Michigan GOP Official’s Tweet for ‘Another Kent State’ Condemned

A Michigan Republican Party leader has deleted widely condemned social media posts his critics said were a call “for another Kent State” — a reference to the 1970 shooting of four college students by the Ohio National Guard — but which he said was intended to quell violence that has erupted in campus protests against President Trump.

According to screenshots of the tweet and Facebook post that were taken by Michigan Democratic Party and others, Dan Adamini, the secretary of the Marquette County Republican Party in northern Michigan and a radio personality, tweeted: “Violent protesters who shut down free speech? Time for another Kent State perhaps. One bullet stops a lot of thuggery.”

On Facebook, he wrote that he was “thinking another Kent State might be the only solution” and that protesters continue “because they know there are no consequences yet."

Later, Adamini said the posts were “poorly worded” and that he was taking heat on social media for the wording. He appears to have disappeared entirely from social media.

“My only goal was to try to let people know that if we can't get a handle on the violence, we might see another really tragic end and we've got to try to stop that," Adamini told WLUC-TV

To the WNMU-FM Michigan Public Radio station, Adamini said: “My intent was to draw a correlation between the riots of the 60s and the violence of the protestors today. And if the violence doesn’t stop, we might see the same tragic end we saw at Kent State, and that would be awful.”

On May 4, 1970, four students at the Kent, Ohio, university were fatally shot and nine others were wounded by troopers from the Ohio National Guard during a protest of the Vietnam War and President Richard Nixon’s decision to bomb Cambodia.

In a statement, Michigan Democratic Party Chair Brandon Dillon called the posts “sickening, inhuman and indefensible.”

“There is no ambiguity or alternative interpretation,” Dillon said. “To call for ‘another Kent State’ and declare that ‘one bullet stops a lot of thuggery’ is to clearly and openly advocate for the murder of unarmed college students, simply because they don’t share his beliefs or point of view.”

Dillon called for Adamini’s immediate resignation or removal from his position with the Marquette County Republican Party and for party officials to disavow his words.

“The right to free speech is the cornerstone of our democracy, and when someone threatens another individual or group with harm for exercising it, that one person is a threat to all of us, as Americans,” Dillon said.

Officials at Kent State University also condemned the post. In a statement, the university said:

“May 4, 1970, was a watershed moment for the country and especially the Kent State University family. We lost four students that day while nine others were wounded and countless others were changed forever.

“This abhorrent post is in poor taste and trivializes a loss of life that still pains the Kent State community today.

“We invite the person who wrote this statement to tour our campus and our May 4 Visitors Center, which opened four years ago, to gain perspective on what happened 47 years ago and apply its meaning to the future.”

Adamini is the host of a political parody radio show, “In the Right Mind.”

Feature photo via Shutterstock