I used to regularly write about Paul Krugman‘s antics but I stopped for a while, partly because the stories were becoming “dog bites man” type pieces and also because I had to load up on the Tylenol whenever I wrote about him because the guy just makes your head hurt with his wacked, out of touch spins on the issues that have no basis in reality whatsoever.
But it was brought to my attention earlier that the New York Times columnist, who often paints himself as The Smartest Man in the Room™ in part because he’s a Nobel prize winner in economics, had taken to proclaiming that, contra to what Fox News was allegedly reporting, there was no equivalence between the Black Lives Matter rioters from 2020 and the Freedom Convoy because in his view the BLMers were “remarkably peaceful” in contrast to the truckers who he says are “deliberately” inflicting “damage and harm”:
Accusations of hypocrisy on both sides over Canada; right asks why liberals didn't want crackdown on BLM demonstrators, left asking why right is OK with blockades by "truckers" (mostly not actually truckers). Important to understand the non-equivalence 1/ https://t.co/l6yxG0dN0E
— Paul Krugman (@paulkrugman) February 15, 2022
Fox myth-making to the contrary, BLM wasn't an orgy of arson and looting, in fact remarkably peaceful. And it was about *demonstrating* — showing solidarity — rather than deliberate infliction of damage, even if there was (inevitably) some damage at the edges 2/
— Paul Krugman (@paulkrugman) February 15, 2022
The Canadian blockades, by contrast, have inflicted a remarkable amount of damage despite involving few people — because causing harm was the deliberate goal. So no hypocrisy in saying that excessive force was used against BLM, inadequate against blockaders 3/
— Paul Krugman (@paulkrugman) February 15, 2022
I know that the indoctrinated won't believe this; no amount of evidence will convince them that downtown NYC wasn't burned down by BLM mobs. But the rest of us should be clear about what did and didn't happen 4/
— Paul Krugman (@paulkrugman) February 15, 2022
This is classic gaslighting and classic Krugman, who has made it a standard practice over the last year and a half or so to completely whitewash the violent history of the Antifa/Black-Lives Matter led riots from the summer of 2020, riots which in monetary terms saw a record-breaking amount of riot damage committed by “protesters” who set fire to buildings, vandalized and looted small and large businesses alike, and who tried to torch federal courthouses to the ground among other “peaceful” things.
But aside from that, take note of tweet number four, in which Krugman suggests that because his home city of NYC wasn’t totally destroyed by flash mobs of looters and rioters that the inconvenient facts about the level of damage they inflicted in Democrat-run cities (which was NOT just reported by Fox News) have supposedly been embellished by right-wingers who in his warped mind are trying to smear those who he says “stood in solidarity” in the aftermath of the officer-involved death of Minneapolis resident George Floyd.
In reality, though, Krugman is guilty of what he’s accusing his critics of doing: He’s embellishing the alleged misdeeds of the Freedom Convoy because, as many in the media and on the left have done both here and in Canada, the idea is to make the convoy look like a bunch of insurrection-y fruit loops who should be locked up because they disagree with the likes of Paul Krugman and who are using the tools at their disposal to engage in the type of civil disobedience that the left once told us was “patriotic” whenever they engaged in some form of it during the Trump years.
Further, his “excessive force” claim would be laughable if the issue wasn’t so serious. Literally, the full weight of the Canadian government has just been unleashed against the convoy and those who support it, which will have repercussions on protests in Canada for decades to come, in contrast to the BLM rioters who were allowed to do pretty much what they wanted to with police in many of these Democrat-run cities being ordered to stand down. There were isolated instances of allegedly aggressive behavior from law enforcement against BLMers, but Krugman goes way overboard into fantasyland territory in suggesting that the convoy has been allowed to do whatever with little to no interference from Canadian authorities. The exact opposite is true.
Lastly, whenever you read a hot take from Paul Krugman, remember that this is the same snob who not only can never get any economic predictions right, but who also has a penchant for displaying the type of loathsome Ivory Tower mentality we’ve come to expect from our supposed Intellectual Betters on the left, like that time he suggested Antifa was a myth because he’d never encountered a “black-clad anarchist” during his quiet morning jogs in his expensive neighborhood.
I just can’t with this guy, nor anyone else (including members of the Biden administration) who will sit there and lie to your face despite the facts being obvious and to the contrary of what they’re telling you. It’s just a rotten-to-the-core way to be, but unfortunately, it’s just who they are.
Final word from a Twitter user who dunked all over Krugman for pretending the BLM protests were largely peaceful:
“This is the most deliberate, bad faith example of cognitive dissonance you’ll ever see. A series of riots that were designed to intimidate local governments to subvert due process and resulted in multiple cities across the county burned down was ‘remarkably peaceful.’ Get a grip.”
‘Nuff said.
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