Politics - News Analysis

Bongino and Rivera Go OFF in Very Heated Argument Over Policing: ‘Country Will Burn to the Ground Because of People Like You!’

Geraldo Rivera is a complicated guy. How he ever fell under Trump’s spell is a question that will never be answered. How he can support a party that sees Hispanics as akin to a “disease” to be eradicated probably stems more from privilege than anything, “They don’t mean me, or people like me.”

Dan Bongino is not a complicated guy. He fights for the America he wants, where guys like Dan Bongino are born advantaged because, of course, they are, they’re better. Ask him.

The two clashed on Hannity last night (Video at Mediaite) over the issue of policing in the aftermath of the shooting of Daunte Wright, though they could have had the same argument over any of the other unarmed shootings of black men in the last two years or the next two years. It just happened to all come together last night.

Rivera was impressive as he shared reality with Hannity:

“You can’t reach for your taser and take out your 9 mm and shoot somebody and expect everybody to go kumbaya. This was horrible. There’s a situation in this country now where I swear to God and I’m speaking with deep experience, too many Black mothers are more fearful of the police that they are of crooks when their sons go out.

A 20-year-old should not end up dead because of an expired registration.

“Too many” black mothers are more fearful of the police than crooks? He understated it. Near every black mother we’ve met have taught their children to avoid the police, far more so than crack dealers or gang bangers. Many black mothers also attempt to dress their boys in the preppiest clothes they can afford. It is just tough to get any teen to wear anything mom or dad wants. But they make a huge effort.

Rivera finished by saying there is a massive gulf between how black families see the police versus white families. No shit?

Hannity had to jump in to defend every cop except the ones caught on camera shooting an unarmed black man: “There are people that should never be cops,” but it’s a slim one percent.

Hannity could not possibly be more wrong. Perhaps a “slim one percent” shoot unarmed black men, but how many arrest the black kid for a joint in the car when he would have called the parents of the white kid? And we are not talking about black men that aren’t shot but just get the shit beaten out of them because “they resisted”? What about the overt racism we’ve all read about, GIFs that make their way through police departments? Oh – and have you looked at cops lately? Do they seem a bit “big” to you? Nothing wrong with them working out, but this type of “big” goes beyond just working out. Roid use is rampant in police departments.

This is not to say there aren’t great cops out there. There are. But there are far more bad ones than white society ever acknowledges.

Bongino said something about not basing one’s experience on one dinner with a police captain and Rivera shot back:  “Don’t start minimizing my experience!”

Bongino then got dirty: “Can you shut up for two seconds?!”

Rivera wasn’t having it, saying Bongino didn’t want to hear from him: “I’m an expert witness tonight!”

Bongino then got ugly: “I’m tired of this guy, he never shuts up!” He then went on to do exactly what Rivera said Bongino had been doing, minimizing Rivera’s experience, saying Rivera doesn’t know a thing about policing, (and Bongino does?), then Bongino said, “We don’t have all the facts,” which is true – but we have the most critical ones, a dead black boy/man over expired tags. And then the ultimate, he got mad at Rivera for “injecting race into this.” The moment we see a white 20 year old college kid shot over expired tags and an accidental “taser” we can discuss taking race out of it, but we won’t need to because the entire city will be calling for police reform if a white guy is shot in such a situation.

Rivera smartly pointed out that Bongino was again making Rivera the issue again and asked if Bongino had a point that didn’t involve Rivera.

Bongino got outrageous:

“I’m responding to your dopey comments! You have no idea that there’s a racial undertone to this at all. And you’re saying, ‘Oh, Black parents have to worry because…’ You have no data to back that up at all! You’re just further inflaming the situation, and the country will burn to the ground because of people like you who say dumb things like that with no evidence to back it up.”

Wrong mother fffff!!!! Of course, there is a racial undertone to this because we see white guys carrying AR-15s into Walmart not get shot, we see a kid in South Carolina shoot eight people and get a burger bought for him, and we continue to see black men in this situation. If Bongino spoke to just ten black mothers – we bet he’s not spoken to one – we’d be shocked, shocked, if all ten didn’t say that they feared the cops more than criminals.

And no, the country will burn to the ground because of people like Bongino who doesn’t see a problem. And if Bongino really wants to see the country burn to the ground? Have the cops start shooting nonviolent, unarmed, white men and boys, with nothing changing – continuing to get worse, and watch this country go up in smoke because – as we’ve seen – white people feel entitled to destroy whatever they want when they feel victimized.

Rivera shot back: “How about people like you that don’t credit the humanity of half the country?! They are running scared and they are scared of cops!”

Bongino still wanted a study of some kind: “Stop pontificating and produce some actual data. You’re a reporter, right?”

Rivera should have turned to Hannity and said, please do a search of your news data of every unarmed white man shot by the police in the last ten years, versus black men. Then looked at Bongino and said, “We will wait.”

Rivera again said “talk to mothers” and noted that Floyd and Duante’s incidents took place about fifteen miles apart. At which point Bongino said that Rivera was doing the “emotional thing” again. When one race seems to be hunted down by cops, things get pretty emotional, except for people like Bongino, who likely doesn’t see what that problem is.

Then Rivera slammed the door:

“You think all of this rage, Black Lives Matter, you think all this happened, defund the police, all this happened because of some fanciful liberal notion? It didn’t. It happened because of the pain!” 

Eh, we suspect that Bongino just doesn’t much care about the rage, only controlling it. Get the data, Dan.

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Peace, y’all
Jason
[email protected] and on Twitter @JasonMiciak

meet the author

Jason Miciak is a political writer, features writer, author, and attorney. He is originally from Canada but grew up in the Pacific Northwest. He now enjoys life as a single dad raising a ridiculously-loved young girl on the beaches of the Gulf Coast. He is very much the dreamy mystic, a day without learning is a day not lived. He is passionate about his flower pots and studies philosophical science, religion, and non-mathematical principles of theoretical physics. Dogs, pizza, and love are proof that God exists. "Above all else, love one another."

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