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So Shermer finally Tweeted something correctly reporting that the overwhelming vast majority of political violence is perpetrated by the far right, not the far left, and the first several responses are a shitshow of denial. 1/
For example, here one of @michaelshermer's fans claims that it's really the left trying to foment a race war. 🤦♂️ 2/
Here, another lovely one of Shermer's fans claim it's all "brown supremacy" and illegal immigrants behind the violence. 🙄🤦♂️🤦♂️ 3/
Another Shermer fan is just "skeptical" that white supremacist groups are behind most political violence and terrorism. 🤦♂️ 4/
Still another questions Shermer's intelligence for posting Shermer's that doesn't support the narrative that antifa is more violent than fascists. 🤔 5/
Yet another uses sterling unshakable REASON to argue why the Gilroy Garlic Festival shooter couldn't have been influenced by white supremacist ideology and in fact must have been trying to kill white people. What? Don't brown people like garlic too? 6/
Still another decides to engage in some highly racist whataboutism. This was a popular theme in the responses. 🤦♂️ 7/
Still another calls Shermer "racist" for having Tweeted a link to this story. 🙄 8/
None of this is to say that all the responses were like this. There are appropriate responses there too. But the earliest responses were all like the ones above. 9/
Although he's deserved past criticism for having harped on antifa violence far out of proportion to their share of actual political violence, I'm not bringing up these responses to criticize him. He appears to be trying to be more appropriate. Time will tell if he succeeds. 10/
The reason I brought this up is to point out that Shermer's past rhetoric about antifa and his association with @Quillette and the IDW guaranteed that he'd gain a lot of fans like this, who'll be pissed off if he abandons his biased portrayal of the left. 11/
Will Shermer endanger his IDW cred and fan base? Stay tuned... 12/12
And...we have the answer! Apparently the pushback for actually pointing out that the overwhelming majority of political violence is right wing/fascist/white supremacist led Shermer to add a "but antifa." 12a/12
He even repeats his mind-numbingly silly reason for attacking antifa more than fascists, adding the obligatory IDW trope about liberals having become "illiberal." He can't identify the main source of political violence without adding false balance about antifa and liberals.12b/12
And then...another swipe at liberals, using a three year old protest in Portland. 12c/12
He finally gets to today's shooter in El Paso, noting that he had a white nationalist manifesto. Apparently he couldn't discuss two mass shootings and right wing political violence without adding a couple instances of "but antifa!" to the mix. 12d/12
