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May 31, 2020

Hollywood stars may find that appeasing the rioters isn’t a working strategy

By Andrea Widburg

Winston Churchill famously said, “An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last.” Those Hollywood stars promising all sorts of cash to the protesters are virtue-signaling. However, it’s easy to imagine that they are also hoping to keep the protesters off the stars’ turf. On Saturday, the rioting crocodiles showed that they are unimpressed by the appeasers’ promised cash payments. Looting is more immediately profitable.

To understand what the stars are up to, you have to start in Minnesota. Up until a few days ago, Minneapolis was a hard-left, clean, well-run Midwestern town that virtue-signaled non-stop about its combination of “Midwestern nice” and wokeness. Then, a video caught Derek Chauvin, a police officer, subduing George Floyd using a controversial knee-on-the-neck control technique for eight agonizing minutes, at the end of which Floyd was dead.

The autopsy showed that Floyd actually died, not from asphyxiation, but from a combination of heart disease and stimulants. There’s no question, however, that the stress of the chokehold could have been a contributing or triggering factor.

Across America, Democrats and Republicans alike, including President Trump, spoke out against the police. The officers were immediately fired. On Friday, the Minneapolis District Attorney charged the Chauvin with third-degree depraved-indifference homicide and second-degree manslaughter. In other words, America took seriously what happened to Floyd. No one made excuses for the police.

Nevertheless, Black Lives Matter descended on Minneapolis, closely followed by white (but black-clad), hard-left Antifa activists. Within a short time, a mixed-race crowd started looting, burning buildings, and committing widespread acts of violence. It got so bad that, at least for a while, both the riot police and the National Guard withdrew, leaving Minneapolis to its fate.

The violence in Minneapolis hasn’t stopped the virtue-signalers. Minneapolis’s mayor, Jacob Frey, earnestly exhorted the rioters to take good care of themselves by social-distancing and wearing masks. This may be the first riot in history that saw a besieged city’s leader urge the rioters to make themselves harder to identify and arrest.

The big money virtue-signaling, though, has come from Hollywood. A raft-load of Hollywood’s finest is promising to pay for the Minneapolis looters’ and rioters’ legal fees. Their preferred vehicle is The Minnesota Freedom Fund:

The chain linking Twitter users to the fund gained even more traction when it was retweeted by the Safdie brothers, two notable independent directors whose recent filmography includes the critically acclaimed 2019 movie Uncut Gems starring Adam Sandler and Idina Menzel.

[snip]

After this tweet, other Hollywood heavyweights took notice. Since Thursday, Seth Rogen, Ben Schwartz and Steve Carell have all commented that they matched donations to help protesters make bail. 

[snip]

As of Friday morning, other celebrities, including actor and singer Janelle Monáe, television presenter and activist Jameela Jamil, actor Patton Oswalt, and actor and former New York gubernatorial candidate Cynthia Nixon have donated and tweeted out their support for Minnesota protesters.

Even the foul-mouthed Chrissy Teigen pledged $200,000.

These big names are almost certainly born up by the kind of proud virtue-signaling that limousine liberals do best. However, in some part of their little weasel brains there must also be a feeling that, if they pay off the rioters, the rioters will leave them alone. That’s not how rioters work, especially against appeasers. On Saturday, preceded, as always, by a socialist protest, the looters and rioters hit Beverly Hills:

And of course the looting started:

Dear Appeasers, I just wanted to let you know that the crocodiles are on the march and they’re coming to get you.

Winston Churchill famously said, “An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last.” Those Hollywood stars promising all sorts of cash to the protesters are virtue-signaling. However, it’s easy to imagine that they are also hoping to keep the protesters off the stars’ turf. On Saturday, the rioting crocodiles showed that they are unimpressed by the appeasers’ promised cash payments. Looting is more immediately profitable.

To understand what the stars are up to, you have to start in Minnesota. Up until a few days ago, Minneapolis was a hard-left, clean, well-run Midwestern town that virtue-signaled non-stop about its combination of “Midwestern nice” and wokeness. Then, a video caught Derek Chauvin, a police officer, subduing George Floyd using a controversial knee-on-the-neck control technique for eight agonizing minutes, at the end of which Floyd was dead.

The autopsy showed that Floyd actually died, not from asphyxiation, but from a combination of heart disease and stimulants. There’s no question, however, that the stress of the chokehold could have been a contributing or triggering factor.

Across America, Democrats and Republicans alike, including President Trump, spoke out against the police. The officers were immediately fired. On Friday, the Minneapolis District Attorney charged the Chauvin with third-degree depraved-indifference homicide and second-degree manslaughter. In other words, America took seriously what happened to Floyd. No one made excuses for the police.

Nevertheless, Black Lives Matter descended on Minneapolis, closely followed by white (but black-clad), hard-left Antifa activists. Within a short time, a mixed-race crowd started looting, burning buildings, and committing widespread acts of violence. It got so bad that, at least for a while, both the riot police and the National Guard withdrew, leaving Minneapolis to its fate.

The violence in Minneapolis hasn’t stopped the virtue-signalers. Minneapolis’s mayor, Jacob Frey, earnestly exhorted the rioters to take good care of themselves by social-distancing and wearing masks. This may be the first riot in history that saw a besieged city’s leader urge the rioters to make themselves harder to identify and arrest.

The big money virtue-signaling, though, has come from Hollywood. A raft-load of Hollywood’s finest is promising to pay for the Minneapolis looters’ and rioters’ legal fees. Their preferred vehicle is The Minnesota Freedom Fund:

The chain linking Twitter users to the fund gained even more traction when it was retweeted by the Safdie brothers, two notable independent directors whose recent filmography includes the critically acclaimed 2019 movie Uncut Gems starring Adam Sandler and Idina Menzel.

[snip]

After this tweet, other Hollywood heavyweights took notice. Since Thursday, Seth Rogen, Ben Schwartz and Steve Carell have all commented that they matched donations to help protesters make bail. 

[snip]

As of Friday morning, other celebrities, including actor and singer Janelle Monáe, television presenter and activist Jameela Jamil, actor Patton Oswalt, and actor and former New York gubernatorial candidate Cynthia Nixon have donated and tweeted out their support for Minnesota protesters.

Even the foul-mouthed Chrissy Teigen pledged $200,000.

These big names are almost certainly born up by the kind of proud virtue-signaling that limousine liberals do best. However, in some part of their little weasel brains there must also be a feeling that, if they pay off the rioters, the rioters will leave them alone. That’s not how rioters work, especially against appeasers. On Saturday, preceded, as always, by a socialist protest, the looters and rioters hit Beverly Hills:

And of course the looting started:

Dear Appeasers, I just wanted to let you know that the crocodiles are on the march and they’re coming to get you.