On the eve of the 77th anniversary of the D-Day invasion, MSNBC aired an ad from The Lincoln Project that called the soldiers who stormed the beaches of Normandy members of “Antifa” — the left-wing group responsible for mass political violence nationwide.
Brian Williams closed Friday’s edition of “The 11th Hour” by showing a portion of the ad, which opens by asking, “Who is Antifa?”
Williams presented the video as a patriotic homage to the Greatest Generation.“Last thing before we go tonight, an important anniversary [is] coming up this weekend,” Williams said. “We hope you can take a moment and remember it.”
He went on to call Operation Overlord “beyond bold; it was outlandish. Over 150,000 men invad[ed] the French coastline under withering German fire to begin their march across Europe, where they would go on to win World War II 336 days later.”
“While others will debate whether or not we could possibly mount such a thing today as broken as we are, there was a time when we saved the world from tyranny and fascism,” Williams continued. “If it wasn’t our finest hour, it’s hard to say what was. And the folks at The Lincoln Project are out with a reminder to all.”
A portion of the ad transcript praised by Williams reads as follows:
They stormed the beaches of Normandy, parachuted into the French countryside, and gave their lives to face down and fight back against fascism. They took down Nazi machine gun nests, tore apart the Third Reich strongholds, liberated concentration camps, liberated France, Italy, Belgium, Holland, anywhere Antifa saw fascism they fearlessly, and relentlessly, annihilated it. Fascism was defeated because of patriots like these — proud Americans who knew that the fight against fascists was not simply a battle between opposing nations, it was a war against humanity, a war that isn’t nice but cannot be lost. A war we still fight today.
As the narrator says the word “today,” the ad abruptly switches to footage of President Donald Trump.
The ad then returns to scenes from liberated France and Germany as the narrator intones, “Anti-fascism: It’s not a cable news talking point. It’s an American ideal that should be memorialized, because it was paid for in blood.”
The ad closes with a picture of a U.S. military cemetery — and, of course, a link to donate to the scandal-plagued Lincoln Project.
The attempt to whitewash or sanitize Antifa, a violent group of anarchist street thugs, is not exactly new. Last year, National Public Radio’s national political correspondent, Mara Liasson, retweeted a map of the D-Day invasion with the words, “Biggest antifa rally in history.”
After the violent clashes in Charlottesville, CNN’s Don Lemon defended Antifa on the basis of its name, rather than its actions. “It says it right in the name: Antifa. Anti-fascism,” he said. “No organization’s perfect. There was some violence. No one condones violence, but there were different reasons for Antifa and for these neo-Nazis to be there.”
Last month W. Kamau Bell, host of CNN’s “United Shades of America,” interviewed two members of Antifa in Portland and seemingly excused their violence. “Look, this fighting for democracy and against fascism thing has always been a messy business,” he said. “And, yes, people get hurt, property gets damaged, and things get confusing.”
When those on the Left aren’t glorifying Antifa, they’re busy denying its existence. At the first presidential debate last October, Joe Biden asserted that “Antifa is an idea, not an organization.”
In reality, Antifa exists in loosely organized groups, and “their methods are often violent,” according to CNN. “Antifa leaders admit they’re willing to physically attack anyone who … condones racism,” as Antifa defines it.
Of course, violently attacking people for their thoughts are tactics employed by the actual fascists. The brown shirts physically broke up political meetings held by the Nazis’ political enemies.
A total of 2,501 Americans were killed and 10,000 wounded on D-Day itself, not counting our Allies.
There’s a term for trying to equate Antifa street rioters with the young men who liberated Europe from the scourge of Nazism at the expense of their own lives: stolen valor.
The views expressed in this piece are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.