Over the weekend, White House adviser Kellyanne Conway issued a call via social media to “eradicate hate” after back-to-back mass shootings in Texas and Ohio left more than 30 people dead.
Author Reza Aslan, who formerly hosted CNN’s “Believer with Reza Aslan,” responded with a thinly veiled call for violence against her, and followed up by suggestively calling to “eradicate” the “evil” of Trump supporters.
Liberal pundit comes unglued
Aslan has, over the last couple years, proven to be a shrill, angry hack who is strangely comfortable with endorsing violence against conservatives. His anti-Trump tweets were too vicious for even CNN, which canceled his show in 2017 after Aslan called the president a “piece of s**t.” But for Aslan, screaming on Twitter about President Donald Trump is a preoccupation that just won’t go away. On Sunday, he responded to Conway’s innocuous call for unity with a threatening message, saying she needs to be “eradicated.”
“You are ‘the depraved evil’ we need to eradicate,” Aslan tweeted furiously.
You are “the depraved evil” we need to eradicate. https://t.co/zPJhVS1hkn
— Reza Aslan (@rezaaslan) August 4, 2019
“We need to come together, America. Finger-pointing, name-calling & screaming with your keyboards is easy, yet…It solves not a single problem, saves not a single life. Working as one to understand depraved evil & to eradicate hate is everyone’s duty. Unity. Let’s do this,” Conway had tweeted Sunday morning.
After Aslan was called out by Newsmax host John Cardillo for inciting violence, he threw a fit and pretended that those who saw his tweet as threatening were full of “bad faith,” as if the meaning of “eradicate” is somehow unclear. Aslan has continued to defend his claims while casting his critics as disingenuous.
“So then when @KellyannePolls said we need to ‘eradicate’ this evil she meant shoot it in the face? She was threatening the El Paso shooter? We are all so f******g fed up with you racist GOPers and your bad faith bullshit,” he tweeted.
Aslan snapped at the “bullshit newspaper” Washington Examiner for reporting about his threat against Conway, which he called a “bullshit claim.” He also fumed against Trump’s daughter and adviser Ivanka Trump, who condemned white supremacy as an “evil that must be destroyed.” “F**k you Ivanka. Seriously. F**k you and your entire white supremacist family,” Aslan responded.
Bitter pundit
A creative writing professor, Aslan has put his monumental prose abilities to dashing off screeds like this: “After today there is no longer any room for nuance. The President is a white nationalist terror leader. His supporters – ALL OF THEM – are by definition white nationalist terror supporters. The MAGA hat is a KKK hood. And this evil, racist scourge must be eradicated from society.”
After today there is no longer any room for nuance. The President is a white nationalist terror leader. His supporters – ALL OF THEM – are by definition white nationalist terror supporters. The MAGA hat is a KKK hood. And this evil, racist scourge must be eradicated from society.
— Reza Aslan (@rezaaslan) August 4, 2019
This is not the first time that Aslan has publicly expressed a desire for his political enemies to suffer harm. Back in January, Aslan was part of the hate mob that piled on the Covington Catholic high school boys for “smirking” at a Native American man at a March for Life rally. Aslan said that one of the boys had a “punchable” face.
Twitter did not find that Aslan violated its rules, despite his open endorsement of violence against a high school kid. He has apparently not been censured for the latest tweets against Conway, either. It’s all part of a disturbing pattern: while conservatives are de-platformed from social media for expressing their beliefs, platforms like Twitter have apparently given a blank check to leftists to express twisted, violent hatred against conservatives.
Aslan is known for the controversial 2013 book, Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus. For those who doubted the rigor of Aslan’s scholarship, he hasn’t given many reasons for people to take him seriously. In 2017, Aslan ate human brains in a CNN segment on a fringe Hindu sect that was criticized by Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI), a Hindu-American, who said it painted Hinduism in a “sensational” light.
Aslan has been conspicuously quiet about the mass shooting in Dayton, whose perpetrator was a leftist and Elizabeth Warren supporter.
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