Scott Greer, deputy editor of The Daily Caller, joined American Greatness publisher Chris Buskirk to discuss why the police in Charlottesville failed to prevent the widespread violence by Antifa and neo-nazi demonstrators over the weekend.
Chris Buskirk: This is the Seth and Chris Show. I am Chris Buskirk. He is Seth Leibsohn. We are joined as promised by our guest, Scott Greer. He is the deputy editor of The Daily Caller. He is also the author of an excellent book that came out a couple months ago called No Campus for White Men. You can find that on Amazon or at your favorite bookseller. I assume that they still have bricks and mortar booksellers near most of you. But the reason we have him on the line today is that he wrote, I thought, a very insightful piece at The Daily Caller about Charlottesville. It’s called “Why Were the Police Held Back in Charlottesville?” Scott, welcome to the show.
Scott Greer: Hey, thanks for having me.
Buskirk: So here’s the question: why were the police held back in Charlottesville?
Greer: It’s still unclear at this moment why police had such a muted presence. There are several reports showing that the police were not allowed to make arrests until they were ordered to do so, they weren’t allowed to step in unless the authorities said so. There are several reports that are why police were not actively engaged. The authorities, both the Democratic Governor Terry McAuliffe, who was in charge of the state police, and the Democratic Mayor Michael Signer all have not really explained adequately why police weren’t actively engaged in the protest. McAuliffe has said that, well, there was well-armed militia there, and police couldn’t go in there because they were going to start shooting up the place if police went in, which just seems like a cop out and to just put the blame on private citizens for why police weren’t there to do their job, so the things that [crosstalk 00:01:42]-
Buskirk: McAuliffe’s answer is it was a dangerous situation, why would the police go there?
Greer: Yeah.
Buskirk: All right, okay, all right.
Greer: That’s exactly the response even though police are supposed to go in. The funny thing about these militia members is there are several videos in the left wing ProPublica, which is a non-profit investigative reporting outlet, said that the militia members were the only ones breaking up the fights, these evil guys with the AR-15s. They were the only ones keeping any semblance of peace because nobody wanted to mess with the guys who were heavily armed, so they were able to break up a lot of these fights and protect some people. But of course, we would’ve had a whole lot less violence and probably nobody killed if police had stepped in and were able to do their job.
Buskirk: Yeah, there’s a video that was posted yesterday at The Daily Mail. It was an iPhone-type video of somebody, clearly one of the Antifa people, who got a very good ringside seat to this car driving through the group of people. You can see him … I’ve got to actually play this audio later in the show. I don’t know if you saw it, but I thought it was really informative, instructional as to how these people think they want to …
The Antifa people, they want to have their protests. They were attacking the people around them. There’s a sense in which this is sort of the Iran-Iraq War with the Antifa people and some of the original protestors out there, which is that you put these two groups together, of course they’re going to fight, and what do you expect?
But this guy was looking for police protection so that the Antifa people could attack the so-called alt-right protestors, the Unite the Right people. And then when the police did show up afterwards, he’s got himself on video screaming at the police, F this and F that, and, “Why were you pigs so late?” and all this sort of thing. Which is it with these guys with the police?
Greer: Yeah, with the Antifa and the police?
Buskirk: Yeah. Basically, they want the police there to endorse their own violence. He’s wondering why they weren’t there-
Greer: Yeah, that’s the funny thing.
Buskirk: But the Antifa people have been attacking the police for a year.
Greer: Yeah, and all of them were having anti-cop slogans. They’re very proud of the slogan, “Cops and Klan go hand in hand,” and they would always shout that whenever police makes arrests against them. There’s been in several of these clashes between Trump supporters or alt-right people and Antifa, and whenever cops step in and start arresting people or doing their job, they’re all, “Cops and Klan go hand in hand.” Fascist expletives, all this stuff.
But at the same time, they want the police to do their own bidding. They want them to arrest, mace, and do their worst toward their opponent, and when their own side is committing violence and then they get arrested or pushed away, they claim that they’re going hand in hand with the Klan. So it doesn’t make any sense.
There’s a lot of cognitive dissonance, and I think the left just in general have a very bizarre reaction towards this. Just last week at the Democratic Socialists of America conference, they passed a petition to abolish all police, yet this week they’re now calling for police to actively engage with hate speech, so it doesn’t all make sense.
Buskirk: Yeah, right. There’s no desire to have any sort of consistent rationale or no embarrassment when they don’t have one. It’s heads I win, tails you lose. That’s sort of all the way it goes with these folks. You probably hear the music. Can you do one more segment with me, Scott?
Greer: Absolutely.
Buskirk: Very good. Scott Greer is my guest. He is the deputy editor of The Daily Caller. He’s also the author of No Campus for White Men. We’ll be right back.
This is The Seth and Chris Show. I am Chris Buskirk. He is Seth Leibsohn. Our guest is Scott Greer. He is the deputy editor of The Daily Caller, author of No Campus for White Men. That is the book, came out when? February or March, Scott?
Greer: Yeah, March.
Buskirk: Yeah. Very, very good. Available on amazon.com. But today, you wrote “Why Were the Police Held Back in Charlottesville?” It’s a great question. I’m going to read some of probably your favorite author to you, Scott. It’s a gentleman by the name of Scott Greer.
“‘There was no police presence,’ Brittany Caine-Conley, a minister-in-training who protested the alt-right rally, told the New York Times. ‘We were watching people punch each other; people were bleeding all the while police were inside of barricades at the park, watching. It was essentially just brawling on the street and community members trying to protect each other.'” The end of your piece, you say, “There’s a surefire way to prevent further deaths and serious injury: let the police do their job to enforce law and order. Both McAuliffe and Signer should be taken to task for police inaction in Charlottesville—and blaming militiamen isn’t going to cut it as an excuse.”
So here’s the question I’ve got for you, Scott: is it possible that Terry McAuliffe looked at this witch’s brew out there, the conflict that was coming together on the streets and said, “Why don’t we have the police stand down because violence on the streets” … made a calculation that that would inure to his political benefit.
Listen to the rest of the interview.
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