Do you think a horde of deluded Trump loyalists storming a federal building to overturn an election is a mirror image of the Black Lives Matter protests?

Reckon repeated medical misinformation from federal politicians should stay online, but shitposts from foreign officials should be removed from social media?

Are you unwilling to parse even the most basic contextual clues that differentiate one event from the next?

If you answered ‘Yes’ to the above, congratulations! Australia’s acting Prime Minister, Michael McCormack, feels the exact same way. You should also consider seeing a doctor.

Appearing on ABC News Breakfast Tuesday morning, McCormack repeated his recent claim that the US Capitol siege, and last year’s widespread Black Lives Matter demonstrations against racial inequality, were effectively the same thing.

“Any form of violence, any form of protest that ends in death and destruction is abhorred,” McCormack told host Georgie Tunny.

“I know this is very difficult for the United States as it goes through great change, but any form of protest, whether it’s a protest over racial rights, or indeed what we’ve seen on Capitol Hill in recent days, is condemned and is abhorred.”

One movement called for justice and change after the death of an unarmed Black man under the knee of a police officer, with protests worldwide resulting in overwhelming police blowback.

The other was fomented by disproven conspiracy theories and a sitting US President, whose tacit approval of White nationalism allowed the shitshow to kick off.

To her credit, Tunny teased out this crucial difference. But McCormack – seemingly without reflecting on ‘why’ or ‘how’ the above protests turned ugly – said both incidents should be “condemned.”

Protests bad, end of.

McCormack showed a similar lack of awareness when the conversation turned to online censorship. He reiterated his opinion that Twitter banning US President Donald Trump for implicitly promoting last week’s violence was a bad call, and when Tunny asked about Liberal MP Craig Kelly‘s history of using Facebook to promote disproven COVID-19 cures, McCormack said, “I don’t think we should have that sort of censorship in our society.”

But that one Chinese shitpost drawing attention to Australia’s alleged war crimes? That ought to have been stripped from Twitter, McCormack said.

“I mean really, that is not right,” he claimed.

If you want to indulge in McCormack’s pick-and-mix take on civil rights and censorship, cop the video below. We do urge you to seek medical attention, though:

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Image: ABC / Win McNamee / Getty Images