Photo via @TPostMillennial/Twitter
July 6, 2021, 1:57 pm
The right-wing outrage machine kicked into high gear on Monday over a claim by far-right media company The Post Millennial, which counts Atomwaffen collaborator Andy Ngo as its editor-at-large, that the U.S. women’s soccer team turned away from a veteran playing the national anthem on the harmonica. As it turns out, none of the team’s players did this—some were merely turning to face the American flag rather than the veteran, 98-year-old Pete DuPré, which was located in a different part of the stadium.
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In spite of the fact that the official U.S. Soccer communications account moved quickly to correct the record, the Post Millennial’s tweet remains up with no correction posted and their falsehood was picked up by the Daily Caller and multiple right-wing politicians.
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“Not true,” U.S. Soccer Comms replied. “No one turned their back on WWII Veteran Pete DuPré during tonight’s anthem. Some USWNT players were simply looking at the flag on a pole in one end of the stadium. The players all love Pete, thanked him individually after the game and signed a ball for him.”
This is a pretty believable account considering the fact that not one of the players took a knee — a much more well-known national anthem protest in the U.S.—and that nobody in their right mind would publicly disrespect Harmonica Pete. The team’s version of events can also be verified by the many people who were actually there who saw the players facing either Pete or the flag.
Though some Twitter accounts deleted their condemnations of the team after finding out their outrage was based on a lie, others such as that of former Trumpian political aide Sean Spicer have left their manufactured anger tweets up to make it easy to demonstrate how thoroughly they operate outside of reality.
Pete was drafted to WWII. Can’t imagine all he saw as a med technician during Battle of the Bulge, etc & fellow brothers killed
Proud Americans don’t turn their backs to men like Pete. We are grateful for his beautiful talent and for all he has done for our Great Country!
https://t.co/eMzU8xl4eZ
— Catalina Lauf (@CatalinaLauf) July 6, 2021
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You could at least get the veteran’s age right, Richard.
At least Fox News, which has maintained its crown as leader of right-wing disinformation spreading, got the memo about the fact that some of the players chose to face the flag, which is actually the correct protocol. But they were still determined to be on the attack, saying that facing the flag as they should have if we’re going by actual patriotic rules “didn’t look good.”
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Other conservatives, rather than ever admitting to being wrong about anything, pointed to other times that the U.S. women’s soccer team has truly protested by kneeling during the national anthem. This, however, leads right back to the common-sense argument that freedom of expression and protest are exactly the kind of rights that WWII veterans like Harmonica Pete were fighting to protect against fascists who valued empty patriotism above human rights.
It would simply be nice if the right-wing media could try to get the simple facts right when condemning people’s right to demonstrate in ways that don’t leave poop smeared on the walls of our nation’s Capitol. As for the Post Millennial, they did sort of correct the record, but only to switch from condemning the people they thought were turning their backs on a veteran to condemning the ones who faced him.
At a certain point dunking on these people becomes too easy.
*First Published: July 6, 2021, 1:57 pm
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