David Clarke Is Still Crazy

David Clarke seen here at the Conservative Political Action Conference in National Harbor, Md. Feb. 25, 2017. Photo by Gage Skidmore from Peoria, AZ, United States of America (CC BY-SA 2.0)

Are these the End Times? With restaurants and bars closing, frantic consumer runs on toilet paper, bottled water and beans, and… Charlie Sykes as the Voice of Reason.

So things stand in the Age of Coronavirus, as Sykes rose up once again to aim his now more moderate sense of scorn at a favorite target, former Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke, whose most crackpot comments were gladly amplified by Sykes back in the days when the latter was the top bloviator on Milwaukee talk radio and the foremost champion of Clarke. 

It seems that “America’s Sheriff’ as Clarke loved to call himself, offered this tweet to an order by some states to close their restaurants and bars: “It is now evident that this is an orchestrated attempt to destroy CAPITALISM…Time to RISE UP and push back. Bars and restaurants should defy the order. Let people decide if they want to go out.”  

In another tweet, Clarke called on people to “Visit bars, restaurants, shopping malls, CHURCHES and demand that your schools re-open… STAY IN THE STREETS. END GOVERNMENT CONTROL OVER OUR LIVES. IF NOT NOW, WHEN?”

And in yet another: “I am tired of this, ‘we have to err on the side of caution’ BULL SH-T… DAMMIT. It’s the DAMN FLU.”

In response to Clarke’s fulminations, Sykes tweeted this: “I’ve known this guy for years. He’s lost his f**king mind”.

Precisely when Clarke lost his mind is a matter of debate, but for Sykes it seemed to come just around the time he decided to oppose Donald Trump, retire from talk radio and re-brand himself as a right-winger who had recanted and was shocked to learn his talk radio listeners were racists.

Along with that came the sudden realization that Clarke was crackers, as Sykes quickly became one of Clarke’s leading tormentors.

All of which was juicy fun, watching the war between the one-time right-wing ringleaders of Milwaukee, but it’s become considerably less newsworthy as Clarke’s national media presence has dwindled to nothing, from “America’s Sheriff” to “America’s Nobody,” no longer a presence on Fox News or any other show as his “rhetoric became crazier and crazier and most shows refused to use him,” and reportedly without any job. 

Yes, Clarke’s comments on the pandemic are deeply irresponsible, but he’s been reduced to the status of your crazy uncle, to whom no one but the near relatives pay attention. The irony is that Sykes is still making his old protege look newsworthy. Clarke is probably grateful for the swipe.