The favorite sheriff of Fox News and Donald Trump showed off his hideous brand of patriotism by suggesting he wants to strangle any and all Democrats. Even though he is supposedly a Democrat.
This is OUR day! The hour is at hand.
— David A. Clarke, Jr. (@SheriffClarke) January 20, 2017
It is what we worked for, fought for, prayed for. The inauguration of Donald Trump to be 45th POTUS pic.twitter.com/hS6J73tRmL
Here’s what Business Insider reported about Clarke’s appearance at the “DeploraBall” a Thursday-night event reportedly “organized by some of Donald Trump’s more prominent alt-right supporters”:
While addressing the boisterous crowd from the stage, Clarke, who is a registered Democrat and has run as a Democrat in each of his elections as Milwaukee County sheriff, said the only way he’d reach across the aisle to work with liberal politicians would be “to grab one of them by the throat.”
“You may know me, you may not,” Clarke told the crowd. “I am one of those bare-knuckle fighters. When I hear people say we need to reach across the aisle and work with the Democrats, you know what I say? The only reason I’ll be reaching across the aisle is to grab one of them by the throat.”
This latest unhinged hate mongering came not long after Clarke called CNN's Marc Lamont Hill a “jigaboo” and threatened to “knock out” a man who accused him of harassment. Later, the sheriff’s official Facebook page posted a photo of a man saying, “Cheer up, snowflake… If Sheriff Clarke were to really harass you, you wouldn’t be around the whine about it.”
Watch sore winner Clarke’s latest unhinged rant below, via Twitter:
While I was inside at DeploraBall, DC police were outside doing a hell of a job keeping creep a-hole agitators away. pic.twitter.com/xL5AzkZnh5
— David A. Clarke, Jr. (@SheriffClarke) January 20, 2017
(H/T reader Eric J.)
Clarke really needs to remember he’s not that far removed from a time when folks like him were some mighty “strange fruit” indeed. (Lynchings happened in the North, though more frequently the victims were whites who were facing sentencing for crimes and people didn’t want to wait OR they were viewed as “escaping justice” so the locals took the law into their own hands. But there were many folks who shared Clarke’s skin tone who were lynched in the North.)
Glenn Beck got into this in 2005: “Hang on, let me just tell you what I’m thinking. I’m thinking about killing Michael Moore, and I’m wondering if I could kill him myself, or if I would need to hire somebody to do it. No, I think I could. I think he could be looking me in the eye, you know, and I could just be choking the life out — is this wrong? I stopped wearing my What Would Jesus — band — Do, and I’ve lost all sense of right and wrong now. I used to be able to say, “Yeah, I’d kill Michael Moore,” and then I’d see the little band: What Would Jesus Do? And then I’d realize, “Oh, you wouldn’t kill Michael Moore. Or at least you wouldn’t choke him to death.” And you know, well, I’m not sure.”
The difference here is that Clarke is a Sheriff.
Can’t he be impeached for this? He’s threatening violence against someone with whom he disagrees. As a peace officer charged with protecting everyone’s safety, doesn’t it violate his oath to engage in this behavior? This is a serious question. If there is a way he can be disciplined for this, that should be done.