Conservative journalist Christopher Rufo blew the whistle on Seattle NPR affiliate KUOW, where an online reporter named Katie Campbell bizarrely compared him to a Proud Boy leader who's in jail for January 6...and the KKK. This is your tax dollars at work in a blue state.
This is a new low, which, for NPR, is impressive. My local station compares my work fighting for colorblind equality to a Proud Boy who “stormed the U.S. Capitol” on 1/6 and the local Klan chapter 100 years ago. If it weren’t so stupid, I’d be offended. pic.twitter.com/7BtILrdp18
— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) January 21, 2024
The Left cannot stand that Rufo helped the effort to dump Harvard president Claudine Gay. This is the section he highlighted:
The fact is Rufo isn’t the first such influencer-type to come out of the liberal bastion much of the country believes Seattle or the Pacific Northwest to be.
Consider Ethan Nordean, the former Proud Boy leader now serving an 18-year prison sentence for seditious conspiracy. Members of the far-right Proud Boys, under Nordean’s authority, were among those who stormed the U.S. Capitol building on Jan. 6, 2021. Nordean is from the Auburn area.
Venture further back in the region’s history to the 1920s when the Ku Klux Klan had a significant presence in the region, and to 1936 when far-right “Christian Party” presidential candidate William Dudley Pelley appeared on the ballot in Washington, the only state to include him. Pelley was the leader of the fascist Silver Shirts.
Rufo added: "I often wonder whether these reporters are doing this maliciously or if they really cannot see beyond their limited repertoire of historical analogies.Luckily, the vast majority of Americans are much smarter and much less gullible than the average NPR reporter."
Campbell then added far-left Daily Kos staffer emeritus David Neiwert, who sounded slightly less wacko in underlining the NPR tilt:
David Neiwert has covered this history extensively, following its evolution right up to Christopher Rufo.
“What I think actually happens in a culture like Seattle's, where we're kind of monochromatically liberal, is that some people feel like they need to find a way to stand out in order to make themselves special," Neiwert said of conservative figures like Rufo, who has described himself as an “urban conservative."
“Their route to success is by being unconventional,” he added. “So, what they wind up doing is ... embracing far-right crap and then sort of dressing it up in pseudo-liberal language. Not many people are willing to do that. But Chris is obviously one.”
Rufo also tweeted: I’ll give the technique a try: NPR reporter Katie Campbell is a left-wing ideologue. Other left-wing ideologues include Stalin, who killed millions, and Harvey Weinstein, a convicted rapist. That’s the equivalent playbook with the target reversed."
He said he used to appear on this NPR station as a conservative when he was starting out. "But the local left-wing activists complained and the station apologized to listeners and put me on the blacklist. Tolerant, open-minded NPR!"
