Mollie Hemingway: Trump and many Americans do not want unity with what the left believes
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Many Americans, including President Trump, don't want unity with "leftist messages" like those spouting from Black Lives Matter, The Federalist's Mollie Hemingway argued Thursday.
In an interview on the "Brian Kilmeade Show" with host Brian Kilmeade, Hemingway pointed out that plenty of people have accused the president of not being a unifying presence for the nation.
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"Well, I think a lot of people would say, 'Of course he's not a uniter. That's not what he was elected to do,'" she asserted. "There are people who think that uniting with people who think that the country is irredeemably evil is not in our best interest."
Black Lives Matter began as a hashtag used in response to the 2012 shooting of Trayvon Martin. The teenager was shot dead while visiting his father in Sanford, Fla., by neighborhood watch captain George Zimmerman. Zimmerman was later cleared of all charges What started on social media slowly evolved — eventually becoming a nationwide movement, with protests in response to the killings of African-Americans across the country.
The organization has led the charge over the last couple of weeks after thousands of Americans were inspired to take to the streets and march against racially-fueled police brutality and the death of 46-year-old African-American George Floyd while in the custody of Minneapolis police.
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In an interview on ABC News' "Nightline," Black Lives Matter co-founder Patrisse Cullors said that the core of what these protesters and their group are demanding is accountability.
“They want to see the arrest of all the officers involved [in the death of George Floyd]. They want to have no more terror, no more police terror in their communities,” Cullors said. “Everybody wants to be apologized to. Everybody wants to be told, ‘I'm sorry. What I did was wrong. It was unacceptable. We won't do it again and, in fact, this is how we change.’”
On Thursday, three of the officers in the viral video of Floyd's death were finally arrested after days of civil unrest. Officer Derek Chauvin, the main face in the video, was charged days earlier and has since been moved to a maximum-security prison. Chauvin now faces an upgraded charge since the time of his arrest.
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"The big mood of the moment: the official group that names itself Black Lives Matter has an official position of defunding police nationwide," Hemingway pointed out. "And, a lot of people say, 'You must unite with that movement.'"
"A lot of people say, 'I don't want to unite with a movement that says that we should defund the police nationwide.' To unite with that movement might even sound completely crazy," she countered. "And yet, people say that...there should be unity on these things."
"Well, I think the issue is that when people see unity, they seem to think unity with leftist messages," Hemingway remarked further. "And, a lot of people are saying, 'We don't want unity with leftist messages. We want someone willing to fight those leftist messages.' Even if the media and social media and corporations and everybody sort of in a position of influence [are] fighting to make people join with those groups.
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"You know, there are mobs out there saying ' you must bow down and be unified.' A lot of people are saying, 'I don't want to be unified. I don't think the country is irredeemably evil. I actually believe in the founding principles. I believe in equal justice under the law and individual liberty and individual responsibility,'" she told Kilmeade.
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"And so, when people say 'Oh, but he's not a uniter.' A lot of people say, 'Thank God he's not a uniter. Thank God he's willing to highlight what needs to be fought for.' And, that is not a message you get from a lot of people in the media who just sort of say, 'Yeah, yeah, yeah. He should be a uniter,'" Hemingway concluded. "Well, unity is nice but you need to be united on the right principles. And, you need to fight for those principles."
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Black Lives Matter has never specifically said that America is "irredeemably evil," but they have accused Trump and his administration of failing the country and of a willingness to "kill democracy" or "any sense of real respect or trust in his government."