Trump’s White House counselor promotes a white nationalist’s manifesto live on Fox News.
The man who allegedly killed 50 people last week at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, described President Donald Trump as “a symbol of renewed white identity and common purpose.” But White House counselor Kellyanne Conway wants people to study the shooter’s manifesto for themselves before drawing conclusions — even if that means exposing themselves to white supremacist ideology.
“Unlike like most mass shootings, this man came with pre-receipts, if you will,” Conway said during a Monday morning interview on Fox & Friends. “He put out a 70-page manifesto, and I guess everybody scoured it, searched for Donald Trump’s name, and there it is, one time. But he also said he aligns closely with the ideology of China. He said he’s not a conservative, he’s not a Nazi, I think he referred to himself as an eco-naturalist or an eco-fascist. But people should read the entire — in its entirety.”
Kellyanne Conway says "people should read the entire" New Zealand shooter's manifesto, so they understand Trump did not inspire the attack. pic.twitter.com/YDsFTTtBuG
— Bobby Lewis (@revrrlewis) March 18, 2019
Conway’s recommendation to read the shooter’s manifesto is highly irresponsible. In an article written for Vox following the Parkland school shooting last year, mass shootings expert Jaclyn Schildkraut explained why publicizing the identities and motivations of perpetrators of mass shootings in turn motivates future shooters:
The copycat effect is real. A 2015 study suggests that a mass shooting increases the likelihood of an additional mass shooting in the two-week period following the incident.
A more recent study was less supportive of the thesis of short-term contagion but still cautioned that the media coverage of these attacks might well lead to copycat events over a longer period.
An ABC News investigation in 2014 found that in the 14 years after Columbine, at least 17 school shooters — and 36 other students who threatened rampages that were averted —directly cited the Columbine shooting or its perpetrators as partial motivation for the attack. In short, making perpetrators famous has consequences.
Schildkraut’s view is widely accepted. The Columbia Journalism Review has cited similar concerns about “contagion” to make a case that publicizing mass shooters’ identities and motives “can be perilous for the public, so much so that publishing profiles of shooting suspects and perpetrators should be considered a dangerous proposition.”
Some right-wing outlets have reached the same conclusion. Daily Wire founder Ben Shapiro announced last year that his publication “will no longer be publishing any names or photographs of mass shooters” because “[i]t has become increasingly clear in recent years that the value of public knowledge regarding specific names and photographs of mass shooters is significantly outweighed by the possibility of encouraging more mass shootings.”
Wittingly or not, in her comments on Fox News, Conway prioritized trying to defend her boss over avoiding exposing viewers of the network (which is currently mired in controversy surrounding host Jeanine Pirro’s recent Islamophobic comments) to more offensive content about immigrants and Muslims — the exact thing the alleged shooter would like people to do.
Trump’s response to the New Zealand shooting hasn’t been much better
Trump has also struggled to distance himself from the New Zealand shooter. For instance, during a White House event on Friday in which he denounced the violence, Trump trafficked in white nationalist tropes.
In his manifesto, the alleged New Zealand mosque shooter used the language of “invasion” to talk about immigrants. Trump did the same thing during a White House event held just hours after the shooting occurred. (He said he hadn’t read the manifesto at the time.)
TRUMP echoes white supremacist rhetoric: "Congress' vote to deny the crisis on the southern border is a vote against reality...People hate the word 'invasion,' but that's what it is. It's an invasion of drugs, criminals, & people...in some cases, they are killers." pic.twitter.com/nupFMpmHQZ
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) March 15, 2019
To be clear, Trump did not use this language to justify killing Muslims, Jews, immigrants, or anyone else. In fact, he said the New Zealand attack was “horrible” and has expressed his condolences in more ways than one, including directly to the country’s prime minister.
But then on Sunday, Trump posted a string of tweets attacking Fox News’s move to suspend Pirro for her Islamophobic comments as an example of the network “working soooo hard on being politically correct.”
“The losers all want what you have, don’t give it to them. Be strong & prosper, be weak & die!” Trump added, in comments that also echoed white nationalist tropes.
During an appearance on Fox News Sunday, acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney, echoing some of what Conway said on Fox & Friends, argued that it’s just as unfair to link Trump to the shooting as it would be to “look at his sort of his eco-terrorist passages in that manifesto and align him with [House Speaker] Nancy Pelosi or Ms. [Alexandria] Ocasio-Cortez.”
But Pelosi and Ocasio-Cortez have never fomented hatred against climate change deniers. Trump, on the other hand, has spent years stoking fears about Muslims.
Shortly after Monday’s Fox & Friends went off the air, Trump took to Twitter to denounce efforts to link him to the Islamophobic violence in New Zealand.
The Fake News Media is working overtime to blame me for the horrible attack in New Zealand. They will have to work very hard to prove that one. So Ridiculous!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 18, 2019
But during the White House event on Friday, Trump wouldn’t even acknowledge white nationalism as a rising global threat that needs to be taken seriously, instead downplaying it as “a small group of people that have very, very serious problems.”
Compare those comments with the Muslim ban he proposed after a Muslim carried out an act of mass violence while he was on the campaign trail.
The news moves fast. To stay updated, follow Aaron Rupar on Twitter, and read more of Vox’s policy and politics coverage.
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Breaking News: Kellyanne Conway’s irresponsible advice: read the New Zealand mosque shooter’s manifesto - News Paper
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