I don’t think I have seen a single soul who has been terrorized Canada’s right wing as much as this 21-year-old woman. Beginning with Evan Solomon’s horribly manipulative interview to the blogging conservatives to the finger wagging of Huffington Post and Michael Coren, there is a savagery to the paranoia and fear in their words usually reserved for mass murderers.
Normally such a quiet, brief protest would draw barely any notice from the right and the media. But there is something about the restrained dignity of DePape and the now famous image of her holding her little sign that has triggered an unparalleled outpouring of hate and mockery from establishment journalists.
It’s almost shocking the depth of the hatred. All for standing briefly with a sign and writing a few concise articles. All from a neophyte. But DePape’s demeanour, as low-key as it has been, scares the bejeesus out of these people. It’s this overreaction that is most telling about the fears and values of the right.
Agree with DePape and her actions or not, the real story is becoming the media’s fascination and antipathy to a rather mild protest. The desperation of the indignant elite is wildly out of proportion to the actual event and subsequent words from Brigette.
(I suspect the real reason for this unprecedented fear and rage is not so much DePape or her protest but that it could be a harbinger of the docile left waking up from its decades long dormant state and challenging the narrative the right media has worked so long to craft on behalf of the Conservative party.)
You’d have thought Ms. DePape had strapped bombs to her torso and threatened to explode the very pillars of our shaky parliamentary system. She has been treated with the same hatred usually reserved for suicide bombers. It’s indicative of how entrenched our media is in rightist beliefs and Conservative values. Don’t expect them to let up on Brigette DePape any time soon. Until a new victim of their ire appears, expect column after column abusing the former page. She is that scary to these people.
