This year NPR decided to switch up its longstanding July Fourth tradition of reading the Declaration of Independence on air, and some people got really offended — they thought it was a call to revolution.Instead of having its hosts and reporters read aloud the historic document on “Morning Edition,” NPR tweeted out the entire text in more than 100 tweets, prompting a rash of fierce responses from people who didn’t recognize the words out of context. Some apparently thought the left-leaning public media outlet was subtweeting the president.
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That initially offended user later apologized for not realizing it was the Founding Fathers’ document.But another called it “trash” and referenced the Trump budget proposal to stop federal funding of the national network.
Multiple commenting handles have since been deleted, but Parker Molloy, a writer for Upworthy, immortalized the range of responses via her own Twitter.
An earlier commentator, the 16th president of the United States, Abraham Lincoln, called the document “a rebuke and a stumbling block to tyranny and oppression.”Correction: An earlier version of this story misidentified Parker Malloy as a man.