The Daily Mail uncovered one of the most explosive stories about the Trump administration Thursday.
No, it wasn’t the smoking gun proving Vladimir Putin owns the president, nor was it was it proof Trump is secretly planning to go to war with North Korea.
It was something far worse… It was a picture of a White House intern giving the okay hand sign during a photo-op with the president. Or, as the Daily Mail described it, “White power at the White House – Trump intern flashes ‘alt-right’ symbol used by notorious extremists during group photo with the president.”
The common hand gesture deployed by everyone from Eddie Murphy to Barack Obama is now akin to delivering a Roman salute, according to the Mail’s dedicated sleuth, Martin Gould.
“A former White House intern is coming under fire after flashing a known ‘white power’ sign during a photo-op with President Donald Trump,” writes Gould, who is literally the person putting the young intern, Jack Breuer under fire.
Gould’s evidence is that the okay hand sign has been used by white nationalists and Milo Yiannopoulos before, thus there was something seriously nefarious with Breuer deploying it. That’s why a major media outlet sought fit to heavily imply the intern is a Nazi himself.
However, at the end of the article, Gould notes that the Anti-Defamation League itself says the benign hand gesture is not a signal for white supremacy, an idea stemming from a hoax perpetuated by 4chan.
That information undermines the whole point of the article, but that crucial detail didn’t stop the story from blowing up on social media and getting picked up by numerous other media outlets.
This is how the story was greeted on Twitter:
White House intern named Jack Breuer flashes ‘white power’ sign while posing with Trump https://t.co/hdUxJBhP8Y via @MailOnline This is the way white supremacists identify with one another. They try to dismiss this as “trolling”.
— Tariq Nasheed (@tariqnasheed) December 29, 2017
NEWS: Jack Breuer, an Emory University graduate who interned with White House senior policy adviser Stephen Miller, made a three finger hand gesture symbolizing letters “W” and “P” for “white power.” https://t.co/TimuzQ91yF
— Courtney Norris (@courtneyknorris) December 28, 2017
A former White House intern apparently flashed a known ‘white power’ sign during a photo-op with Trump. https://t.co/yhyEXuqmDl
— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) December 29, 2017
Very level-headed response to a young kid doing a common hand gesture.
Even though the ADL has stated the sign shouldn’t be designated a white power symbol, the media outlets that blurbed the Mail’s article followed the original in labeling it a Nazi greeting. Hilariously, the photo caption underneath the headline for the Washington Examiner’s article on the matter explicitly stated it wasn’t a white supremacist gesture. However, the Examiner’s headline still read: “Former White House intern poses with ‘white power’ hand gesture in photo with Trump: Report.”
Dozens of journalists smeared Breuer as a Nazi for one common hand sign — but only The Daily Caller got him to speak about it.
“In some of our intern pictures, I emulated the OK sign the President sometimes makes. That was foolish. I should have listened more closely to the Commander-in-Chief and given the thumbs up,” former intern Jack Breuer told TheDC in a statement Friday. “I’m proud of my Jewish heritage and strongly reject the hateful views associated with racist white power organizations. I would never make common cause with them.” (RELATED: White House Intern Accused Of White Nationalism Clears The Air)
Good thing the media ruined the life of a Jewish college student over the okay sign to feed their delusion Nazis run the White House.
It is not too surprising a story like this would go viral thanks to journalists wanting to push a narrative. However, just a few weeks ago, many of these same people shrieking about Nazis in the White House and going after Breuer’s employer were denouncing internet outrage mobs when one of their own was affected.
MSNBC contributor Sam Seder was temporarily sacked over an old joke tweet, which his defenders framed as one of the worst things to happen to free speech since Joe McCarthy. Prominent pundits such as MSNBC host Chris Hayes denounced outrage mobs that act in bad faith, saying, “I reiterate my longstanding position that people shouldn’t be fired for a tweet, *particularly* one that is obviously being read in manifestly bad faith.”
It appears this standard only applies to fellow liberals while random college students are fair game for career ruination. As this humble writer said at the time, progressives want to be exempt from internet outrage mobs and life destruction over bad tweets, while they champion the use of these same tactics against their enemies. (RELATED: Liberals Want To Be Exempt From Their Own Social Media Rules)
Journalists can tweet, write and do whatever they feel like as long as they have the proper views. Meanwhile, if you’re on the Right, anything you write or do can be deliberately misconstrued as proof you’re a Nazi and warrant you being permanently unemployable.
Another takeaway from this stupid story is that journalists — who have spent most of this year pitying themselves and claiming their victims due to criticism from the president — have no problem destroying the lives of random citizens over innocuous hand gestures. It’s fascism for Trump to have a problem with CNN’s coverage, but it’s solid journalism to call a kid a Nazi for flashing the okay sign.
It’s a real wonder why the American public hates the media so much.
Hopefully, Breuer takes legal action to clear his name after this smear campaign. It’s time someone stood up against the hypocrites of internet outrage.
