Trump Supporters Shout Down Liberal Speaker at a California Event

This is not good… but inevitable.

The Foundation for Individual Rights has what they call a “man bites dog” story — a conservative group of protesters shut down liberal speakers at Whittier College.  The event was free and open to members of the community, and was supposed to feature Whittier’s president and student body president answering audience questions.

That didn’t happen.

As soon as the event began, MAGA-hat wearing hecklers started chanting and booing in order to drown out the speakers. The Los Angeles Times described one of the disruptive ringleaders, Arthur C. Schaper, in this way:

Schaper is part of the resistance to the resistance, a Californian who delights in upending city council meetings in so-called sanctuary cities and shouting down Democratic politicians.

Schaper is so abrasive that the local Republican Party has disavowed him. But he is indicative of the growing extremism of debate in the Trump era, when the president’s supporters and detractors in California have waged violent, vitriolic protests in Berkeley, Huntington Beach and elsewhere.

[…]

Schaper, a 36-year-old unemployed Torrance resident and blogger, usually shows up at public meetings in his red Make America Great Again cap, wearing a Trump flag as a cape. He records his escapades on cellphone video, narrating in real time as he trolls in real life.

[…]

He and roughly a dozen supporters and anti-illegal immigration activists have become a particularly unwelcome presence at city council meetings in places with large Latino immigrant populations such as Cudahy, El Monte and Huntington Park.

In recent weeks, they have shouted down a Riverside speech by state Senate leader Kevin de León (screaming “Anchor baby!”) and a Redondo Beach town hall by Democratic U.S. Rep. Ted Lieu.

If the left doesn’t stop shouting down and shutting down conservative speakers, no doubt people on the right will eventually respond. 

But suppressing free speech is not a conservative ideal.  Free speech is for everyone… or for no one.

Image Credit Screen Shot

Hat Tip: FIRE