Over the weekend, Milwaukee’s favorite political troll who occasionally moonlights as a county sheriff, David Clarke, appeared on Fox And Friends to squeeze out his no-holds-barred, straight-shootin’, completely-tired-and-full-of-shit assessment of Donald Trump protestors. In the clip, following host Tucker Carlson’s compliment of the giant conch shell atop Clarke’s head (“The hat is fantastic. I can’t deny it, I love it!”), the sheriff drops a truth-tellin’ truth turd like no other: protestors who have been disrupting recent Trump rallies are nothing but “anarchists” and a “conglomeration of misfits.” Rowdy juveniles, criminals, cop-haters, and, worst of all, university students and organized labor are all to blame, says Clarke, because that’s the kind of predictable and “outrageous” horse shit he always says.
But what Clarke says next is pretty ballsy, even for a professional anarchist and misfit who once suggested you’re better off arming yourself to the teeth than relying on police:
“They only understand one thing, Tucker, and it’s force. I’m talking about reasonable force by law enforcement, but I’m also talking about law-abiding citizens standing up for their constitutional rights, and not have their constitutional rights trampled on at these rallies. I’m not encouraging them to start the fight, but I’m one of those that comes from the school: if the fight is inevitable, hit first, and hit hard.”
So yeah, an elected county sheriff is saying that people should just go ahead and use violence to deal with protestors, except he’s not really saying that, except he totally is. Terrific. Of course, this being Clarke, we can take comfort in the knowledge that it’s just more reheated rhetoric from someone else.