Gaslighting AP Touts Chicago’s Mostly ‘Peaceful’ DNC Riots; Social Media Says Otherwise

Authored by Ben Sellers via Headline USA,

Huge fight breaks out after the Antifa crowd tried to go through the Chicago Police line. Very chaotic scene: pic.twitter.com/iEMO6U5vtr

— Julio Rosas (@Julio_Rosas11) August 21, 2024

From boarded-up businesses and torn-down fences, to flag-burnings, bomb threats and bloody assaults, to hecklers forcing an early wrap on Nancy Pelosi’s interview with Stephen Colbert, the unrest in Chicago during the Democratic National Convention has been a maelstrom of festering chaos befitting of the party that birthed it with reckless social experiments, identity politics and tacit support for terrorists.

🔵 Protest gets bloody

A protestor had to be treated after getting into an altercation with another protestor after a rally.

Follow Newsweek’s live blog for the latest updates: https://t.co/OEUI2Rd7Xf #DNC | #DNCConvention2024 pic.twitter.com/3IdJrITWQ7

— Newsweek (@Newsweek) August 20, 2024

BREAKING: Reporter Ben Bergquam gets assaulted by far-left extremist outside of the DNC after he tried stopping them from burning an American flag.

“F**k this country… burn it down. Burn it down,” the extremist shouted.

Stay safe, @BenBergquam!pic.twitter.com/3U46eMZqhZ

— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) August 21, 2024

Chicago — A DNC far-left rioter taunts police. An officer tells him to come closer, which he does. He is then arrested. pic.twitter.com/iVWulCyKfV

— Andy Ngo 🏳️‍🌈 (@MrAndyNgo) August 21, 2024

While the maggots may have come home to roost, making life uncomfortable for Democrat elites as they celebrate a successful intra-party coup d’état, one would hardly know from reading accounts of the DNC gathering in most mainstream media outlets.

Unlike the 1968 Democrat convention in Chicago, where the counterculture anti-war protests took center-stage (and ultimately helped Richard Nixon win in a landslide), the Left now controls most of the levers of power and major institutions in America, aggressively enacting a tight lockdown on unauthorized narratives as if it were a COVID-era Tim Walz.

Many mainstream media outlets have opted to remain silent about the violent clashes. But with counternarratives beginning to leak on social media, it fell on the propagandist Associated Press to report that there was nothing to see here.

The AP’s 256-word dispatch on Thursday, which included three bylined authors, bordered on comical in its belaboring of the “mostly peaceful protest” trope, repeating the word “peaceful” five times—or one reference per every 51.2 words. (For context, that is roughly the same number as the paragraph you are now reading.)

The pro-Palestinian puff piece echoed an embarrassing segment during the 2020 George Floyd riots in Minneapolis—when MSNBC’s Ali Velshi insisted that, despite the massive conflagration raging behind him, “it is not, generally speaking, unruly.”

.@AliVelshi reports from Minneapolis where multiple fires have broken out amid protests following the death of George Floyd.

“Protesters are now getting closer and closer to firefighters…The fire is not under control. It’s burning completely wildly.” https://t.co/lznosC9wCO pic.twitter.com/cVFAnh2JOR

— MSNBC (@MSNBC) May 29, 2020

In the aftermath of the Biden presidency, however, many have now wisened to the Left’s refusal to hold itself accountable—morally or otherwise—for the inevitable consequences of its rhetoric and policies.

While the emboldened media has gone on to gaslight about other significant-yet-politically-inconvenient episodes—most recently including the declining mental acuity of President Joe Biden and the apotheosis of his replacement, Kamala Harris, atop the 2024 ticket—its efforts have seen diminishing returns, forcing many once-revered news outlets to cut their staffs or shutter altogether.

The phenomenon itself helped propel the term “gaslighting” into the common vernacular, even earning it a distinction as Merriam–Webster’s 2022 “word of the year.”

And it has given rise to new memes in the conservative X-osphere, including the now-iconic phrase “Let’s go, Brandon”—which is more a commentary on the complicit media running interference for the Democratic power structure than it is a specific condemnation of the Biden administration.

How it Started…Talladega Superspeedway: Brandon Brown had just won a NASCAR race. And sportscaster Kelli Stavast commented in an interview with Brown afterward how the crowd seemed to be chanting in his honor: ‘Let’s go, Brandon!” https://t.co/BlRcn7O4f1 pic.twitter.com/7GeRL1SiO2

— Zen Diamond Apartments Newslink (@apartments_zen) November 3, 2021

Yet, ridicule notwithstanding, the danger of Democrats’ denialism and willful ignorance is quite real and ever-more palpable, shattering the lives of many who fall in the path of the Left’s long march, while ominously portending an even bleaker future should its efforts succeed.

As part of our ongoing effort to expose blatant media bias at leftist media outlets, the AP’s complete, unedited story on Chicago’s unrest is included below:

Chicago police say they’re ready for final day of protests at DNC following night of no arrests

Protesters march during a demonstration outside the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. / PHOTO: AP

(Associated Press) Chicago police said Thursday that they are not changing any of their tactics and are ready for a final night of pro-Palestinian demonstrations outside the Democratic National Convention, after a peaceful march that resulted in no injuries or arrests.

On Wednesday night, more than 2,000 pro-Palestinian protesters marched peacefully past a park where pro-Israel demonstrators had gathered earlier. That demonstration came a day after violent clashes between police and protesters led to 56 arrests at a much smaller, unsanctioned protest outside the Israeli Consulate in downtown Chicago.

Police Superintendent Larry Snelling said the protest Wednesday night ended without arrests and that no one was injured.

Snelling praised the organizers of the Wednesday protest, saying it’s an example of how people can hold First Amendment-protected demonstrations peacefully by collaborating in advance with law enforcement.

“Did we have a couple dustups? Sure, but those things were quickly rectified,” he said.

The biggest protest so far, which attracted about 3,500 people on Monday, was largely peaceful and resulted in 13 arrests, most related to a breach of security fencing. They did not gain access to the inner security perimeter at the United Center, where the convention is taking place.

Two people were arrested Sunday night during another mostly peaceful march.

The Coalition to March on the DNC, which organized the march on Monday, planned its second permitted demonstration of the week on Thursday, with a rally in a park near the United Center followed by a march through adjacent streets.

Ben Sellers is the editor of Headline USA. Follow him at twitter.com/realbensellers.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.