To be clear right up front, the person threatening to shave heads of Trump supporters has nothing to do with the Kansas City Star. “Richard” is merely an individual commenting on a Star article dealing with a judge’s reversal of a Missouri photo I.D. law.
The Star comment section can be more revealing than most in that those who post comments use their real names and photos and link to their respective Facebook pages.
From the looks of things, Richard is a clean-cut, middle-aged white guy, who speaks, one suspects, for many of his fellow liberals. He describes himself as a “soft-hearted strong-willed person,” adding, “Everybody wants affection and love.”
His last name and the others have been removed in the exchanges that follow, but they are not hard to find if anyone cares to look. These are people willing to go public with their opinions.
The Star’s comment section suggests just how unhinged the debate about voter ID–or just about anything for that matter–has become. Richard kicks off the debate by claiming, “The fact is that this is voter suppression fomented by Republican racists.” Not the best opening to encourage “dialogue,” but it is a start.
Tim agrees: “To get ahead of the nonsense, voter fraud is a nonexistent problem ginned up by Republicans to suppress the votes of Democrats.”
Jeanette counters with the voice of reason: “I don’t care if voter fraud is a problem or not. Some kind of proof of identification is common sense. Not requiring some type of id is opening the door for a number of issues. It’s absolutely ridiculous that we don’t.”
David provides a link to a recent case in Texas in which four women were arrested after having tried to run a mail-in vote fraud scam involving older Hispanic voters. “Just happens they’re all Democrats,” says David.
Chuck, seeing the condescension implicit in the Democrat argument against voter ID, observes, “Tim, is that because democrats lack the basic brain power to get an id card? Cause that’s what you just said.”
Failing to get Chuck’s point, Richard loses it. “Chuck,” he responds. “You mean the racist trailer trashed who voted for Trump? After WWII, the French who collaborated with the Nazis had their heads shaved. We will do that to those who voted for Trump when he is sent to prison.”
From the looks of Richard’s Facebook page, he seems to mean what he says. Like many on the left, he is fond of Nazi imagery. “Scalia was bad enough,” he posted after the recent Senate Judiciary hearing. “[Brett] Kavanaugh would be worse, like Hitler’s Judge Freisler.” Apparently, Freisler sentenced some 5,000 people to death. Who knew?
The day before that charming message, Richard re-posted an internet meme showing three photos of Trump facing three presumably similar photos of Mussolini.
Two days before that, Adams was ranting again about Kavanaugh and “his anti- woman anti- gay pro- religious discrimination views,” adding ominously, “It is total war to send this jerk to the showers.” Getting one’s head shaved is bad enough, but the showers? Richard seems to forget for a moment that he is anti-Nazi.
These posts go on and on. Among the most declarative is an August 21 post showing Trump in front of Swastika flag. “Mom, tell me about 2016,” reads the commentary supered over the image. “Well, honey, people were upset about a woman’s emails so we let Nazis take over.”
This would-be head shaver needs to be reminded that the the “everyone” in his Facebook mantra–“Everybody wants affection and love”–even includes Trump supporters.
