I really like this guy. Never met him so this isn’t personal, but I think he pretty consistently does a very good job at something the major media outlets never, ever do: Ask left-wing protesters to talk on camera. When you think about it, that’s a crucially important service the media provides the left. Because the left is great at street-theater and getting people to march and chant and carry signs for some cause or, more likely these days, against someone else. The major media will usually note the protest and the number of people who showed up and maybe include one quote from someone who claims to be a spokesperson. What they won’t do is just ask the protesters a few basic questions.

I suspect that’s because the cause would be diminished if the media bothered to stick a microphone in front of some of the protesters. If they did, they would learn that many of them have no idea what they are protesting or why. I’ve seen this myself. I was at the Occupy protests of CPAC, the one where Andrew Breitbart famously shouted that Occupy members should stop raping people. Most of the people there were bussed in SEIU union members who didn’t know the first thing about CPAC or what was going on inside. They were warm bodies there to provide a crowd for the cameras.

The other thing the major media would learn if it put a microphone in front of some of these protesters is that many of them have some pretty extreme ideas about any number of topics. Ask protesters at a Women’s March about the patriarchy or the idea that men and women are biologically different and see what happens. Ask Black Lives Matters protesters about the death of Sandra Bland or “Hands up don’t shoot” and see what they say. Or you could ask nearly any left-wing protester how they feel about free speech or capitalism or the police and you’ll get all sorts of creative answers that will almost never be heard on the evening news because it would distract from the canned message the organizers want the networks to deliver.

And of course, let’s not forget the small minority of left-wing protesters who are violent nuts looking for an excuse to pretend they are Che Guevara leading the glorious revolution. These people are not at all hard to find at left-wing protests but their violence rarely seems to filter up to the mainstream. So, for instance, the Antifa mob who attacked two Marines in Philadelphia in November. That attack came at a moment when the media was obsessed with political violence, but as far as I can tell CNN never published a story about the attack.

So Austen Fletcher aka Fleccas Talks does what the media will not. He asks the far left to talk on camera and, for the most part, just lets them roll their answers right into a ditch. It’s so simple and so effective you have to wonder why none of the serious reporters at major news organizations will do it. Here’s his collection of highlights from 2018: