Anti-Milk Protesters Were (Briefly) Scary, Still Dumb, Still Ineffectual

Jill Biden wrestling an anti-dairy protester away from her
husband, Joe Biden

A little highlight of the Super Tuesday primary last week was the noisy but very dumb anti-dairy direct action protesters that scared Joe Biden and the people surrounding him during a rally Tuesday evening.

A couple of idiots, identified as Sarah Segal and Ashley Froud from some outfit called Direct Action Everywhere yelling "Let Dairy Die!" ran toward Biden.  His wife, Jill Biden, demonstrating that she is a Philadelphia badass, physically blocked one of them.

The whole thing led to a now-iconic photograph of Jill Biden, teeth clenched, grabbing the protester's arms and wrestling her away from her husband.  Jill Biden, and Biden aide Symone Sanders, who forcefully and physically drove the anti-diary nuts away,  were the only ones who came out looking good from this.

According to Time Magazine:

"'The protest was intended to draw attention to the inherent violence of the dairy industry,' a spokesperson for Direct Action Everywhere tells Time over Twitter DM. 'We targeted Biden's rally because the Biden campaign has prominently featured appearances by former U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack, who now receives a million-dollar salary as CEO and President of the U.S Dairy Export Council.'"

It seems like Direct Action Everywhere is into these dumb stunts.  The anti-dairy protesters have interrupted  Elizabeth Warren events in the past.  And they made a splash at a Bernie Sanders rally earlier this year.

According to The Hill,  three topless women crashed the stage in February at a Nevada Bernie Sanders rally with the words, "let dairy die" painted on their chest. Another (clothed) protester, wrestled the mic from Sanders and declared, "Bernie, I'm your biggest supporter and I'm here to ask you to stop propping up the dairy industry and stop propping up animal agriculture,"

I really can't stand Direct Action Everywhere for lots of reasons, as you've probably figured out by now.  They emphasize they are nonviolent and I'm certain the demonstrators had no intention of harming Biden, Sanders and Warren.

But their protests come perilously close to violence, which paints Direct Action Everywhere as hypocrites.  Forcefully grabbing a mic from Sanders was vaguely violent, as was charging toward Biden on Super Tuesday. With all the nutcases running around out there, I'm sure Sanders, Biden and the people around them were briefly scared.

The Biden incident looked especially frightening to me.  Meanwhile, Direct Action Everywhere's Facebook states that they ".....ask folks who come into our spaces to be nonviolent in not only action, but tone and word."

They didn't make it to that standard at the Biden rally, did they?

One of the Biden protesters, Ashley Froud, told the Los Angeles Times she heard Jill Biden scream during the incident. (Who can blame her?)

"When you're so passionate and driven to do something, you don't even think about it. You just do it," Froud said.

By that logic, when somebody says, "I'm so mad at Bill I could kill him," they should just go ahead and kill Bill?

Froud told the Los Angeles Times how full of herself she is that everybody is talking about her message. "Looking at that photograph, I feel proud that I was able to deliver that message....If I could have done it another way that would have gained this much attraction, I would have, because I don't want to make people feel like they're in any fear. But it's hard to make people listen to these issues that matter."

It's hard to get the message out so you did this stupid stunt. Yes, a lot more people are now aware of your cause, but now, at least as many people won't take you seriously.

I'm pretty sure there are serious abuses in the dairy industry, at least in the big factory farm type operations. (I'm more familiar with the small farm operations here in Vermont, and it doesn't seem like there's a lot of animal abuse on those little dairy farms).

What Froud and her cohorts are failing to do is telling us why we should care, which is how you get people on board with your cause. People don't like animal abuse.  They don't like agribusiness cutting corners on safety. They want to know that what they're eating and drinking comes from good, ethical sources.

Instead, these demonstrators were just acting stupid. That doesn't inspire me to take their argument seriously, that's for sure.