Move Over, George, It's Karmelo Time

Karmelo Anthony May Be Just the Midterm Martyr the Left Is Looking For

Beyond the Minneapolis “square” named in his honor, May 25 passed with scarcely a word of remembrance for the late, sainted George Floyd. True, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey got some attention for his sixth anniversary tweet—”That moment changed our city forever”—but comedian Tony Hinchcliffe got much more attention for joking at a roast for black comedian Kevin Hart, "Right now, George Floyd is looking up at us all, laughing so hard he can’t breathe.”

To his credit, Hart laughed along with his friends and refused to buckle to the censors. Said Hart about roast comedy,"you can't have emotions" and comedians must "understand the assignment.” Hinchcliffe did. He also understood that the Left had milked this scared cow to the point of exhaustion and weren’t going to work too hard to protect him. They would need a need a fresh martyr for the midterms, a new and purer George, and they’ve got one in their sights.

The leading candidate is “Texas teen” Karmelo Anthony. Unlike his predecessors—Floyd, Michael Brown, Trayvon Martin—Anthony need not even die. He just needs to be convicted, in this case for the April 2025 stabbing death of white schoolmate Austin Metcalf at a high school track meet. Riots are an odds-on favorite to follow conviction.

One “conspiracy theory” traced to the Right is that the Floyd riots of 2020 were orchestrated to enhance Democratic chances in November. In her much discussed 2021 article in Time, insider Molly Ball confirmed that the conspiracy was no mere theory. The organizers who led what she called “the racial-justice uprising” hoped to “harness its momentum for the election.” Rioting, Ball all but boasted, was the leverage leftists used to keep the business interests in line.

A cocky Molly Ball spilled the beans and reaped the rewards

“The summer uprising,” Ball wrote, “had shown that people power could have a massive impact.” Harnessing the numerical strength of passive young whites and the active menace of young blacks and their Antifa allies, protest organizers brought America to its knees, in many places, literally. High on their success, “activists,” claimed Ball, “began preparing to reprise the demonstrations if Trump tried to steal the election.” In leftists circle, “steal” was a synonym for “win.”

Chronic felon and druggie George Floyd made for an unlikely martyr, but he died in the right time and place. Minnesota had a reputation for “nice” which helped cover its extraordinary corruption. Mayor Frey and the equally feckless Gov. Tim Walz so feared their own base they gave the chaos their imprimatur.

The actual task of framing Derek Chauvin and his colleagues for murder was left to Attorney General—and Nation of Islam associate—Keith Ellison. Less than a week after Floyd’s death Walz directed Ellison to take over the case from the Hennepin County Attorney's Office.

Ellison’s friendship with Calypso Louie cost him a shot at DNC Chair

To start, Ellison withheld the officers’ exculpatory bodycam footage until forced out by judicial order. More critically, he allowed DC medical examiner Roger Mitchell, a black activist, to coerce local ME Andrew Baker into adding “neck compression” to the autopsy report. In so doing, Baker turned a drug-enhanced heart attack into a homicide.

On the witness stand, the Minneapolis Police Department (MPD) police chief and the MPD head of training both lied, insisting that the restraint Chauvin used on Floyd was unauthorized. Judge Peter Cahill enabled these lies by blocking the defense from showing the jury the training manuals that would have vindicated Chauvin. Despite the terror that enveloped the courthouse on a daily basis, Cahill had earlier refused the defense request for a change of venue or even the sequestering of the jury. Chauvin and crew never had a chance.

The judge blocked the training images, and the Chief denied their existence

Just as comedians now feel free to tell George Floyd jokes, more and more conservatives of influence have started speaking out about the horrific injustice endured by Chauvin and his fellow officers. No longer guaranteed a free pass when extolling Saint George, leftists understand the need for a new patron saint.

White people need not apply. Would-be Minneapolis ICE martyrs, Renée Good and Alex Pretti, died in vain. Beyond leftist circles no one remembers their names. Aspiring terrorists arrested for their crimes fade quickly into the woodwork unless, like Luigi Mangione or Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, they’re cool enough for magazine covers. That said, groupies don’t riot.

Young black men do, and Karmelo may give them a cause. The timing is perfect. The trial is scheduled to begin June 1. The setting is even better. In the woke imagination, Texas is pure MAGA, a state without nuance, one in which 17-year-olds are tried as adults and occasionally fried. The City of Frisco is no LA. This Dallas suburb, less than 10 percent black, will not impanel an O.J. jury. Activists are counting on that.

Karmelo has been living large, gaining supporters, since being bonded out

A conviction is exactly what they want. Leftists today are using the same playbook the Comintern introduced a century ago in the Sacco and Vanzetti case: find a conspicuously guilty culprit or two, make a lot of noise about his/their being a victim of America’s systemic racism and/or xenophobia, and stoke a riot when real justice is served.

In her memoir, The Never-Ending Wrong, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Katherine Ann Porter related how she first came to understand this strategy. As the final hours ticked down for Sacco and Vanzetti, Porter had been standing vigil with others artists and writers in Boston.

Ever the innocent liberal, Porter approached her group leader, a “fanatical little woman” and a dogmatic Communist, and expressed her hope that Sacco and Vanzetti could still be saved from execution. The response of this female comrade is noteworthy largely for its candor: “Saved . . . who wants them saved? What earthly good would they do us alive?”

Yes, and what earthly good would Karmelo Anthony do for the Left if he were allowed to walk free?