When Vester Lee Flanagan murdered a reporter (Alison Parker) and her cameraman (Adam Ward) on live television on Wednesday, Breitbart News provided its readers with live updates in a post with a headline that read, “RACE MURDER IN VIRGINIA: BLACK REPORTER SUSPECTED OF EXECUTING WHITE COLLEAGUES – ON LIVE TELEVISION!”
There was nothing factually wrong with the headline. And Breitbart News put up the headline, which was approved by Editor-in-Chief Alex Marlow and Executive Chairman Stephen K. Bannon, after Flanagan started sending out Tweets that implied there may have been a racial motivation for the attacks. Flanagan (or Bryce Williams, which was his on-air name) alleged that one of his victims, reporter Alison Parker, “made racist comments.” He wondered on Twitter, “they hired her after that???” Flanagan is black. Ward and Parker were white.
But the mainstream press, left-wing writers, and the usual suspects on the right who love being liked by the liberals went apoplectic.
ABC News would later receive Flanagan’s manifesto/suicide note in which he declared that he wanted a “race war.”
“Why did I do it? I put down a deposit for a gun on 6/19/15. The Church shooting in Charleston happened on 6/17/15,” he reportedly wrote in his manifesto. “What sent me over the top was the church shooting. And my hollow point bullets have the victims’ initials on them.”
According to ABC, which received Flanagan’s manifesto, Flanagan also said that the Charleston “church shooting was the tipping point…but my anger has been building steadily…I’ve been a human powder keg for a while…just waiting to go BOOM!!!!”
“As for Dylann Roof? You (deleted)! You want a race war (deleted)? BRING IT THEN YOU WHITE …(deleted)!!!” Flanagan wrote.
ABC also noted that in his manifesto, Flanagan says he “has suffered racial discrimination, sexual harassment and bullying at work,” been “attacked by black men and white females,” and “talks about how he was attacked for being a gay, black man.”
The same cast of characters in the mainstream media and on the right who always look for any excuse to attack Breitbart News, though, spent the day accusing Breitbart News of race-baiting. Left-wing Media Matters sent out a press release that accused Breitbart News of reacting to the “shooting with a race-baiting article authored by editor-at-large John Nolte.”
New York magazine’s Jonathan Chait said he was “too angry to be tweeting about these racist demagogues at Breitbart but I can’t contain myself right now. These are sick, hateful, twisted people who exploit our worst impulses, and they have real influence,” Chait added.
Business Insider’s Hunter Walker Tweeted, “So, can all of us political folks stop pretending that Breitbart has any place in the mainstream discourse now?”
Vox’s Max Fisher wondered, “at what point do we stop pretending breitbart is anything other than a white supremacist hate site?”
David Waldman of the Daily Kos Tweeted: “Hmm. Horrible, horrible story happening here, on every possible level. How can I, as a Breitbart employee, possibly make this worse? Hmm.”
Jamelle Bouie of Slate Tweeted of Nolte: “*thinks to himself* i should definitely post my story about the scary BLACK murderer.”
Nevada political reporter John Ralston, who slavishly seeks attention from the mainstream media, loves being patted on the head by them, and mimics those in the mainstream press who believe they are the oh-so-wise adults while voters are stupid children, quickly piled on, Tweeting, “For the love of God.” Ralston also agreed with a Twitter user who said that Breitbart News is the “bottomest of bottom-dwelling publications”
The Texas Observer‘s Christopher Hooks Tweeted, “Breitbart Seems Cool.” He also re-Tweeted a user who Tweeted to Breitbart News, “fuuuuuuuuck yoooooou.”
The usual suspects and perpetual backstabbers on the right who look for any excuse to go after Breitbart News joined left-wing writers and their allies in the mainstream press in attacking Breitbart News’s headline. David Fredosso, of the Washington Examiner, Tweeted, “AYFKM [Are you f**king kidding me].”
Rare.us’s entertainment editor accused Breitbart News of sinking to a new low with its headline.
And Redstate’s Ben Howe, who also has looked for any excuse to attack Breitbart News after Nolte called him out for selling out conservatives in order to get patted on the head by left-wing Buzzfeed, Tweeted, “This goes beyond jumping the shark. What you’re witnessing here is jamming spiked cleats into the brain of the shark.” Nolte has called Howe out for being a mercenary who sells his services to various politicians.
Howe claimed that Breitbart News put up its headline without knowing all of the facts before he showed how ignorant he was of the facts on Twitter. Howe revealed that he was unaware of Flanagan’s social media posts and thought Flanagan was a “disgruntled boyfriend.” A Twitter user responded to Howe and wrote, “I follow many reporters and didn’t see disgruntled boyfriend. They were reporting his SM [social media] posts about racial resentment.”
Howe, clearly out of the loop and not in a position to say Breitbart News did not have all of the facts, claimed that “at the time it was being reported that he was a disgruntled boyfriend.” “Is that not still the case?” he asked, even though no outlet or reporter definitively reported that Flanagan was a disgruntled ex-boyfriend.
Back on the left, Huffington Post’s Elise Foley accused Breitbart News of “race-baiting.” Foley’s left-wing publication did not even publish the photo of the murderer. Little Green Football’s Charles Johnson Tweeted that Breitbart News “goes full-on Stormfront.”
And on and on it went.
At the end of the evening, the Drudge Report led its website with the headline, “Killer Wanted ‘Race War.’”
Political cartoon by A.F. Branco ©2020.
Political Cartoon by A.F. Branco ©2019.
Commentary by 
Commentary By 
Reported By 
Ryan also praised the efforts of the Capitol Police.
What Did You Say? 
While the media spent its time connecting riots to the political right, the hard left continued to step up its tactics to promote social discord, as it has been doing for years.
On Monday afternoon, a crowd of people in an “Emergency Durham Protest” marched down Durham’s Main Street, then made its way to the Durham County Courthouse. The Herald Sun reported that organizations like the “Triangle People’s Assembly, Workers World Party, Industrial Workers of the World, Democratic Socialists of America, and the Antifa movement” were at the rally.
One of the participants, Eva Panjwani of the Workers World Party Durham, said in an interview:
The larger group was comprised of people demonstrating with various left-wing slogans such as a “No Trump, No KKK, No Racist USA” banner, pro-socialist Che Guevara shirts, and numerous odes to abolishing capitalism. One individual held a sign that said, “Cops and clan go hand in hand,” as the group marched past police officers.
The crowd gathered in front of the courthouse and decided to target a statue that was created in memoriam to “the boys who wore the gray.” That is, the North Carolina soldiers who fought for the Confederate Army in the Civil War.
>>> I Went to Charlottesville During the Protests. Here’s What I Saw.
What followed was a scene reminiscent of the French Revolution or the war in Iraq.
The rage-filled protesters tore down the statue and proceeded to kick and desecrate it. The surging mass of people hooted and hollered as individuals took turns spitting on and flipping off the generic visage of a young Southern soldier.
In the aftermath, some of the protesters took pictures in front of the crumpled-up bronze statue that had been pulverized in the fall.
However, the attack was fitting as a mirror to the “alt-right” march that had taken place at the foot of a Gen. Robert E. Lee statue in Charlottesville. The individuals portrayed by the monuments were simply irrelevant.
>>> Why Cities Shouldn’t Take Down Confederate Statues
This isn’t a battle over ideas or the Confederacy’s place in American history, it’s sheer and mindless identity politics.
American towns and cities are now increasingly being besieged by agitators who flaunt the law, direct their hate toward fellow citizens, and openly attack the crucial principles at the heart of the American way of life. The resounding message that these events send is that in 2017, it’s impossible for this country to accept people of different creeds and points of views. You are either on the “right side of history,” as President Barack Obama said, or you are on the wrong side. The narrative is increasingly join us, or be crushed.
Perhaps the protesters should pay more attention to what happened in our Civil War, which claimed more lives than all of our other wars combined. Perhaps they should study the leaders who, however imperfectly, tried to bind regions and people together to move on from a civil feud that pitted brother against brother and American against American. And perhaps they should have studied the people, like Lee and President Abraham Lincoln, who tried to piece the shattered puzzle of American nationhood back together.
Alas, those concepts were lost in a sordid trampling of an old, barely noticed statue. Unless leaders pay increased devotion to denouncing and taking action against these lawless demonstrations, mob rule is here to stay.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Jarrett Stepman/ @JarrettStepman