Dan Crenshaw Responds Perfectly to Deranged Critic Calling Him a ‘Nazi’ at Campus Event
When Rep. Dan Crenshaw appeared at Arizona State University on Wednesday, a protester came ready with the usual quiver of “Nazi” insults.
However, the Texas Republican and Afghanistan veteran came ready with some comebacks of his own — and he managed to go viral with his verbal takedown of the liberal critic.
The event, which was hosted by the conservative group Turning Point USA, featured the usual question-and-answer session in which the audience got to share their feelings with the former Navy SEAL who was elected to Congress from Texas’ 2nd District in November.
Crenshaw’s service, of course, has made up a significant part of his story. Yet, to one unhinged liberal, it was something Crenshaw ought to have been disavowing.
“TPUSA is for Nazis,” the protester began. “And you should be ashamed of your service in Afghanistan.
“It was an illegal war of aggression by the United States,” he screamed as students booed him. “You should be ashamed of yourself, not proud of your service.”
A smiling Crenshaw calmly defused the situation and defanged the insult.
“If you have to call somebody a ‘Nazi,’ it’s a good indicator you haven’t thought through your argument very well,” Crenshaw said as the protester marched off, a bookbag on his back.
When the next speaker said she didn’t know how to follow that, Crenshaw said, “That was fun, at least we had a little bit of …”
He then addressed the now-absent protester:
“But get more creative with your insults, man. Like, ‘Nazi?’ Come on.”
Turning Point USA’s Benny Johnson had a pretty good summation of the encounter.
“Imagine volunteering to fight for the military that beat the Nazis,” he wrote. “Becoming a Navy SEAL. Serving 10 years. Deploying to war 3 times. Giving your eye (& almost your life) for your country. Just to return home & get called a ‘Nazi.'”
And yet, he notes that Crenshaw’s handling of the outburst was “[a]mazing.”
Imagine volunteering to fight for the military that beat the Nazis.
Becoming a Navy SEAL.
Serving 10 years.
Deploying to war 3 times.
Giving your eye (& almost your life) for your country.
Just to return home & get called a 'Nazi.'
Watch how @DanCrenshawTX handles that:
Amazing
There are so many things wrong about this encounter, from the fact that Crenshaw fought for the very freedoms this protester is using to call him a “Nazi” to the fact that the “Nazi” insult is so overplayed it literally means nothing anymore.
In fact, Crenshaw’s facial reaction might have put it best:
Those who have been around the internet for a while will be familiar with something called Godwin’s Law.
Coined in the early 1990s, it states: “As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1.” The precept that the law is based upon — that any political or social conversation will eventually end in someone making a comparison to Nazi Germany — has long since bled over into our offline discourse, and has of late been almost exclusively the province of one side of the debate.
This is outrageous, but it’s also not terribly creative, either.
