Since the horrific assassination of Charlie Kirk, legacy media have gone above and beyond to tank what little credibility they had with the broader American public. And that statement could not be more applicable to The Economist.
Late last week, the U.K.-based outlet ran a story attempting to run cover for the spate of leftist-led violence wreaking havoc across the United States. To accomplish this feat, the piece highlighted several “studies and datasets … largely compiled by researchers whom s[k]eptical conservatives would probably dismiss as biased” to “suggest that the killing of Mr Kirk is not representative of broader trends.”
And whom, may you wonder, is among these esteemed “researchers” cited by The Economist? None other than the University of Cincinnati’s Michael Loadenthal, a radical leftist who previously disclosed his affiliation with the left-wing militant group Antifa.
As Eoin Lenihan previously wrote in these pages, “In 2021, Loadenthal spoke at a ‘White Nationalism Workshop‘ and an ‘Extremism, Rhetoric and Democratic Precarity‘ roundtable at [Dayton] University’s ‘Social Practice Of Human Rights Conference.’” It was during the former event, Lenihan noted, that “Loadenthal introduced himself by stating that he is militant Antifa; he then continued his talk by teaching audience members how to securely dox people to their employers.”
“Throughout the talk he framed his work in explicitly ‘antifascist’ terms, explaining how he employs ‘antifascist intelligence‘ to dox individuals online and in real life,” Lenihan wrote.
In its article, The Economist noted Loadenthal’s work on the “Prosecution Project,” which purportedly “analyses felony criminal cases involving political violence to see which ideologies are most common,” according to the outlet. The project’s data ostensibly “show[s] that extremists on both left and right commit violence, although more incidents appear to come from right-leaning attackers.”
As 1776 Project PAC founder Ryan James Girdusky recently observed, however, the Prosecution Project’s “data” appears highly questionable (if not flat out inaccurate), as it “ties in people with no political affiliations to conservatives or political motives to make the case that right-wingers are responsible for an overwhelming number of politically motivated crimes.”
“You know what wasn’t counted as politically motivated violence… almost any of the arson, rapes, and murders from BLM and Antifa activists during the 2020 summer of love. Burning the police station in Minneapolis, the rape and assaults in the CHAZ zone, or the six deaths associated with the trans cult, the Zizians,” Girdusky wrote. “Left-wing violence isn’t violence, while anyone can be considered rightwing violence, even if it isn’t right-wing or particularly violent.”
Shawn Fleetwood is a staff writer for The Federalist and a graduate of the University of Mary Washington. He previously served as a state content writer for Convention of States Action and his work has been featured in numerous outlets, including RealClearPolitics, RealClearHealth, and Conservative Review. Follow him on Twitter @ShawnFleetwood
