It was only a matter of time before Trump and his rabid fanbase came to the defense of the boys from Covington Catholic High School in Kentucky after video of them making war whoop and tomahawk gestures hit social media. The parents of one of the boys hired a PR firm in Louisville, Kentucky to spin a story, and Trumpsters are eating it up.
The story they’ve spun goes something like this: a group of four young black Hebrew Israelite men had been shouting racist and homophobic things at several different groups of people, including the Native American group. So when the Covington Catholic boys then made racist gestures at the indigenous group, that was the black mens’ fault because…they started it.
How exactly that excuses the behavior of the MAGA hat-wearing teens is not even debatable. Not only is “they started it” a childish excuse too immature for high school boys, the Native American group isn’t even the group they’re claiming started the confrontation, so the racist response to the group of Native American men, led by Vietnam veteran Nathan Phillips, is not justified by a completely separate group saying awful things.
Somehow, Trump supporters have now concluded that Phillips is a liar who attacked these boys. The video of events that preceeded the ones posted on Facebook Live during the confrontation everyone witnessed on Sunday doesn’t prove that any of Phillips’ statements were untrue.
See for yourself how the students wearing MAGA hats so disrespectfully taunt the Native American elder. It’s a very familiar atmosphere for anyone who has ever been in a racist situation outnumbered by a jubilant white crowd that has power in numbers. pic.twitter.com/t0uDqbQQq8
— Eugene Gu, MD (@eugenegu) January 22, 2019
The boys have also now been revealed to have been harassing others earlier in the day, including women who never chose to engage with them.
https://twitter.com/roflinds/status/1087486166939680768?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1087486166939680768&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fbipartisanreport.com%2Fwp-admin%2Fpost-new.php
Nothing excuses the behavior of the boys in either of these videos. Of course Trump wants to defend them. Otherwise, he’ll have to admit that what his presidency has inspired most is racism.
Twitter wasn’t buying the PR spin or Trump’s. Read some of their comments below:
Featured image via Flickr by Gage Skidmore under a Creative Commons license
