David Delgado was sentenced to four years in prison for assaulting a man wearing a MAGA hat in a California bar. Delgado approached the man, asked him about his hat, punched him multiple times until he fell to the floor, and then stole the hat. The victim suffered serious injuries. Delgado pled no contest to âassault by means of force likely to produce great bodily injuryâ and Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Thomas Sokolov sentenced him to four years in jail.
It’s good that this happened because allowing looting, rioting, and especially violence for political reasons is extraordinarily dangerous to a country. For one thing, it undermines respect for the law and makes people wonder if the law will be applied equally. A country that prosecutes people like Kyle Rittenhouse and the McCloskeys on trial while giving the people that attacked and threatened them a pass is not a country that treats everyone equally under the law. Politically motivated prosecutions are dangerous to our republic.
That goes double for political violence. People should be extremely alarmed that in places like Portland, protesters and counter-protesters are bringing weapons with them to protests. This is a direct result of the police allowing violence by ANTIFA and people arming themselves to stay safe. We’ve also seen a number of stories in the last few years about people being assaulted for wearing MAGA gear. What we haven’t been seeing are many stories about that violence being punished with jail time. That’s a mistake because that kind of violence breeds more violence. Two drunk guys throwing hands in a bar is a minor matter if no one is seriously hurt. A MAGA supporter or for that matter, a Biden supporter being attacked for their political views can lead to imitators or retaliation. We’re already seeing protests turn into brawls in places like Portland and we don’t want that to spread. The way you stop that is by enforcing the law equally and taking a particularly harsh view of politically motivated violence. Hand out enough 4-year assault sentences for politically motivated violence and you will see an end to politically motivated violence.
John Hawkins is the author of 101 Things All Young Adults Should Know. You can find him on Parler here.
