What. An. Idiot.
I’m speaking, of course, about the so-far unnamed University of Kansas professor who was caught on video suggesting that men who refuse to vote for a woman for president — Kamala Harris, basically — should be executed.
“We could line all those guys up and shoot them,” the professor said. “They clearly don’t understand the way the world works.”
It was pretty clearly hyperbole. A joke, even. It was also an exceptionally dumb thing to say.
And I would say that the professor doesn’t understand the way the world works — except he clearly realized immediately that trouble was on the way.
“Did I say that?” he asked, just a split-second later. “Scratch that from the recording. I don’t want the deans hearing that I said that.”
Too late. They heard. Now KU says the professor is on leave and full of regret .
That’s it, then, right? End of story?
Nah.
If you “understand the way the world works,” you knew the professor’s comments were going to become a Republican rallying cry. And that’s exactly what happened.
Ned Ryun, the son of former Kansas Congressman Jim Ryun, posted the video to social media on Wednesday morning. By mid-afternoon it had been viewed more than 2 million times. Sen. Roger Marshall posted it. So did Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach.
“Anyone saying men who don’t vote for Kamala Harris should be ‘lined up and shot’ is deranged and shouldn’t be around students nor academia,” Marshall wrote.
Here’s the thing: I don’t believe them.
Confession time: There’s a real danger here that I am about to engage in what is known as “whataboutism.”
That’s when you respond to something bad that somebody on your side did with an example of what the person who isn’t on your side did. If my guy did it and your guy did it, then we all do it and my guy isn’t so bad, right?
Wrong.
The KU professor and I are both voting the same way this fall — for Harris, against Donald Trump — but I’m frankly embarrassed by him. Even if we chalk his rhetoric up to hyperbole and ill-chosen humor, talk of executing your opponents is too much, too far. It’s bad.
I just don’t think Ryun, Marshall or Kobach are in much of a place to act shocked about it.
They are, after all, all avid supporters of Trump.
You know, the same guy who recently fantasized about unleashing a day of police violence on the nation . To crack down on crime, of course.
“One rough hour — and I mean real rough — the word will get out and it will end immediately, you know? It will end immediately,” he said in Pennsylvania.
The former president was “clearly just floating it in jest,” a spokesman said.
No condemnations from Ryun, Marshall or Kobach.
Trump, of course, was also the guy who sat around watching TV and scrolling social media on Jan. 6, 2021, while a MAGA crowd tried to hunt down his vice president, Mike Pence, for the crime of not overturning the election in his boss’s favor.
According to new documents filed by prosecutor Jack Smith, Trump seemed indifferent — I’m being generous — when told Pence had finally been moved to safety.
“So what?” Trump asked.
And Trump is the guy who, during the George Floyd protests of 2020, urged military leaders to fire on protesters.
“Can’t you just shoot them, just shoot them in the legs or something?” Trump asked. His advisers were shocked.
No condemnations from Ryun, Marshall or Kobach. They want the guy reelected, even now.
So. No whataboutism here. The KU professor said a dumb thing. He’ll pay a price for it. He should.
But I also think a professor saying a dumb thing in the classroom is much, much less scary than a once-and-possibly-future president rooting constantly for real-world violence at the hands of the state.
Let me know when Ryan, Marshall and Kobach — and all their MAGA friends — take a stand against that.
Joel Mathis is a regular Kansas City Star and Wichita Eagle Opinion correspondent. Formerly a writer and editor at Kansas newspapers, he served nine years as a syndicated columnist.
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