Conservatives couldn't wait to baselessly tie the Chicago kidnapping video to Black Lives Matter
LatestAlthough police said on Thursday they see no connection between the four black teens who allegedly hold a young, mentally challenged white man against his will for hours and livestreamed themselves repeatedly assaulting him and Black Lives Matter, that didn’t stop conservatives on the internet from rushing to link the movement to the heinous crime.
In a news conference on Wednesday, Chicago Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson said while hate crime charges against the four suspects were possible, there is no evidence so far to indicate that the attack was politically or racially motivated. But try telling that to the right-wing trolls and, in some cases, flat-out white supremacists who immediately christened the incident the “#BLMKidnapping.” More established Republicans also wasted no time in getting on board with the speculation.
Newt Gingrich, a former House Speaker and surrogate for Donald Trump’s campaign, didn’t blame the movement by name, but instead pointed a finger at President Obama for highlighting “racial tensions” in this country during his presidency.
“We have to oppose white racism, we also have to oppose black racism,” Gingrich said in a Thursday interview on Fox News.
In other insanely predictable story arcs, Glenn Beck, the formerly pseudo-woke conservative talk show, also jumped to blame Black Lives Matter.
Because apparently it needed to be clarified that a black suspect shouting “fuck white people, fuck Donald Trump” in the video of the prolonged assault doesn’t mean the crime is at all linked to the peaceful protest movement for black lives, community organizer DeRay McKesson tweeted: