Left-wing agitators were out in full force Tuesday night to protest conservative commentator Ben Shapiro at Ohio State University, but most of them had trouble articulating exactly what they were were protesting. That lack of purpose, however, didn’t stop them from chanting slogans like “F-ck Ben Shapiro,” “Reagan is dead,” and “John McCain is dead.”
According to the Young America Foundation (YAF), the sponsor of Shapiro’s campus tour, protesters also began chanting “Bush Senior’s dead” until they realized their mistake.
Video footage captured by Austin Fletcher, a YouTuber who covers left-wing protests, shows the mostly white students chanting, “Black lives matter,” “Abortion is healthcare, healthcare is our right,” “No borders, no nation, stop the deportations!” and “Brick by brick, wall by wall, we will make your system fall.” Messages on signs held by the protesters included “Free abortion on demand” and “Healthcare is a human right.”
The students also held up posters of President Reagan with his eyes x’ed out.
Although the hapless protesters made it into the building where Shapiro was speaking, they did not manage to disrupt the event, YAF said.
When Fletcher asked two female protesters if Shapiro should be allowed to speak, they replied, “Not at all.”
“What about free speech and the Constitution?” Fletcher pressed.
“That’s a good point, but he shouldn’t be allowed to have free speech if he’s gonna preach the kinds of things that he preaches,” the protester said.
“What are some of the things you’re talking about…specifically?” Fletcher asked.
“I don’t know what he said specifically,” the woman replied. Her friend didn’t seem to have a clue either, saying: “I don’t know what he said specifically but I just don’t agree with his platform — his party platform.”
A masked antifa wannabe told Fletcher he was protesting because Shapiro is “a transphobe, a racist, and … a douche.”
Students were alerted to the Shapiro event by an email earlier on Tuesday, YAF member Emily Jashinsky reported at The Federalist. The infantilizing email asserted that Shapiro’s “rhetoric has the potential to threaten the emotional and mental safety of much of the campus community.”
The message, signed by the program’s student advisory council, also noted anyone without a “safe space” or who didn’t “want to be alone” was welcome to gather with other students and staff from 5 to 8 p.m.
YAF owns the Reagan Ranch in Santa Barbara, which likely explains protesters’ chants about the 40th president’s death. What prompted the group to chant about the recent passing of a U.S. senator remains unclear, although it should be noted McCain fought and was a prisoner of war overseas to preserve their freedom to do so. For OSU’s senseless demonstrators, that might be worth dwelling on.
Fletcher’s video neatly captures the upside-down, bizarro world views of the misguided lefty protesters.
One man carrying a giant red flag, for instance, claimed that Shapiro, an Orthodox Jew, somehow inspired the Pittsburgh synagogue massacre.
Another agitator accused a Trump supporter of being inbred, saying his parents were brother and sister, further demonstrating the protest’s complete lack of substance.
A conservative attendee tried to have a conversation with a belligerent man who looked like Karl Marx, but to no avail.
“What we want to do is have a conversation. Everybody here just wants to talk,” he said.
“Do I look like Santa Claus?!” the hostile man bellowed.
“No, you look like Karl Marx!” the attendee cried. He continued to argue that all the Shapiro supporters wanted was the freedom to have a conversation, but the Karl Marx look-alike wanted no part of that.
“You’re gonna fail!” he barked.
“Why won’t you have a civil conversation with me?” the conservative asked plaintively.
“I’m working,” the bearded man replied, prompting the conservative to cry: “They’re paying you!”
“Breaking news, he’s being paid to be here,” Fletcher said.
At one point, a black protester asked Fletcher if he’s “pro-police.”
When the journalist replied that he is, the protester called him a fascist and lunged at him.
“Hey, I’m not here to fight,” Fletcher said. “We can disagree, but I’m not here to get violent with anybody,” he added.
“That makes one of us!” the Marx double cried.
“So you’re here to get violent with people? Fletcher asked.
“I’ve been punching Klansmen since before your parents met,” the man spat.
“I listen to him every day. Am I a Klansman?” an attendee asked him.
“If you get away from these cops, I will end you,” the Marx double threatened.
“What?!” the attendee asked, shocked.
“Wow!” Fletcher exclaimed. “What an aggressive statement.”
Another attendee complained that he tried to engage the protesters, but every time he said anything, “they just come back with a chant.” The man further explained that his father immigrated to the United States from Russia to escape the very Communist system the protesters were advocating.
“In this country where you see all these people that are out here protesting for this Communist idea again — it scares the crap out of my dad because my dad left that,” he said.
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