Fanone, Sicknick and the fifty others they roughed up, hospitalized, murdered or nearly murdered.
The truth of the matter is they don’t care about cops, they don’t care about “law and order” (or as Trump used to tweet out randomly when he had a Twitter account, LAW AND ORDER), they don’t care about Blue Lives Matter or freedom of speech. Their counterfeit horror at the mostly peaceful but occasionally destructive protests over the killing of George Floyd has also been exposed for the lie that it is. They don’t care about “Stop the Steal” — they’re the ones trying to steal the election. They don’t even really give a crap about America and the freedom and diversity that America really stands for. All they care about is their Lord and Savior Donald Trump.
As a final cognitive dissonant curiosity, there was a “Thin Blue Line” flag being carried immediately over the spot where officer Michael Fanone was being savagely beaten. As if the hypocrisy of “patriots” assaulting one of America’s hallowed buildings isn’t bad enough, hypocrisy was present everywhere you looked. Donald Trump spent months inciting them with lies about the election, and this was the final, inevitable, ugly, stupid, violent and wholly unnecessary result. And, as ever, ladies and gentlemen, brothers and sisters, comrades and friends, stay safe.
Robert Harrington is an American expat living in Britain. He is a portrait painter.