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Vindictive Behar Tries To Dox Unlikely Star from Trump Town Hall: 'Let's Make Her Famous'

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Whenever you’re a conservative and you hear Joy Behar saying that she wants to make you famous, the context is usually not good.

Now, granted, whether or not this means anything in space year 2020 is questionable. “The View” is little more than a crosstalk shout-fest aimed at a heretofore undiscovered demographic of female viewers who are home at 11 a.m. and apparently either suffer from low blood pressure that they need ratcheted up or find hypertension pleasantly intoxicating.

Thankfully, they also have short attention spans — which is why they apparently forget they could just as easily take each of the day’s issues and, with very little imagination, figure out just what each panel member’s screeching on said issue would be. I’m mildly amazed advertisers would find a group this distracted to be profitable, but this short attention span is a good thing for Mayra Joli.

Joli is the immigration attorney and former congressional candidate who was seated behind President Donald Trump during his town hall event last week and became famous on social media for her body language — especially her nodding — which made it clear she was on the president’s side.

Body language, indeed, was a major part of the takeaway on “The View” Friday from the president’s town hall.

“One thing I found interesting, though, was his body language for each voter,” co-host Sara Haines said.



“Whenever a voter got up that was for him, he all Sheryl Sandberg leaned in, like, ‘what do you have to say?'” she said, referencing the Facebook chief operating officer who authored the book “Lean In.”

“If it was someone that wasn’t for him, he looked uncomfortable, inconvenienced, didn’t want to hear what they had to say. It kind of cemented that whole idea that Donald Trump is for anyone that is for Donald Trump.”

Should Joy Behar apologize for these remarks?

(And if you examine Democratic nominee Joe Biden’s body language, you’ll also find he can tend to come off somewhat differently with people who seem to be for him as opposed to those who are against him, although I don’t particularly know if he does a passable Sheryl Sandberg impression. Biden is, however, the candidate who’s dealt with a problematic questioner at campaign event by calling her a “lying, dog-faced pony soldier.” I’m just saying.)

But then Haines got onto Joli: “And if you ask the nodder over his shoulder, the bobblehead, ‘He killed it, he did an amazing job,’” Haines said. “I was tired watching her.”

Then Behar chimed in.

“Let’s show people what you are talking about because — there were some surprise cameos from last night like this — the human bobblehead over Trump’s shoulder,” she said as a video of the town hall appeared, with Joli nodding behind Trump.

“There she goes,” Behar said. “Even Pence didn’t nod that much when Trump spoke. What the heck? She was so distracting.”

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Conservatives, if you needed to be reminded, were fans of Joli:

I’m assuming you have a little imagination and that you could assume Behar didn’t like Joli. As for the distraction part, there’s a shiny object joke here I’d sooner not make — but, alas, the obvious must be said.

Another “View” co-panelist, Sunny Hostin, said she had Googled to find out who the woman being referred to on social media as #RedMaskLady was.

“Her name is Mayra — right? Mayra Joli, and she actually went up to Trump afterward,” Hostin said. “She’s an immigration attorney.”

“Let’s make her famous,” Behar interjected.

On Facebook, Joli had posted a video of herself approaching the president after the town hall and expressing her support: “We have your back! You see, you see you are the best,” Joli said.

“Where are you from?” Trump responded.

“I’m from the Dominican Republic, but I’m American, I’m an American,” Joli said.

Co-panelist Ana Navarro, who had debated Joli in the past, said she was “a character” and “pretty colorful.” However, it was Behar’s remark about her that was a bit troubling.

Now, Joli ran for Congress as an independent and is a pundit on Spanish-language TV, according to the Miami Herald. She was pro-Trump in her bent during her 2018 House campaign (she garnered 2.5 percent of the vote in a district won by Clinton-era Housing and Human Services secretary Donna Shalala) and posted the video of her interaction with the president on her Facebook page. Therefore, one assumes she doesn’t mind being famous in the traditional sense of the word.

That’s not what this is about, however.

This is about a form of what’s become known as “doxing,” using the reach of the internet to blast out personal information about individuals, generally in an attempt to intimidate, make them an object of public scorn, or actually harm them.

Usually it’s done by computer users, scouring data like public records and social media histories to target an intended victim. Behar was using national television.

When Behar says she wants to make Joli “famous,” she’s not aiming to do her any favors.

What Behar is calling for is what, in George Orwell’s classic “1984,” would be referred to as the “two-minutes hate.” Inasmuch as the hypotensive, forgetful audience of “The View” can focus their rage to some productive end, they’re expected to focus it upon Joli. Is there any way you can make the life of a Florida-based immigration attorney substantively worse? Here’s Joy Behar openly inviting you to do so.

She was hardly the only one making these thinly veiled calls for malicious doxing, either:

Here’s a curious fact: Repeatedly during the 2020 campaign, the president has been accused of covertly fomenting violence when he’s done nothing of the sort. Last week, when members of a radical Michigan militia called the Wolverine Watchmen were arrested for a supposed plot to kidnap Michigan Democrat Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, Whitmer blamed Trump’s rhetoric for inciting extremist groups.

This is was a curious accusation, inasmuch as the president would have been a curious source for the Wolverine Watchmen to have been taking cues from. One of the members of the group that was arrested said that Trump had “shown over and over and over again that he’s a tyrant” and that “[e]very single person that works for government is your enemy, dude.”

Meanwhile, Behar — who would be the most famous member of “The View” panel if Whoopi Goldberg didn’t have actual talents in the dramatic arts — delivered the highly euphemized command, “Let’s make her famous,” all because of Joli’s political beliefs, and let’s cue the crickets.

Thankfully, again, your average “View” watcher probably forgot about making Joli “famous” by the time the next drug-commercial voice-over was asking them whether they were really managing their moderate-to-severe ulcerative colitis. That doesn’t make this any less problematic.

Then again, Joli — who was also a beauty pageant champion, according to the Miami Herald — has been taking the backhanded “fame” in stride.

Yeap… bubble head needs a crown!
#bubblehead
#bobblehead

Posted by Joli Mayra on Sunday, October 18, 2020

This is all perfectly funny, of course, until someone takes Behar a bit too seriously. If that happens, don’t expect anyone to blame her, though.

They’ll still be too busy apportioning blame to President Trump for the Wolverine Watchmen.

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C. Douglas Golden is a writer who splits his time between the United States and Southeast Asia. Specializing in political commentary and world affairs, he's written for Conservative Tribune and The Western Journal since 2014.
C. Douglas Golden is a writer who splits his time between the United States and Southeast Asia. Specializing in political commentary and world affairs, he's written for Conservative Tribune and The Western Journal since 2014. Aside from politics, he enjoys spending time with his wife, literature (especially British comic novels and modern Japanese lit), indie rock, coffee, Formula One and football (of both American and world varieties).
Birthplace
Morristown, New Jersey
Education
Catholic University of America
Languages Spoken
English, Spanish
Topics of Expertise
American Politics, World Politics, Culture




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