Ahhhh, unity!
And what wonderful, safe content on Twitter!
Question for Apple, Amazon and Google…..so when a social media platform (Twitter) is used to call for the “lynching of Mike Pence” is that cool now?
No “terms of service” violations?
No problem leaving it up in your piece of shit App Stores?
Amazon….no problem letting them use your servers, right?
What a joke.
New York Times contributor Will Wilkinson tweeted out that if Biden really wanted unity, he would “lynch Mike Pence”.
So classy.
So unifying.
Such good, quality, wholesome content and totally so much better than what you can see on Parler!
Take a look:
.@WillWilkinson deleted this tweet calling for the lynching of former Vice President of the United States @Mike_Pence.
Will is a @nytimes op-ed writer and VP of research for the "moderate" Niskanen Center. pic.twitter.com/pwikmGp2Uo
— Reagan Battalion (@ReaganBattalion) January 21, 2021
He blocked us so we did not see the apology, but here it is. pic.twitter.com/51FTXyVjZg
— Reagan Battalion (@ReaganBattalion) January 21, 2021
And:
Update:@NiskanenCenter has parted ways with @willwilkinsonhttps://t.co/firvtzsjf8 pic.twitter.com/ZToteQ5dfP
— Gabe Hoffman (@GabeHoff) January 21, 2021
Fox News reports Wilkerson has lost a “think tank” job in response (whatever the hell that means):
A contributing opinion writer for The New York Times was fired from his think tank job Thursday over a tweet that jokingly suggested former Vice President Mike Pence be lynched in order to unify the country.
Now-former Niskanen Center Vice President for Research Will Wilkinson raised eyebrows Wednesday night when he offered some tongue-in-cheek advice for President Biden following his inaugural address call for unity.
“If Biden really wanted unity, he’d lynch Mike Pence,” Wilkinson tweeted.
On Thursday, Wilkinson deleted the tweet and issued an apology.
“Last night I made an error of judgment and tweeted this. It was sharp sarcasm, but looked like a call for violence. That’s always wrong, even as a joke,” Wilkinson wrote. “It was especially wrong at a moment when unity and peace are so critical. I’m deeply sorry and vow not to repeat the mistake.”
Wilkinson has since locked his account from public viewing.
The apology was not good enough for the Niskanen Center, which said in a statement that it “appreciates and encourages interesting and provocative online discourse.
“However, we draw the line at statements that are, or can in any way be interpreted as condoning or promoting violence. As such, the Niskanen Center has, with a heavy heart, parted ways with Will Wilkinson. We thank him for his valuable contributions to the organization and wish him success in his future endeavors.”
A Times spokesperson told Fox News, “Advocating violence of any form, even in jest, is unacceptable and against the standards of The New York Times. We’re reassessing our relationship with Will Wilkinson.”
What I find even more interesting is all his buddies rushing to his defense and defending his actions.
Like this headline:
The NewRepublic article continued to explain how it was “just a bad joke”:
On Wednesday, Will Wilkinson, a New York Times contributor and vice president at the center-right think tank the Niskanen Center made a joke on Twitter. “If Biden really wanted unity,” he tweeted, “he’d lynch Mike Pence.”
The joke has been called “bad” and “offensive” an innumerable number of times since. Wilkinson’s jape may have been in poor taste, but it did, in fact, work as a joke. You see, on January 6, people loyal to the president stormed the Capitol while chanting “Hang Mike Pence.” Less than two weeks later, a number of Republican lawmakers—many of whom pushed lies about election fraud that inspired that very insurrection—were lamenting Joe Biden and his party’s failure to unify the country. By their logic, the fastest path to Biden coming together with Trump’s base would be to fulfill one of the stated goals of the very mob that Trump and these GOP lawmakers incited: the lynching of Mike Pence.
Wilkinson’s joke, which some comedy experts might refer to as “a thinker,” highlighted that dissonance. Naturally, there are lighter and less fraught ways to make the same point—who knows, maybe, “If Biden really wanted unity, folks, he should resign and give the presidency to Donald Trump,” might have been another laugh riot of a line. But while the invocation of lynching is politically incorrect, there can be no doubt that Wilkinson was joking. There is no honest way of concluding that he was advocating violence on Twitter. (Parsing a joke’s funniness is guaranteed to ensure the joke will never be funny again, but because of the bad-faith nature of these particular accusations, this dreadful task must be undertaken.)
That’s always their answer….”just a joke”!
Yeah, except none of them are funny.
What was the punchline?
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