Those scenes of pro-Palestinian protesters storming college campuses and battling with police reminded Al Sharpton of another event: the Capitol demonstration of Jan. 6, 2021.
The civil rights provocateur accused Democrats of a double standard for dragging their feet on condemning the campus unrest as pro-Palestinian activists and police square off at universities nationwide.
“How do the Democrats, how do all of us on that side, say January 6 was wrong if you can have the same pictures going on on college campuses?” Mr. Sharpton asked Thursday on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.” “You lose the moral high ground.”
The comparison horrified MSNBC co-host Mika Brzezinski. “Good Lord, don’t make a parallel to January 6,” she said.
Co-host Joe Scarborough added: “That has happened, though.”
It certainly did happen, although few would have expected the left-wing Sharpton to make the comparison.
Comments on X included “Hell has officially frozen over,” “Al has seen the light” and “Don’t tarnish our sacred cow of Jan. 6th!!!!”
The day before, conservative talk-radio host Bo Snerdley, called the situation “ironic.”
“The entire MSM,” the former Rush Limbaugh sidekick wrote Wednesday on X, referring to the mainstream media, “have been obsessed with calling Jan. 6 an ‘insurrection’ and a ‘threat to democracy’ but can’t seem to find those words available to describe the very real insurrection on college campuses.”
MSNBC’s Mika Brzezinski Scolds Al Sharpton for Daring to Compare This to January 6th https://t.co/YP4z6QE8Nq
— Twitchy Team (@TwitchyTeam) May 3, 2024
Siamak Kordestani, West Coast director of Friends of ELNET, the European Leadership Network, on X called Thursday a “ROUGH day for Israel haters. First, the UCLA encampment was cleared out.
“Next, multiple left-leaning media figures — including even Al Sharpton on MSNBC (!) — compared anti-Israel campus radicals to the Jan. 6 Capitol attackers.”
Mr. Sharpton sought Friday to walk back his comments, saying on “Morning Joe” that “Jan. 6 and the violence here is not the same thing,” but that “the right” would make the connection to score political points.
“What I’m saying is they will compare it,” said Mr. Sharpton, adding that “we must condemn all violence.”
• Valerie Richardson can be reached at vrichardson@washingtontimes.com.
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