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On a recent episode of The Five, Greg Gutfeld tore into the performative nature of modern left-wing protests, asking a blunt question few in mainstream media will touch: why are affluent, liberal white women so often placed front and center at demonstrations regardless of the cause? His comments, delivered as the panel dissected chaotic scenes and viral videos, struck a nerve because they exposed the cynicism behind much of what passes for activism today.
Gutfeld leaned on a term he’s used before to describe the phenomenon — AWFULs, shorthand for affluent white female liberals — arguing these protesters are intentionally used as visual props to maximize sympathy and media optics. That shorthand has appeared repeatedly in his commentary, and it crystallizes a larger conservative critique: politics has become theater, with optics trumping substance.
The segment came amid outrage over a catastrophic ICE-related shooting that left a Minneapolis mother dead, an incident that sent politicians, pundits, and protesters into predictable rounds of grandstanding while investigators still piece together the facts. Gutfeld urged caution about rushing to criminal conclusions and instead blasted the spectacle, suggesting organizers deliberately manufacture moments that inflame emotions and fuel unrest.
Conservatives should welcome the question Gutfeld raised because it forces a reckoning with how the left packages grief and outrage into political leverage. When every camera-ready protest features the same look — saccharine sympathy served up by people with the time and resources to stage dramatic confrontations — it’s fair to ask who benefits and at what cost to public order. No amount of sanctimony from elites should silence common-sense scrutiny of tactics that too often substitute sentiment for solutions.
Mainstream outlets predictably recoiled, attacking the messenger rather than parsing the message, which only proves the point: institutions invested in a narrative will defend the machinery that keeps that narrative alive. Critics called Gutfeld’s phrasing crude, but the reaction masks the more important debate about whether we are witnessing spontaneous civic engagement or orchestrated political theater. The public deserves straight answers, not moral preening from people who profit from chaos.
There’s a darker angle Gutfeld warned about — that manufactured spectacles aren’t merely about headlines but about political extortion, creating crises that demand political responses favorable to one party. If political activists and sympathetic officials can turn tragedy into leverage, then accountability and law enforcement become casualties of a campaign to reshape public opinion by spectacle. Conservatives must insist on sober investigations and resist letting emotion become the substitute for evidence.
At the end of the day, this is about defending institutions and common sense against a culture that rewards performative outrage while the rest of the country pays the price. Ask the hard questions, demand real investigations, and stop letting choreographed moments hijack policy and justice. If the left wants to be taken seriously, it should stop treating our streets like stages and start offering real remedies instead of rehearsed grief.
