NPR Hates DeSantis, Smears Old Flag as Symbol of 'Dangerous Right-Wing Ideology'

Tim Graham
August 15th, 2022 7:46 AM

Text to Speech

00:00 00:00
Font Size

How do you know the left-wing media is gunning for Ron DeSantis? When taxpayer-funded NPR suddenly finds the "Don't Tread on Me" flag from the Revolutionary War to be a "far-right" emblem of lies and violence. Scott Neuman wrote:

When Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis recently tweeted an image of what he said was a new state license plate featuring a coiled rattlesnake and the words "Don't Tread on Me," he said it sends a "clear message to out-of-state cars."

The imagery of the Revolutionary War-era Gadsden flag dates to Benjamin Franklin but has, for many, come to symbolize a far-right extremist ideology and the "Stop the Steal" movement that sought to overturn the 2020 presidential election results.

Conservatives launched at the tweet of this bilge: 

This is a little funny, since NPR has an affinity for dangerous far-left extremist ideology. They favorably reviewed the book In Defense of Looting in 2020. Looting is a "powerful tool." NPR gets goosebumps over books about how leftist riots for racial "justice" should be called "rebellions," not riots, and should be considered a respectable form of activism.

Naturally, NPR turned to the left-wing "extremism experts," who claimed "most of the public"....thinks like NPR?

"The state can't claim a lack of knowledge about what this image represents to most of the public," says Rachel Carroll Rivas, deputy director of research and analysis for the Intelligence Project at the Southern Poverty Law Center.

She says it's become clear that the flag has been used for some "really awful" causes, most notably the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, where violent protesters attacked police as part of an effort to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.

Biden won, and January 6 was awful, but smearing this Gadsden flag as associated with far-right kookery is nothing new. Liberal media stars also tried this tactic when it was a Tea Party favorite in the Obama years. Chris Matthews called it "McCarthyite," and also turned to the SPLC to decry this symbol. Juan Williams associated it with Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh. Even porny Playboy got into the act as it ripped Glenn Beck.

The press secretary for Ron DeSantis pushed back at this culture-war exchange:

Donor Privacy Policy