When I heard [about] the indictment [of Donald Trump by Jack Smith] I couldn’t help but feel incredible proud to be an American, the same way I did when President Obama announced that our military killed [Osama] Bin Laden. … ‘I believe Donald Trump is a terrorist who committed horrific acts against the American people.’
Michael Fanon, The Independent, Aug. 2, 2023
Michael Fanon is regularly featured on CNN where he delivers his predictable blistering criticisms of Donald Trump. Fanon was a Capitol policemen at the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2020 when he was tased multiple times, resulting in severe injuries, by Daniel Rodriguez. Rodriguez was later sentenced to 12 ½ years in prison by Clinton-appointed judge Amy Berman Jackson.
No serious person defends Rodriguez’s actions but Fanon’s comparison of Donald Trump to terrorist mass murderer bin Laden only serves to denigrate, not Trump, but Fanon himself. When he made that bizarre comparison to CNN’s Laura Coates, who, if opinions are still permissible in what is remains of the United States, is not herself particularly interested in being fair to Donald Trump, her face registered shock. Nor does his analogy between killing bin Laden and how Trump should be treated seem to bother him. When one goes over the line to the point that even partisan CNN propagandists are shocked one only calls one’s own motives and judgment into question. It is worth asking who Fanon really is.
The Guardian (16 October, 2022) reports that Fanon, “the son of an attorney and a social worker briefly attended Georgetown Prep, one of the nations elite schools … but after a year was asked not to return,” and, therefore, never earned a high school degree but only a lesser GED. It sounds like Fanon, “a self-described redneck,” had a personality problem.
The same Guardian article makes clear that he still has problems. When he joined the Capitol police he was “full of piss and vinegar” but grew “less hot-headed” over the years. He wrote his resignation letter from the Capitol police on a paper napkin with the words, “Go fuck yourselves!” He has a “desire” to “name and shame ‘snivelling weasel bitches’ such as Kevin McCarthy … with an irreverence that was making his police career untenable.” Another institution that would not retain him? He also states that Missouri senator Josh Hawley “stoked the mob” and then “fled like a bitch.” He “complains about fellow cops who whispered behind his back or exited a room when he entered because they are Trump supporters”. They’re not allowed to do that?
“What continues to boil my blood,” Fanon says, is that the Capitol riot has become so politicized … that I have this adversarial relationship with most Republicans who are either indifferent to what happened or on the sides of the insurrectionists.” Wait, calling it an insurrection or stating an adversarial relationship with most Republicans is not politicising it? Here one gets the same Orwellian thinking of many leftists: If you agree with their interpretation, you are not politicising it but if you disagree with their slant then you are politicising it. The Guardian also reports he has “friends in surprisingly high places” including Sean Penn and Nancy Pelosi. Actually, no, that’s not surprising given Fanon’s politics. He is very useful to their politicization of the riot.
The Guardian article reports that his career at CNN ran into trouble when he said that he thought “history was going to shit on Mike Pence’s head” and because when he sits on a panel to dump on Trump, he has to bring a notecard that says, capitol letters included, “DON’T SAY FUCK”. Fanon also states that “If people have a problem with me writing a book [on my experiences on Jan. 6th] they can kiss my ass.” Very professional, Michael, a sure way to convince people of your sound judgment and commitment to fairness!
Fanon’s problems are not restricted to Jan. 6th. Since Trump referred to Covid as “the China virus” Fanon has stated that
Three of my daughters are Asian American. I’ve seen through their eyes the racist ways Trump labelled Covid-19 the “China virus,” [the] China plague,” and [the] “Kung Flu.”… When my youngest, who is still in elementary school, heard the words, she immediately understood the hate was direct against Asian Americans–directed against her. I read somewhere that Trump and his people find community in rejoicing the suffering of those they hate and fear–that cruelty is the point. This is not easy to explain to a six-year-old.”
Fanon “read somewhere” (he does not say where: Could it have been Democrat talking points?) that “Trump and his people … rejoice [in] the suffering of people they hate and fear—that cruelty is the point”. Perhaps its hard to explain that to a 6-year-old because it’s hard to explain to an adult as well, especially an adult that has passed a college-level critical reasoning test. Calling Covid “the China virus” is no more anti-Asian than calling the 1917 flu that killed millions worldwide “the Spanish flu” is anti-Spanish. Such designations merely denotes where the virus originated, nothing more. It is more likely that Fanon’s 6-year-old saw Trump’s words as racist because Fanon conveyed that interpretation to her.
It is true that people with a personality disorder can take Trump’s description wrongly. Unfortunately, disturbed people can take virtually anything as a basis for dangerous action. If Fanon really thinks that calling Covid “the China virus” is dangerous racist anti-Asian rhetoric then he might want explain to the National Institute of Health, which refers to the 1889 plague as “the Russian flu,” that their entirely geographical identification of the Russian flu is dangerous racist anti-Russian rhetoric. Please do Michael!
The Guardian also states that Fanon is “sympathetic to Black Lives Matter” and “is fond of saying that overthrowing a CVS drugstore is not like overthrowing the government.” Really? Do the people who own or work at CVS feel the same way about such attacks on their livelihood?
Fanon has also stated that “If I didn’t speak out against Trump, would people think I was just another evil white cop?” Wait? Fanon’s anti-Trump rhetoric is generated by his fears about how people will see him as a cop, not simply because he believes that rhetoric is true?
One can certainly feel genuine sympathy for Fanon the ordeal he went through on Jan. 6th. The attack was unjustifiable and the offenders must be punished. However, Fanon’s long history of “hot-headed” behaviour, a little too much “piss and vinegar,” a bit too much of a “redneck”, going all the way back to his youth when he was asked not to return to his elite school and extending to his vulgar profanity-laced comments on Trump and other Republicans and admission that he has ulterior racial motives for attacking Trump does not paint a picture of a rational person.
Fanon constantly uses the subjectivist language of the irrational Left about what he “experienced” on Jan. 6th, apparently, lacking the capacity for self-reflection, not grasping that since other people have different experiences one must think-through those events and if one is to think-though them properly one must have the conceptual resources to do so. Unfortunately, Fanon does not appear to have those resources. His overheated rhetoric, even calling Trump a terrorist and comparing him to mass-murderer Osama bin Laden, is driven by emotion, even hatred, not reason – perfect for the media’s partisan “Get Trump” mission.
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Laughable. If Trump is Bin Laden than Biden is the devil.