After their earlier reporting on the Covington Catholic fiasco at the Lincoln Memorial was discredited, some in the media are now trying new lines of attack against these students — specifically surrounding the “Make America Great Again” hats some wore during that fateful Friday afternoon.
On CNN, contributor Angela Rye likened the popular fashion accessory to a symbol of racial terrorism. And so did her media colleagues at MSNBC. On NBC, Savannah Guthrie suggested that the incident would never had occurred were these students not wearing the hats.
“When I see the 'Make America Great Again' hat, Chris, I’m triggered. I’m so triggered,” Rye said Tuesday night. “This 'Make America Great Again' hat is just as maddening and frustrating and triggering for me to look at as a KKK hood. That’s the type of hatred that his policies represent. And until we can have common ground and understanding about that, we’re going to continue to have problems.”
On MSNBC, host Craig Melvin described the hat as “an invitation for confrontation” and a “modern day Confederate battle flag.”
Princeton University professor and MSNBC contributor, Eddie Glaude Jr., said the hats are symbols of racial segregation.
“Alyssa Milano, I think, the actress, described the hat as the modern day white sheet,” Glaude said approvingly. “The hat in some ways represents for many of us a kind — a kind of racial animus. ‘Make America Great Again’ is a kind of nostalgic longing for the 1950s, not by a way of public policy, Craig, but by a way of the cultural ethos of the ‘50s, which meant a society organized along the lines of segregation, in which black people were to stay in their place, brown people were to stay in their place and white people were to be treated and valued differently according to the color of their skin.”
Glaude suggested the students wouldn’t have had any problems were they not wearing the hats.
“So, yes, I think if the hats weren’t involved, it might not have been as — as intense, but there are also — there were also words,” Glaude said. “There were a lot of people who said that, you know, build the wall, build the wall, said that was shouted. We saw footage later on of the young — young men cat — catcalling at young women walking by.”
That sentiment was echoed by Glaude’s NBC colleague, Savannah Guthrie, who asked the student at the center of the controversy, Nick Sandmann, if this might have been avoided if he weren’t wearing the pro-Trump hat:
GUTHRIE: “Do you think if you weren’t wearing that hat this might not have happened or it might have been different?”
SANDMANN: “That’s possible, but I would have to assume what Mr. Phillips was thinking, and I’d rather let him speak for why he came up to us.
As Glaude mentioned, the actress Alyssa Milano likened MAGA hats to Klan hoods. She later followed up with a piece in The Wrap that doubled down on the comparison: “When I saw that video, I saw boys flaunting their entitlement and displaying toxic masculinity. It seemed to me like they were reflecting the white nationalism and racism that the hats on their heads have come to represent.”
She went on:
I sent out a tweet that read, “The red MAGA hat is the new white hood.” Right-wing pundits and anonymous trolls alike screamed for my head–literally and figuratively. My husband received death threats on his cell phone. Many demanded an apology.
Here’s the thing: I was right.
So, I won’t apologize to these boys. Or anyone who wears that hat. But I will thank them. I will thank them for lighting a fire underneath the conversation about systemic racism and misogyny in this country and the role President Donald Trump has had in cultivating it and making it acceptable.
This post will be updated should others in the media make this same comparison.