David Hogg Under Attack

High+school+student+and+mass+shooting+survivor%2C%0A+David+Hogg%2C+is+under+attack+from+right+wing+critics.%0A

Courtesy of SOPA Images

High school student and mass shooting survivor, David Hogg, is under attack from right wing critics.

Amanda Chung, Photojournalist

It has been almost three months sinces the horrific events that occured in Parkland, Florida on February 14, but the survivors of Stoneman Douglas High School have yet to step down from the limelight. These teenagers continue their outspoken advocacy for gun control, and their liberal political views in regards to the Second Amendment is the reason why the right wing media are criticizing them.

David Hogg, a senior at Stoneman Douglas and an organizer of March for Our Lives, has been particularly picked on in the last couple of weeks. On March 28, Laura Ingraham, a Fox News host, tweeted a link to an article from The Daily Wire about how “Hogg [got] rejected by four colleges to which he applied and whines about it.” On the same day, Hogg retorted with this tweet: 

He targeted her top advertisers and called for a boycott of her show, which turned out to be successful. Several of the advertisers on the list said they would dump Ingraham, including Expedia, Hulu, Johnson & Johnson, Nestle, Nutrish, Stitch Fix, TripAdvisor, and Wayfair (VOX). “As a company, we support open dialogue and debate on issues,” Jane Carpenter, Wayfair’s head of public relations, told CNBC. “However, the decision of an adult to personally criticize a high school student who has lost his classmates in an unspeakable tragedy is not consistent with our values.”

The next day, March 29, Ingraham issued a public apology on twitter, saying how she was sorry for “any upset or hurt my tweet caused him or any of the brave victims of Parkland” (VOX).

Unfortunately, this isn’t the only instance where Hogg has become a victim because of his beliefs. Right-wing online personality Frank Espinoza, created a target with Hogg’s face, which he then “shot 10 times with an apparent assault rifle” (Teen Vogue). He posted a video of the “target practice” on Twitter under the username @MagaFrank2, with the caption “Dear David Hogg.” In the video, he is wearing a black MAGA hat and says, “I got a message for David Hogg and b**ch a** CNN- You wanna push society towards a civil war? You wanna make us all fight? You wanna know what a civil war looks like? I’m going to show you what a civil war’s gonna look like.”

Ashley Bui-Tran (11) is disgusted by these attacks on the Parkland survivor. “These are fully grown adults attacking a high-schooler,” she says. “They are extremely unprofessional, and go too far when they attack Hogg personally and make his face ‘target practice.’”

Currently, David and his sister, Lauren Hogg, are working on a book titled“#NEVERAGAIN: A New Generation Draws the Line.” The book is set to be released on June 5,and the proceeds will to charity and community organizations (Time).