Jonathan Turley Savaged on Twitter After ill-Advised Comment About MLK Jr. in Discussion on Canadian Truckers
Jonathan Turley stepped in it on Tuesday when he invoked Martin Luther King, Jr. during a discussion on the Canadian trucker protests that have been prompted by vaccine mandates. The George Washington University law professor and Fox News contributor seemed to suggest the civil rights legend had not been arrested for protesting.
Turley addressed Justin Trudeau using emergency powers in an effort to end the truckers’ blockades on Canadian streets and especially the Ambassador Bridge, which is a vital commerce artery between the United States and Canada.
The powers allow the Canadian government to freeze the financial assets of anyone linked to the protests.
Turley offered this reaction:
I thought it was quite excessive. This is an act of civil disobedience. That is a standard tactic of groups going back to the civil rights movement – even earlier – to block bridges and streets, to do what was referred to as ‘good trouble.’ And so, the troubling aspect of what is coming out of the prime minister’s office, is that by this rationale, they could have cracked down on the civil rights movement. They could have arrested Martin Luther King.
I think the office needs to dial down, not just the rhetoric, but the means that it is using. By freezing this money, what the government is doing is preventing other people from supporting a protest. These are Canadian citizens that have gone to their capital to engage in an act of civil disobedience. The government can clear the roads, they can arrest people who are blocking the roads. But they have gone to an extent here that treats these protesters as if they were terrorists.
King, of course, was arrested many times. One website puts the number at 29. Famously, King wrote his “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” while in a Birmingham jail in 1963. Moreover, the civil rights movement in the mid-20th century was indeed cracked down on – violently – on numerous occasions, both legally and illegally.
(An interesting sidenote is that during Turley’s appearance, Fox News aired b-roll of counter-protestors against the truckers.)
Not surprisingly Turley was summarily torched on Twitter after a clip of his comment made the rounds.
Watch above via Fox News.
