Last week, when three-time Jeopardy champion, Kelly Donohue was introduced for his fourth appearance on the game show, he flashed three fingers against his chest in the form of an OK sign, signaling that he was a three-time champion, an accomplishment to be proud of. The internet immediately blew up in outrage. Donohue was condemned as a white supremacist because recently, and unbeknownst to most people, the OK sign has supposedly been used as a white supremacy sign.
Mr. Donohue explained why he flashed the OK sign when he said, “I absolutely, unequivocally condemn white supremacy and racism of any kind... I was simply raising three fingers to mark my third win.” It is obvious by his statement that if he knew the alternate connotations of the OK sign, he would not have used it. But a group of 467 former Jeopardy contestants did not give him any type of latitude. They wrote a letter condemning him, saying, “Regardless of [Donohue’s] stated intent, the gesture is a racist dog whistle... a wink and a nod by white men about their superiority...” Do these people ever listen to their own words? They are claiming the right to assign a different meaning to another person’s actions separate from the original intent of the actor, and then condemn that actor for their misinterpretation of his actions?
Instead of taking his word for it, and giving him the benefit of the doubt, the woke mob used their misconstruing of his actions to define the totality of the man. The people who condemned Kelly Donohue were acting as close-minded, prejudiced and hateful as they accused him of being. They did not wait to find all the facts before judging him, they didn’t consider his plausible explanation before condemning him. They jumped to a conclusion, and remain entrenched in their false judgement regardless of the exculpatory evidence. They received so much pleasure from the virtue gained by judging and condemning him that they refuse to give it up in spite of evidence contrary to their judgement.
But this was more than simple prejudice and narrow-mindedness. It goes deeper, and is more calculated than that. Kelly Donohue was created as the ultimate straw man. He was not a misjudged villain. He was a falsely created villain. In the movie, The Incredibles, the bad guy Syndrome kills all the real super-heroes, creates a fake villain that he controls, so he can defeat it in order to be glorified as a super-hero. In 2021, the woke mob are operating with the same socio-pathic mentality as Syndrome. They are destroying real heroes, tearing down the statues and erasing the contributions of people like George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and Ulysses Grant, and marginalizing heroes like Martin Luther King Jr by replacing his teachings of a color-blind society with racialized Critical Race Theory and equity. And by erasing these people’s heroic contributions to our country, they artificially create a hero-void which they hope to fill.
Once our heroes have been destroyed, these fake heroes, like Syndrome, will rise to defeat villains and become heroes. But in order to do that, they must manufacture fake-villains because they are fake-heroes. The woke-mob needs villains, so when they cannot find one, they create one. This is why they invented micro-aggressions, implicit bias, dog whistles, white fragility, and fake white supremacy signs, all evidence-free charges of racism. It is also why there have been a slew of hate crime hoaxes in recent years; Jussie Smollet, Bubba Wallace, the Covington High School kids, the Duke Lacrosse Team, and the list goes on and on. They create fake examples of racism so they can label people racist who are not racist, and get pleasure and virtue from destroying their lives. This is why they attack people like Kelly Donohue who has publicly said, “I am not a racist, and I reject and condemn white supremacy and all forms of bigotry for the evil they are.” It’s easy to defeat a “white supremacist” who publicly condemns white supremacy. It’s like winning a football game where your opponent opts to punt on the first down of every possession.
The real heroes for racial equality in our history actually fought real villains. Abraham Lincoln and Ulysses Grant defeated the Confederate army who were armed with rifles, canons, and bayonets. Civil rights heroes like Martin Luther King Jr defeated the Jim Crow south and segregationist who used packs of dogs, billy clubs, and fire hoses against them. While the present-day woke-mob are proud that they destroyed a mild-mannered Jeopardy winner on Twitter for his sin flashing an OK sign. It is easy to defeat a racist in a country where the overwhelming majority of the people denounce racism, and there are Federal and State laws outlawing all types of discrimination. This is why people on the left label everything and everyone they disagree with as racist. No other work needs to be done.
During the 2016 Presidential campaign, Hilary Clinton said, “you could put half of Trump’s supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables… The racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic—you name it.” She prejudged 40 million people, painting all of them with a broad brush. No context, no nuance. What evidence does she have for her assertion? What metric did she use to support her statement? I doubt she had spoken to 40 million Trump supporters to make that claim. I doubt she’s spoken to even 4 Trump supporters. Trump supporters are not allowed into her echo chamber. She didn’t have to beat Trump and his policies. She simply had to label Trump and his supporters as racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic, and then not be that, and she would win. She would automatically be more virtuous, more heroic. Create the strawman, create the fake villain, and become a hero for defeating the fake villain you created. That’s the way it works.
And ultimately, this is why there is such a strong push to remove God from our society from the same people who are destroying our history and creating fake villains. They believe that if there is no God, then they can fill the void and become God. They can have the ultimate authority, the ultimate power. This is why they blame God for war, and starvation, and disease. God can’t exist, they believe, if all that suffering exists. But in reality, it is not God creating all the suffering in the world, it’s the people in power. The powerful, the rich create the wars, they allow people to starve, they fail to provide medical care. People are responsible for the suffering in the world, not God, and the very people who want to destroy God, and tear down our heroes, are the most responsible.
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Judd Garrett is a former NFL player, coach, and executive. He is a frequent contributor to the website Real Clear Politics. He has recently published his first novel, No Wind.