The COVID-19 pandemic is a serious danger to Americans, but antifa still isn't, despite suggestions otherwise from President Trump, Attorney General William Barr, police departments, Fox News hosts, and fake antifa social media accounts linked to white supremacist groups. Antifa mania has led to some frightening situations but also some comedic ones, like when Fox News anchor Martha MacCallum read a Reddit post about Seattle's Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone (CHAZ) and missed the joke.
CHAZ, an offshoot of anti-racist protests that Trump claims is led by antifa, is a barricaded section of a Seattle neighborhood run as a collective, with art, snack areas, movie nights, smoking sections, dancing, and the occasional armed guard. The Reddit post MacCallum credulously read refers to Raz Simone, an unofficial leader of the zone, and the gag would have been obvious to any Monty Python fan.
Monty Python alum John Cleese, of course, got the joke — the Reddit post was quoting near-verbatim a scene from The Holy Grail — and he joined the ribbing of Fox News.
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CHAZ has proved vexing for Fox News in other ways, too: The network apologized over the weekend for illustrating articles about the autonomous zone with digitally altered images and, in one case, a burning building from St. Paul, Minnesota.
Trump wants people to believe "antifa and other far left militant groups" have taken over Seattle. It's not clear what Fox News host Sean Hannity thinks is going on at CHAZ.
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