Our friend Bonchie at RedState penned an absolute scorcher Sunday afternoon over the latest bit of weapons-grade fake news from Rolling Stone. The topic? Well, a cadre of neo-Nazi lowlifes held a supposed rally Saturday in Altamonte Springs, Florida outside of Orlando and, along with plenty of anti-Semitic rhetoric, Rolling Stone insisted they were there to voice their support for Florida’s governor and 2024 GOP presidential candidate, Ron DeSantis.
In a since-deleted tweet for an article about the gathering, they claimed: “‘We’re DeSantis supporters!’ one marcher shouted.” But a closer inspection of video on the ground showed the opposite and what one should refer to as sarcasm. Bonchie noted that “[f]acts don’t matter in situations like this, though”.
Bonchie then backed the truck up over the leftist hacks looking to smear DeSantis [emphasis mine]:
Is that an accurate representation of what the neo-nazies said? As my colleague Nick Arama shared (with video evidence) in her piece on the matter, the marchers were clearly being sarcastic. They were mocking DeSantis, with the same person who said "We're all DeSantis supporters" saying "**** Ron DeSantis" just moments later. They also called DeSantis a "joke."
How bad is what Rolling Stone did from a journalistic standpoint? It's really, really bad. RedState, even being a site that allows heavy amounts of commentary, has editorial standards that would see my head on a rhetorical pike if I misled our readers that way. Rolling Stone's story was supposedly hard news, which makes it even worse.
That's the thing. This wasn't some honest oversight. The full video that shows the actual context of the remarks about DeSantis is linked in the Rolling Stone article. That means that the author knew they weren't telling the truth when they composed the piece, and still, it got published.
As he later noted, odious ilk such as “[n]eo-Nazis want attention” and “Rolling Stone was happy to give it to them”. Try as the liberal media might to bury DeSantis in favor of Trump, it’s not going to resonate the way they might think.
Despite the story being updated to admit the neo-Nazis didn’t support DeSantis, politics writer Peter Wade left a mess of an article behind that still tilted against DeSantis (click “expand”):
Some of the marchers individually expressed their distaste for Donald Trump, saying they prefer Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. When right-wing figure Laura Loomer appeared at the march, recording the Neo-Nazis with her cell phone, the crowd began to chant “faggot, faggot” in her direction. Loomer explained she was at the rally because she was getting her hair done nearby.
“We’re not voting Trump, Laura!” one marcher shouted at her. “We’re not voting for the right wing! It’s the kike wing.”
At this, another marcher shouted, “We’re all DeSantis supporters!”
The marcher followed up his comment with: “Fuck Ron DeSantis! Ron DeSantis is a joke. Ron DeSantis is a joke.”
(….)
One marcher carried a Ron DeSantis 2024 flag. Another held a sign that read, “Did you thank Hitler today?”
(….)
“We’re Ron DeSantis supporters,” another marcher said. “We like Ron DeSantis.”
To read Bonchie’s full piece, go here (and here for a recap from his colleague Nick Arama on what the repugnant clowns actually said).
