After New York’s Public Theater produced a modern version of Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar” featuring a Caesar that looked a lot like Donald Trump, many right-wingers howled in outrage. They claimed that it was a veiled call for Trump’s murder, and an attempt to normalize political violence.
But in a staggering display of hypocrisy, many of those same right-wingers had no problem at all with Trump himself tweeting a meme showing himself literally pile-driving CNN to the ground. Well, it turns out that there’s more evidence that Trump diehards are perfectly fine with making sport of violence. A blogger for one of the most rabidly pro-Trump blogs found it acceptable to share a meme depicting Trump as one of the planes that destroyed the World Trade Center.
Jim Hoft of Gateway Pundit is one of the most loathsome characters on the alt-right, a movement that has no shortage of loathsome characters. For the better part of a decade, he has promoted or started so many bogus stories–mostly dreck from Free Republic or his fans–that he has been branded “the dumbest man on the Internet.” In 2016, for instance, he claimed that dozens of absentee votes for Trump had been destroyed, and also suggested Hillary Clinton wasn’t well.
What did he get for it? A rich reward, in the form of a White House press credential. His White House correspondent is Lucian Wintrich, a member of one of the most exclusive clubs in the nation–gay supporters of Trump. Before signing on with Hoft, Wintrich made his name in the darker corners of the alt-right world. According to Media Matters’ extensive dossier on Wintrich, his social media feeds are full of harassing and degrading posts about women, as well as jokes about sexual assault.
One more of these asinine #debate questions, and Donald Trump needs to grab Anderson Cooper by the pussy.
— Lucian B. Wintrich (@lucianwintrich) October 10, 2016
This is why women's suffrage was one of the country's largest disasters. pic.twitter.com/CWPMBGzTav
— Lucian B. Wintrich (@lucianwintrich) October 13, 2016
Fuck the 60-year-old fat broad sitting at the front of @GOPWomen_WNRC who thought I was a liberal operative.
— Lucian B. Wintrich (@lucianwintrich) February 2, 2017
Just like his buddy and hero, fellow gay wingnut Milo Yiannopoulos, it initially looked like Wintrich was trying so hard to prove his right-wing bonafides that he has become a caricature. But Wintrich may have crosses a line early on the morning of July 5, when he fired off this tweet.
The meme shows Trump’s head superimposed on United Airlines Flight 175 as the plane is about to plow into Two World Trade Center, with One World Trade Center already in flames. Both towers are painted with the CNN logo.
The intent was obvious–a swipe at CNN and the manner in which it dug into the identity of the Reddit user who originally created the now-infamous bodyslamming GIF. Over the weekend, CNN tracked down the poster based on identifying information that he’d posted on Reddit. It turned out that his posting history included a litany of racist and anti-Semitic posts, including pictures of CNN reporters tagged with a Star of David. The poster subsequently deleted all of his memes and apologized.
However, CNN came under fire for appearing to state that it had agreed to withhold the Reddit user’s identity since he’d apologized, but “reserves the right to publish his identity should any of that change.” Many right-wingers, including Wintrich, read it as a threat to dox him unless he behaved himself. That blurb was poorly worded, to say the least. CNN could have clarified that it reserved the right to turn over its findings to law enforcement, since many of the Reddit user’s posts came too close to harassment for comfort.
But even if you buy the right-wing line that CNN was threatening to dox that user, using 9-11 in this way is completely unacceptable. Wintrich was 11 years old when the towers fell, so he almost certainly remembers the horror of that day. To give you an idea of how devastating the attack was, my girlfriend, who taught school near Albany at the time, recalled that hospitals as far north as Bennington, Vermont were preparing to treat victims. It was feared that so many people had been injured that the New York-area hospitals would be stretched to their limits. The thought that anyone could even think about joking about this is beyond comprehension.
Wintrich later deleted the tweet after receiving a barrage of complaints–but not before several Twitter users screenshotted it.
https://twitter.com/irvingmuller/status/883127198340853761
He later claimed that a Marine friend had passed it on.
Yes, sent to me by my friend in the Marines -and I stand by it being funny. Taken down due to requests.
— Lucian B. Wintrich (@lucianwintrich) July 6, 2017
I didn't create it – which was my point. And I could care less if folks didnt like it
— Lucian B. Wintrich (@lucianwintrich) July 6, 2017
Can you imagine if a White House correspondent for a mainstream outlet had passed on a meme like this? Or if a liberal blogger showed Elizabeth Warren crashing into Twin Towers painted with the Fox News logo? Well, we need not imagine–in both cases, it would result in immediate termination.
Hoft’s response to this says a lot about him–and the environment he fosters at Gateway Pundit.
“I hope CNN won’t dox him.”
Any journalist with even a shred of decency–liberal or conservative–would have apologized for Wintrich’s behavior and fired him. But then again, we’re talking about the guy who was peddling fake news before that was even a term.
With apologies to Keith Olbermann–Lucian Wintrich and Jim Hoft, you are the Worst People in the World.
