West Michigan Far Right Watch: Cop apologists and those calling for student campus protesters to be expelled

In today’s West Michigan Far Right Watch we want to look at a recent rant from our favorite cop apologists, Voice for the Badge, as well as a recent podcast from the Acton Institute, where 3 white dudes are calling for students that are organizing pro-Palestine encampments across the country to be expelled!

Photo by Alex Kent/Getty Images

A few days ago, the founder of the police apologist group, Voice for the Badge, posted this simplistic and childish post on their Facebook page. The founder wrote in all caps, because he wants us to take him seriously.

THIS MUST STOP

4 OFFICERS MURDERED—AMBUSH

I AM SAD—MAD—COWARDS—CAPITOL PUNISHMENT FITS

PRAYERS FOR OUR FALLEN HEROES/THE FAMILIES AND ALL THE BLUE FAMILY.

PROTESTS–SEEMS LIKE OUR POLICE ARE ALWAYS THE VILLIANS–UNREAL—WRONG AS WRONG CAN BE.

SAW IN THE MEDIA—OUR POLICE ARE OVER POLICING—–B/S.

POLICE BRUTALITY-INCLUDES WHEN OUR OFFICERS SNEEZE?

TO LISTEN TO VERBAL ABUSE/F—YOU—PIGS—WITHOUT RESPONDING—HOW BOUT THAT—WELL I CAN SAY TO THE COP HATERS—F—-U.

JOHNNY BRANN SR.

THE VFB STANDS WITH THE BLUE.

Wow, profanity from the founder of Voice for the Badge. More importantly, is Johnny Brann Sr.’s narrow minded view of the world. According to mappingpoliceviolence.org, the cops have killed 369 people so far in 2024. However, when a cop is killed, he equates it with the crucifixion of Jesus. 

The protests that Johnny Brann Sr. is most definitely referring to are the student-led protests on campuses that are denouncing the Israeli’s genocide of Palestinians and the US government’s complicity in that genocide. When cops are beating students, spraying them with mace and shooting them with rubber bullets, it seems like a good time to say, Fuck You Pigs! The founder of the Voice for the Badge concludes his little rant with a big FU to anyone who doesn’t like cops. This means that Johnny Brann Sr is saying fuck you to everyone who has had a family member murdered by the police, beaten by the police, and arrested by the police. It means that he is saying Fuck you to the family of Patrick Lyoya and the family of Samuel Dajon Sterling.

It also means that he is saying fuck you to most BIPOC people, since they are the primary targets of the cops, along with political dissidents, who are also often the target of state violence. Brann can tell us to fuck off all he wants, but we will not stop us from having a deep critique of state violence, nor will he stop us from our collective resistance to policing. 

Our second part of this edition of West Michigan Far Right Watch has to do with an April 29th edition of Acton Unwind, the podcast of the Acton Institute.

The headline for the April 29 podcast was, Decamping Campus Encampments. The discussion the Acton Unwind trio have about the campus protests begins near the end, at about the 50:45 mark. 

Someone sort of lays out what is happening on campuses across the US, although he says it is primarily “elite” campuses. The Acton Unwind host then says that what happened at the University of Texas at Austin was not a great example of how to deal with campus protesters, even though he has nothing but distain for the growing student-led movement to resist the Israeli genocide, US complicity in that genocide, and force campus Board’s of Trustees to divest from companies who are profiting off of Israel’s genocide, occupation and apartheid.

One of the mouth pieces on Acton Unwind said that Ben Sasse, the President of the University of Florida had the correct response, although he doesn’t share what Sasse said. Sasse stated: 

“This is not complicated: The University of Florida is not a daycare, and we do not treat protesters like children — they knew the rules, they broke the rules, and they’ll face the consequences. For many days, we have patiently told protesters — many of whom are outside agitators — that they were able to exercise their right to free speech and free assembly. And we also told them that clearly prohibited activities would result in a trespassing order from UPD (barring them from all university properties for three years) and an interim suspension from the university. For days UPD patiently and consistently reiterated the rules. Today, individuals who refused to comply were arrested after UPD gave multiple warnings and multiple opportunities to comply.”

The Acton Unwind guy then talks about how police deal with MSU “riots” after football games. He suggests that University Presidents should call MSU so they can counsel them to have cops come in riot gear and use tear gas, since that is a “non-lethal ways of dealing with protesters.” 

Another one of the ideologically-driven Acton Unwind guys then says that there was a picture of “a long haired white dude with a guitar who was standing in front of a Hamas flag. And that guy was probably there to pick up chicks. He probably has no idea what is even happening with Israel and Gaza.”

The third Acton Unwind guy thinks there should be a distinction between public and private universities. If the protests are at public universities, then you have to “deal with the free speech issue.” However, according to the Acton Unwind dudes, universities should not be a place for debate or an open forum. What? Universities should absolutely be places for debate or open forum, which in the end promotes more critical thinking. 

The whole discussion was just a ridiculous attempt to denigrate the campus protests and to promote what Biden said last week about the Rule of Law. One of the Acton Unwind guys also said that student protesters think that history has always vindicate campus protests, using the Vietnam War as an example. However, he then said he went to a lot of Tea Party protests on campus. Of course he did, because he, like his fellow Acton Unwind buddies are part of the far right. Actually, they are the ivory tower version, since they would never get their hands dirty by truly engaging people in public settings. 

The Acton Unwind guys then end their show with two very instructive comments. First, they suggested that student organizers of the campus protests should be expelled. Second, they all believe that going to college is not the “real world” it is just to prepare you for the real world. This is rather ironic since all three of the Acton Unwind guys aren’t in the real world. They don’t produce anything, they simply work for an organization that is ideologically dogmatic on most major issues, primarily on the defense of Capitalism. In the end they get paid to give their opinion about the real world, regardless of their limited interaction with the real world.