I really feel like I'm in a political minority here in that I agree with condemning the summer's violence and property crime, and also with this. (And, yes, I agree this is worse.) Maybe that's just the bubble I'm in, but this has not felt like a significant constituency.
I'm not on twitter! I mean, like, my very nice and not previously political in-laws who were talking about rioting as the language of the oppressed. I guess there's potentially a significant age component.
I think in June a lot of politicians took a moderate tone because they needed at least some cooperation from protestors in order to end the violence and looting. Even though that rhetoric kind of trickled down to ordinary people, I don't think there's actually a substantial pro-rioting constituency.
Interesting comment on the 538 blog (https://fivethirtyeight.com/live-blog/georgia-senate-election-results/#300872 ) which relates to this. Part of why people resisted public criticism of the summer protests is that the police response felt disproportionate, and they (we? I include myself) didn't want to sound like we were justifying that response:
Maggie Koerth: "It is difficult for me, as a reporter who was on the street during the protests in Minneapolis last summer, to not be comparing and contrasting police response to each set of protests. I am obviously not seeing everything going on there, but I haven’t seen police shooting less-lethal munitions, like beanbags or rubber bullets, at any of these people on the Capitol steps. Which is hard to square, emotionally, with things I saw in Minneapolis, like my reporting partner being shot in the face by a police projectile or a protester I was interviewing in an otherwise empty lot being shot in the leg with similar rounds by officers pushing back a far smaller group of protesters who were making much less contact with the officers. I’m certainly not the only reporter thinking about that.
On the other hand, we reported here at FiveThirtyEight over the summer about how those kinds of responses — which escalate tensions between police and protesters — don’t actually reduce violence and, in fact, increase the likelihood that protests will become more violent. So is a less-aggressive police response here evidence-based?
I struggle with this a bit. I, too, live in Minneapolis, and, like Maggie, was aghast at some of the police violence committed against protesters. The incident with the reporter that she alludes to was particularly brutal. And yet my takeaway from this summer was that, when there is even a *hint* that violence may erupt, police need to have a *large* presence from the get-go. (To be clear, large in terms of numbers, not use of force.)
Recall the Minneapolis third precinct police station arson, which is the incident that kicked off three nights of literal mayhem. There, the Mayor and Chief made a calculated decision to withdraw police, explicitly telling them *not* to engage with the protesters. The thinking was, if we don't rile them up, surely they'll just back down. Maybe take over the building and snap some righteous selfies, but nothing more. Instead the protesters burned down the station, and then proceeded to torch and loot city block after city block, which precipitated even more tense encounters when the police rushed to play catch-up (including the incident Maggie discusses above). It took two days and the national guard to bring things under control.
Likewise here. The DC Police (and perhaps the Mayor too) seemed to think, "well, if we have a large police presence, that'll just stir the MAGA pot up, and it'll risk more violence. Best to keep things chill." And this despite information suggesting this crowd could get out of control. Suffice it to say, it didn't go well. And the police shot and killed a protester, an event about which "Defund" advocates have had precious little to say.
Now compare these two incidents to Louisville post-Breonna Taylor charge decision. There, the police came out en masse the moment the non-charges were announced, in careful coordination with gov't authorities. The most dedicated protesters were still able to get out there (albeit in a constrained way), and social media went haywire, but Louisville remained standing, and no police or protesters were injured.
Anecdata, I realize. But I'm just losing faith that the most politically engaged (politically outraged?) in our society can be trusted to handle protesting unaccompanied. God willing with Trump out of office, and with new non-white leaders like Rev. Warnock and Kamala Harris at the helm, we can master once again the art of the (wholly) peaceful protest.
I don't know what the ideal police response is -- it's a tough question. But it was still obvious this summer that (a) there were many, many cases in which police were not responding well and (b) they were often in conflict with the political leadership.
Maggie Koerth has a post today on people collecting data about police response, which seems like an important step.
But in 2020, Kishi’s ACLED — a data-reporting project that began documenting armed conflicts and protests in African nations — extended its work into the United States. Using information gathered from local media, NGOs, individual journalists and partner organizations, ACLED researchers have catalogued months of detailed information about protests, including when clashes with law enforcement have happened and the type of force used by police. “We don’t necessarily have information on the number of Black vs. white protesters … but we do have a larger view,” Kishi said. “How is law enforcement responding to demonstrations associated with the Black Lives Matter movement versus demonstrations by the right wing … in support of [a] president that may or may not involve organized armed illegal groups?”
Maybe the weak crowd control was an attempt at maintaining calm, although that doesn't really track with me because it would have been backed by riot police on standby. I think what we saw was more like Charlottesville 2017, where armed groups came together promising violence and authorities basically shrugged it off as larping until the street fights started.
Capitol Police and all the myriad LE departments that should have been supporting them looked to be just totally unprepared for violence, and really need to evaluate why that happened.
Well, Biden gets it. Trump tried to gotcha him on this during the debates, and Biden said they should be prosecuted. Seems like a huge constituency to me - just not on Twitter.
Confessions of a former woke-ster here. I refused to condemn the looting and violence at the time because I was convinced that I, as a white person, was not capable of objective moral judgement of the behavior of groups composed largely of people of color; that I couldn’t be sure it wasn’t my anti-Black bias at play so best to err on the side of understanding and defending/ignoring. Took me a moderate mental breakdown to realize my entire identity was founded on a bizarrely skewed view of the world before the curtain fell.
***as a white person, was not capable of objective moral judgement of the behavior of groups composed largely of people of color***
I spent last summer in Seattle. Everybody I spoke with had more or less the same take on the (considerable) violent unrest there: "Mostly anarchistic white kids with lots of tattoos and nose-rings."
I'm not in a position to objectively judge the merits of this view (I stayed clear of CHAZ/CHOP until things quieted down), but that really did seem to be the consensus.
I’m working on a succinct way to share that story. Haven’t found it yet. How do you explain that everything you thought you knew for sure was either kinda wrong or very wrong? It gives me a lot of understanding for these crazies storming the Capitol (arguably, too much.)
Extremely similar, I bet. Wokeness is very much like a religion- it’s a form of transcendence and becomes the bedrock of all of your social connections. You can’t reason someone out of it with a clever social media post- you’re asking them to give up their sense of self and risk all of their friendships. And yet, I now see how dangerous it is to the moral fabric of society, so I do think people need to “wake up” from it. It won’t be easy though.
Marie thanks for sharing your experience. I know many people who are caught up in woke (critical theory) ideology to some degree and I have been trying to figure out how to reach them in an empathetic and cautious way. Do you have any tips or things that helped you escape wokeness that others could use in conversations with woke friends?
I don't know how to balance a feeling that you're right and a feeling that the constant murdering of innocent people that we're only just now becoming aware of by the police is a moral crime that's unspeakably evil to which it feels kind of impossible to overreact to.
Like how should we react to the fact that you and I employ a bunch of maniacs who sometimes have a bad day and kill someone for no reason and face no consequence and it's totally legal, acceptable behavior and that many of our citizens has sympathy for the maniacs.
I think that “constantly murdering” paradigm missed the mark so widely as to be wrong. There’s too much police violence. There’s also less now than ever before and so little in comparison to all the arrests made it’s virtually a rounding error. One preventable murder of an unarmed civilian is too much. And the optics are bad enough to destabilize a nation. But we need to be sanguine that we hear about them precisely because they’re rare, and that assuming “police are violent” because of the incidents that occur is akin to assuming air travel is rampantly dangerous because of the high profile crashes we see. Analogous cognitive bias.
(Usual Disclaimer - I say this as a liberal who dislikes Trump, agrees racism is a problem, etc)
I feel like the impunity is the problem not the deaths. If the police can kill you for the crime of sleeping in your bed then like it doesn't matter how many good things they do.
It's not the risk that bothers me it's that police officer I see on the road can be ready to shoot me like Philando Castile and there's no reason for them not to.
I don't understand why the number of police killings would matter. 1 is the same as everyone. The problem isn't that George Floyd is dead it's that we give the state the right to kill without cause.
“1 is the same as everyone” is one of the most brazenly wrong political statements I’ve heard in a long time outside of the right wing echo chamber. In a country of more than 300 million people with who knows how many hundreds of thousands or millions of police encounters a year, whether it is 1, 100, or 10,000 makes *all* the difference. It is the difference between a bad egg who should be prosecuted and a broken system.
What difference does it make? They can’t be prosecuted.
Seeing several of these on video, and then seeing that according to American law they did nothing wrong. If you are sitting in your car and a police officer shoots you dead for literally nothing that’s legal he did nothing wrong. Choke you to death nothing wrong. Shoot you lying in bed, nope nothing wrong. It’s enough that I’d almost rather be dead than live and prosper and do well with incredibly rare cases like this.
If conviction was the norm then I’d feel like we were in normal public policy trade offs.
I remind myself that a lot of people feel that way about things that I don't, and that having even a partly functional society means you work things out in other ways, and institutions are less robust than we think they are, and you can always make things worse.
It's a sad and pathetic moment for our country. That said, I think this will backfire massively on the Republican party. The rift between the pro-governance wing (Romney, Collins, Toomey) and the mad hyenas of Q-Anon and faction is going to get MUCH bigger. This will not help them in the suburbs. And it will have resounding effects for anyone who believes in the professionalism of government (even if they come from a right wing worldview). There is a revanchist faction that does not care for that, but I believe they will continue to be a minority. As purple district Republicans are pushed out by a mad primary system, I see them going into the wilderness for quite a few years until they elect a Charlie Baker / Larry Hogan type to lead them out.
2022 is going to be an absolute bloodbath in the suburbs. I'd be surprised if the Chamber of Commerce isn't a deep-blue organization within five to ten years.
100% agree. I have relatives that have never voted for Democrats, but they will not support this. It doesn't mean they go blue, but they will stay home more often... or go Libertarian. Either way, it erodes GOP influence.
But the Chamber of Commerce and other business organizations becoming blue would require the party to keep close to Biden's left, and nowhere near Elizabeth Warren's. That's why MY's graf about the left is so important. They have the power to destroy future Democratic majorities.
Yeah. It's going to be hard. But they have to stay the course with broadly popular ideas. Infrastructure alone, if done thoroughly, could last the entire Biden term. There are plenty of things. The most noisy parts of the left need to be patient and watch the Republicans destroy themselves. Unfortunately, if the left moves too quick, they will lose that opportunity.
Yeah, I think it will be very interesting to see what kind of natural rifts emerge as long as McConnell doesn't have control of the floor. I am sure the Democrats have a few tripwires they won't engage, but I am guessing there will be more legislation in the next few years. That is healthy. Could draw backlash, but the contrast will be stark.
We'll see. You would've thought the near depression that ensued on W. Bush's watch would have angered the country against against the GOP indefinitely. You might have thought the same thing about 911 (happened on W. Bush's watch). Let's hope Fed tightening in 2022 doesn't precipitate major market losses and a cooling economy. I'm not confident in the rationality (or memory) of the American electorate.
Yeah, if you would have asked me even a week ago I would have thought that Josh Hawley was a leading candidate to take the populist mantle from Trump and win in 2024. Not after this...in my dreams he would be punished by the Senate along with Cruz but don't see that happening. The punishment will have to come from not realizing his ambitions.
I think this may be a bit bullish on hopes for Democrats. I would say all this fades away from memory given 2 weeks (a month tops) especially with new president. I think the most likely political effect on elections from today will be approximately nothing.
Maybe - but I think it stays associated with the Trump brand for longer than that, and the Trump brand is still going to have some importance in politics for at least another cycle
I hope this will happen. In the grim game of "how will the administration end?" back in 2017 I thought the answer was: Trump would start spying on Republicans in Congress and Congress (Republicans) would finally get the guts to stand up to him. I am very glad that didn't happen (I underestimated the independence of the intelligence community) but this seems to rise to that.
Here's hoping for an impeachment, and a conviction in the Senate this time. I really, really hope the 15 or so GOP Senators required have finally gotten the message, and we can put an end to Trump 2024. That's the biggest threat to democracy going forward. (Unfortunately we may not be able to do anything about Cruz.)
If the senate has the guts to do that, they may actually save the Republican brand in the near-term (not save for us, but for the center-right types). If they don't, they are choosing the wilderness path. It will take a few elections, but the Trump-endorsed primary challengers will have base fuel, but they would lose in the suburbs of Oklahoma City. Let alone Nassau or Fairfax county.
"If they don't, they are choosing the wilderness path."
But that's assuming Trump can't win in 2024, or that Cruz can't. They are both extremely dangerous and anything can happen. Again, I really, really hope you're right ...
I'm actually very bearish on a Trump-style populist like Cruz's chances for the simple reason that Trump hates sharing the spotlight. Trump would absolutely sabotage a populist, QAnon-sympathetic Cruz before it got going
This seems basically impossible to me. Trump is still by far the most popular figure among Republicans. Saying no to a crazy, ineffectual, unpopular coup attempt is one thing, impeach is another, much less likely thing, entirely.
I hope that this event means that Josh Hawley has overplayed his hand because his weird brand of right wing populism makes me ready to more deeply consider Calexit. The victories in Georgia are such a balm and they really seem to point a way forward. I hope that a lot of the folks who are caught up in these fever dreams have some regrets about what is transpiring today and that it helps the fever to break.
I was on board for California exit going back to the Bush years and nothing that has occurred since then – including 2008 through 2016 - has changed my mind.
Please don't abandon the rest of us to be governed by the deplorables. I already face it in my state government - I don't want my national government to be irredeemable as well.
I try to be specific and literal (rather than colloquial) when using legally defined terms like “sedition” but to my non-lawyer eyes it sure seems like this fits under 18 U.S. Code § 2384 - Seditious conspiracy:
“If two or more persons in any State or Territory, or in any place subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, conspire to overthrow, put down, or to destroy by force the Government of the United States, or to levy war against them, or to oppose by force the authority thereof, or by force to prevent, hinder, or delay the execution of any law of the United States, or by force to seize, take, or possess any property of the United States contrary to the authority thereof, they shall each be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both.”
This is sedition. I was against the summer riots, but this is so much worse. These people should have been fired upon when they attempted to breach the Capitol.
I might be in the minority on this but I really do not think shooting them would be good, acceptable, or even efficacious. The protestors were of course horrible, but in my opinion avoiding deaths is good, even if the people in question did something bad. Not to mention some people dying could have sparked a whole new, larger group.
Fired upon, yes, but since it looks like they were naturally bottlenecked I would’ve liked to see some kind of riot foam deployed unless lethal force was absolutely necessary. Just think of the pictures and headlines if these people had been splooged into submission.
My understanding is that when the National Guard is activated in a state, the decision is made by the governor of the state. But when it is activated in DC, the decision is made by the President. It sounds like Mike Pence approved their activation after repeated requests from the DC Mayor yesterday afternoon, but all reports I saw said it was unclear why Trump hadn't been involved in the decision, if indeed he wasn't.
It is morally reprehensible and misleading to draw any sort of equivalence between what happened today and progressives' hesitation to condemn rare instances of violence from people who were themselves victims of far more concerning and systematic police violence over the summer.
How can you possibly say the people doing the looting this summer where themselves victims of police? You have no idea if that’s the case. You’re simply racially profiling.
The protests -- even the peaceful ones (which were the vast majority of the protests) -- were met with police in riot gear, rubber bullets, tear gas, etc.
The point is that the police response to the protests this summer was far more violent than the protests themselves, leading many people to hesitate to draw focus to the violence of the protesters and away from the violence of the police. There is no equivalent justification for failing to condemn today's violence.
Lol it's possible he has switched parties by now (for obvious reasons) but that guy was a republican when he began posting those videos, and I think the videos speak for themselves. In this case, I don't think I'm the one in a bubble...
Matt, I think you're being a little kind to the Capitol Police here. Yes, it seems like there was a failure by management to deploy them adequately, but in the face of rioters who ignored their orders, they seem to have often done nothing but fall back. From the photographs it really doesn't seem that there were that many people.
It took until they were at the door of the house chamber before anyone planted their feet and said we will shoot you if you come in here. In the senate they failed completely. When there's footage out there of cops joking around and taking selfies with people inside the house, there needs to be reckoning on their utter refusal to do their job.
After this photo was taken these guys ended up in the senate chamber. The police had sufficient resources here to put these guys in cuffs. Instead they handled them with kid gloves.
"The police had sufficient resources here to put these guys in cuffs."
From my POV, this seems wrong. The police did not seem to have enough resources to spend time arresting every single person in the capital. They let them in the Senate chamber once the Senators were evacuated, but when the House members hadn't evacuated, the police were ready to massacre the rioters...that's what it's in the top photo of this post
To my understanding these pictures are relatively early in the day. The senate door is behind this picture and there were still senators in there. These were the first guys to get that far (and I haven't seen any pictures of people in the senate chamber that aren't in this picture.)
If you follow the thread downward you can see what lead up to this - one unsupported cop keeps understandably moving back, the point where these photos are is when he finds a support and it turns into a stalemate.
Maybe they could have arrested them. Maybe they could have pushed them back with batons. But their job was to do *something* more than walk backwards while shouting.
What's the point of America's massive police force and all of its commensurate problems if you can just disrupt our democratic procedures and the cops will barely even resist?
Arrests take time and take a cop or two to actually do! It didn't seem like the type of situation where a couple cops should leave the scene to make arrests and take them to the station. It was an all-hands-on-deck situation--at least that's what it seemed like to me
Like I said, I'm not going to strongly argue that they could have gotten all of them in cuffs, I'm not a cop.
But it seems like more was called for that standing around talking to them. They have guns and batons and tasers and pepper spray. If this were a blm crowd they'd have been going hog wild with those.
I believe they were inside the capitol. My assumption without anything to back it up is that he knew where there were other police and was understandably heading in that direction.
Be curious to see if we have someone with experience here that could comment but I'm skeptical they could've done it without a high risk of escalating things to gunfire.
I am disgusted by some of the comments I’m seeing here. How the hell can you compare people protesting for criminal justice reform, even if some were excessive, with violent insurrectionists attempting to seize the US Capitol??
It became fashionable for a time this spring and summer to post about that MLK quote about riots as the voice of the unheard, but without the full context:
“And I would be the first to say that I am still committed to militant, powerful, massive, non-violence as the most potent weapon in grappling with the problem from a direct action point of view. I'm absolutely convinced that a riot merely intensifies the fears of the white community while relieving the guilt. And I feel that we must always work with an effective, powerful weapon and method that brings about tangible results. But it is not enough for me to stand before you tonight and condemn riots. It would be morally irresponsible for me to do that without, at the same time, condemning the contingent, intolerable conditions that exist in our society. These conditions are the things that cause individuals to feel that they have no other alternative than to engage in violent rebellions to get attention.”
And so yes, committing violence is bad. But come on, look at the conditions that underly the two causes here. On one hand, you have minorities protesting the conditions of violence that have been inflicted on them. On the other hand, you have delusional chauvinists antithetically opposed to the democratic process.
And look at the magnitudes here!! The protests of the summer were largely peaceful, but some did result in property damage. At worst there was what, a handful of people that tried to damage a courthouse? These people today SIEZED THE US CAPITOL BUILDING. Any suggestion of equivalence is grossly misguided.
My only question from today is how to beat punish every single person who participated in today’s invasion. Personally, I want to see them hit with the maximum possible penalties possible, up to life in prison if possible. But we don’t want to make them into martyrs, so maybe just a sedition charge or something. But they MUST be punished harshly.
And of course, if our congress had any decency, Trump would be impeached by the end of tomorrow.
Nobody ever riots because they think they’re on the wrong side of history. The people breaking into the Senate think they’re justified too.
For both moral and practical purposes, protests must be peaceful. And yes, that can be very difficult! My group organized a thirty thousand person march, and we had tons of trained volunteers as “de-escalators.”
We had another huge march later, and a much smaller one in a neighboring district got all the press coverage because a couple antifa assholes punched some reporters. All the hard work of tens of thousands of people, wiped away by a couple wannabe revolutionaries.
And I totally agree with what you said! I’m sure *they think* they’re correct. But I think anyone reasonable can clearly that they very clearly are not. And we have to be able to enforce the laws that say what we deem to be acceptable!
And yes, I agree that protests should be peaceful! The work you’ve done in ensuring that your protests were peaceful is admirable. But I’m just saying that to equate the two protests, or even the types of violent outcomes we’ve seen, is simply unreasonable. Their motivations, their originators, their implications, are clearly different. A ‘both sides’ approach here is absurd.
That’s the contradiction of pluralism. We have rules about how to handle unresolvable differences. When Trump was legally elected, we peacefully protested for seventeen days. If Biden’s election were overturned, I sure hope we’d be out there, and I suspect there’d be some violence (but vigorously denounced by Biden).
We’ve also had anti-vaxxer protests in California, which I **vehemently** disagree with, and I think what they are advocating for is dangerous. But they still have a right to protest (they threw menstrual blood on people, which they did not have a right to do).
Yeah, I think we’re agreeing? I’m drawing a distinction between the people who were just there protesting in general, and the smaller subset who broke into the Capitol. The former should not suffer any legal repercussions; it’s a clear execution of their 1A rights, even if I certainly find their position dumb, distasteful, and anti democratic.
However, the ones who seized the Capitol absolutely deserve the most effective punishment we can. Idk, I’m not usually a fan of ‘punitive punishment as deterrence’ for everyday crimes, and I hope we can avoid turning them into MAGA Martyrs, but *something* must be done to show how unacceptable it is to do this. They went well beyond any reasonable exercise of the first amendment.
"When you adjust for the totally normal and acceptable fact that cops harass black people more than white people, they use an unjustified level of force on both ethnic groups equally."
I want to agree with you, but I've been convinced by those who say that the national media grossly underplayed the level of death and destruction that occurred alongside the protests this summer, and I think it's actually you who has got the magnitudes reversed. See this, for example: https://www.axios.com/riots-cost-property-damage-276c9bcc-a455-4067-b06a-66f9db4cea9c.html
Frankly, I think all that "voice of the unheard" shit is giving away too much moral ground. What does looting a Target have to do with racial justice? Leftists should have been united in vehemently denouncing rioters, just as we often saw happening on the ground. How many videos did we see this summer depicting black activists begging anarchists not to destroy shit? If anyone was in need of cancellation this summer it was the "In Defense of Looting" author.
I sympathize with the valence of your response, but I think it's counterproductive. Whataboutism is pointless. Bad things are bad, even when placed next to worse things.
***How the hell can you compare people protesting for criminal justice reform, even if some were excessive, with violent insurrectionists attempting to seize the US Capitol??***
Because they (those protestors who went beyond mere peaceful marches in favor of looting/destruction/arson etc) have something in common with Trump's thugs (violence).
I'm skeptical of "throw the book at them." I think you get diminishing deterrence benefit, and if people like me (on the left) call for strong penalties when our general political view is that the US is over-incarcerated, it communicates that this is about pay-back and retribution, not justice. I think something more measured would be consensus for a much wider group of Americans - particularly because rioting isn't going to sit well with some people on the right.
Not entirely sure what others are saying but in my opinion the comparisons aren't between the Capitol riots and BLM Protestors. They should be specific to BLM-associated people or groups who engaged in acts of violence, looting and vandalism. It's completely wrong to break into congress and it probably is a more serious crime like sedition. But it's also wrong (and not helpful to BLM's cause) to burn down a Wendy's because a police office shot someone in their parking lot the night before. Some kind of comparison can be made there
I'm skeptical of "throw the book at them." I think you get diminishing deterrence benefit, and if people like me (on the left) call for strong penalties when our general political view is that the US is over-incarcerated, it communicates that this is about pay-back and retribution, not justice. I think something more measured would be consensus for a much wider group of Americans - particularly because rioting isn't going to sit well with some people on the right.
"And I hope that progressives will recognize the overwhelming importance of securing those wins, and be willing to make whatever concessions to the moderates are necessary to make them comfortable with taking those steps. It’s progressives more than anyone else who’ve recognized the danger of the moment we’re in today and hav been in for years. But part of recognizing the danger is prioritizing victory. Some issues just aren’t winners, especially given the slanted nature of America’s political geography. And to win — fair and square and without mob violence — is critically important right now. More so than making edgy or self-indulgent statements."
This is extremely important. The Republic is riding on it. We may not be able to get Manchin and others to change (though there's hope after today) but we can make sure that progressives aren't a millstone around the Democrats' necks by changing messaging and emphasis and agreeing that compromise is a fundamental part of democracy.
By not being dumb liberals who call themselves socialists - the worst possible branding in US politics - only because they don't know what socialism is.
By emphasizing what can get passed in Congress (whether by raw votes or persuasion to get the raw votes) rather than shibboleths and posing.
By not demonizing their own allies and describing any compromise - a basic element of any democracy - as treason or corruption or whatever.
So this is an unpopular take on today's insanity but I'm sticking with it and losing friends to the left and right. Trump deserves maximum blame for this fiasco without question, but I do question how much if any guilt should be apportioned to the rioters. It's all very theoretical, but I have to assume that the large majority of these rioters aren't thinking gee I wish Biden hadn't won, I'm going to go take over the capitol. That's a really big and dangerous step. Instead, I think they are, not unreasonably, taking their lead from the leader of their country and whatever talking heads they take their guidance from, that the election was stolen and it's their patriotic duty to right this wrong. It seems like a similar motivation to the crowds that overthrew governments in Russia, Eastern Europe and the Middle East. They're being stupid but patriotic in their own bizarre minds. As a counterfactual, what if the election really were stolen, which was usually the case in the countries I mentioned previously? As a lone rioter you don't have access to any firsthand information one way or another. But if your political leader, your opinion leaders, and all the people you know and trust are saying it was stolen, then it's not a bad thing to act on it. In fact, it would be a very good thing and a last ditch attempt to maintain a functional democracy.
I hate Trump and all he stands for, but I just think his misguided followers deserve some sort of benefit of the doubt assuming they do in fact believe the election was stolen and was really a Trump landslide. Going easy on them might encourage future craziness, but I'm genuinely torn as to what I'd do with them right now.
A protest is one thing, but Trump didn't direct them into the rotunda or into Pelosi's office. They knew what they were doing. And when they are blubbering at their sentencing hearing how they are good family men and women, the judge can maybe knock a couple months off of their sentences.
I think they should be arrested, since they did break and enter government buildings. However, I think you're right that we do have to be careful how we look at rioters, and even more so, how we look at Trump supporters. The vast majority of people think they're acting for the good of the country. We should denounce them, but also try to convince them...
More than one of them were carrying Confederate flags and at least a few of them set up a noose and gallows on the Capitol grounds. Idiocy is also not a defense for those that aren't outright white supremacists. So anytime someone's candidate doesn't win they get the benefit of the doubt that they thought election was stolen? Madness.
Agreed, and I think this distinction gets lost but my original comment was saying that motivation matters. Proud Boys and their ilk probably are just looking for a fight and to overturn a fair election. The Qanon crazies though probably believe they are genuinely defending the country and I think should be treated differently. (And I don't know the details of what Qanon believe so that might not have been a good example)
That makes sense to me. I don't really know what QAnon people believe either, but I wouldn't be surprised if many serious Q followers have some kind of untreated mental illness or major hole in their life.
I'm sure all the SS troopers though they were "acting for the good of the country." These people are The Enemy. It's too bad we let their traitor ancestors off the hook 150 years ago.
I think the broad middle politically speaking who say they support or at least understand BLM but don't like violent protests are the key. They don't like violent protests, period.
Which reminds me: BLM's ability to swing a huge number of people to recognize police killings of unarmed blacks as injustice was an amazing coup - one for the history books and one I hope lasts. There's some optimism for you on such a dark day.
I think the people who breached the Capitol should be tried to the fullest extent of the law, up to and including sedition. I can, at the same time, do a thought experiment and remember how I felt in the aftermath of the 2016 election- that it had to be rigged, it couldn't be true, and the stake of the country was at risk. If Hillary Clinton and prominent Democrats spent 2 months telling me that it was a fraud, the Russians had outright stolen the election, and the future of the country were at stake- who knows what I would have felt justified in doing. Not breaching the Capitol, but certainly protesting outside of it. I still think people should be held accountable for their choices, but I can at the same time imagine what might drive them to make those (poor) choices.
I couldn’t believe that enough people would vote for Trump, the margins were so razor thin, and I was in total denial that he could actually become president. Weren’t most Democrats?
This just isn’t an acceptable way to adjudicate an election. The whole point of elections is to peacefully transfer power. Republicans were there when the votes were counted and Trump had the opportunity to bring his voter fraud claims to court. Those are the avenues you get to try.
The key sentences in your post I disagree with are “it's not a bad thing to act on it. In fact, it would be a very good thing”. There’s ultimately no better way to know whether Biden “really” stole the election, so everyone has to live with the results of the process.
I think this is kinda similar to how the justice system doesn’t (and can’t) guarantee that it finds the truth, only that you get a fair trial.
Every single one of these traitors, whether they came there planning to do it or not, needs to be arrested and chucked away in a supermax forever. As a reminder to the rest of the evolutionary U-turns that it's time for them to go.
Your point reminds me of the guy who took a gun into Comet Pizza in DC. What he did was clearly wrong, but he seems to be the one person who was willing to act on his beliefs!
I was just thinking about him, and he seems to have felt genuine remorse for what he did after he understood that he'd been duped. I'd love to have the same sort of spark go off in the minds of the duped protesters but that seems pretty unlikely.
Clearly the mob today is justified at stopping the certification of Joe Biden’s election victory, damaging the capitol building, etc because Antifa/BLM riots bad.
They should reread Matt’s post because he does not draw that kind of equivalence and, although not hyperbolic like most of the media right now, is pretty clear that he sees the treatment of today’s “protesters” as quite different from the treatment of left wing protesters.
He calls it a putsch and an insurrection. He notes that the national guard was deployed in force in June and even includes a helpful picture. I think we need to take the following point more seriously and quit lumping (or pretending) Matt in with the false equivalency crowd.
“If this goes down in the books as a fun day at the zoo for the people involved, we will see more of it. Especially because given what we know of the partisan makeup of American police forces, the odds will always be that mobs of this sort tend to get kinder treatment than leftwing mobs.”
When people were talking today about law enforcement against the rioters, I was thinking about George Washington and the whiskey rebellion. Deterrence can be important but if it goes too far it can slow down the process of healing and moving on.
More damaging that the riot rhetoric is the "corporate Democrats are like Republicans" and whatnot. No one on the left should blur the line between what the GOP has fomented and any Democrat.
I’m guessing some of the comments this thread make the case for your distaste for comment sections. Some appear to be arguing forfascism with a friendly face. In Singapore, it is a crime to chew gumorwear your hair long.
I don't see it as trolling. Raises some good points that aren't necessarily being refuted. FWIW I think a lot of good points are being raised by everyone, and it's a productive conversation. It's easy enough to disengage if you're over it.
So far the best thing about this comment section, as opposed to place like the NYTs or left-wing twitter, is that it's less of an echo chamber. It's ok to disagree and even to think someone is so wrong that you don't respect their arguments. But I think there's a lot of value in actually having these debates play out, saying your piece, and then disengaging if it's not working for you.
Obviously there are trolls (I think the name was Galleta or something?) and you have to draw the line somewhere, but this is far from that place.
One thing I find very frustrating in discussing the events of last summer is that I have nothing like a quantitative scale of what happened - how many people were involved, how many injuries were caused by participants, how many injuries were caused by police, how many buildings were damaged; and most importantly, I have even *less* information about any other potentially comparable events, like the 2017 women's march, various marches and/or riots in 1965 or 1968, events in other countries. Everything I've seen in any news outlet seems woefully incomplete and/or anecdotal, so all I can see is people reporting what they want to report about whether any events last summer were actually destructive.
I see someone's been going through this thread posting a link to a quantification of the insured property losses due to events of May 26-June 8 in the low ten figure range (https://www.axios.com/riots-cost-property-damage-276c9bcc-a455-4067-b06a-66f9db4cea9c.html) which is definitely a helpful start. But it's really hard for me to tell how to compare that to even Rodney King in 1992, because I don't know whether more or fewer businesses carry the relevant kind of insurance, so I can't tell if this is a large or small figure.
The underdiscussed consequence of liberal participation in the erosion of norms that promote lawlessness is that given the partisan makeup of police forces, it'll make it increasingly less likely that they'll actively intervene to protect Democratic lawmakers.
I'm fearful that an erosion of norms of civility that lead to a woman in pussyhat yelling at a Republican official at lunch or small groups of anti-police brutality demonstrators standing outside the Mayor's house, being viewed as acceptable, will lead to armed neckbearded men yelling at Democrats in restaurants and camping outside their homes.
I think it might be worth acknowledging that the majority of protests this past spring were peaceful (and often met with violence by law enforcement) and were made in the name of democracy and of equal justice under the law. no comparison in any way to what is happening today.
I think that's a tough sell when you have videos of people lighting buildings on fire.
To clarify, I agree that what's happening today is much worse, but "mostly peaceful" just sounds like a way to sidestep condemning the actual violence that occurred.
We have negativity bias. One burning police car negates 5,000 peaceful marchers. And the ongoing siege of the Portland police station was not conducted by people who want a stronger democracy. They were assholes who enjoy breaking stuff.
One thing to note, BLM/antifa wouldn’t be caught dead wearing Biden/Harris merch, while Proud Boys, etc, all wear MAGA hats. We can and should speak out against our own violent fringe.
I really feel like I'm in a political minority here in that I agree with condemning the summer's violence and property crime, and also with this. (And, yes, I agree this is worse.) Maybe that's just the bubble I'm in, but this has not felt like a significant constituency.
I think this is actually really normal and widespread view that is just underrepresented in the hot house of social media!
And let’s face it, our prestige news publications.
I think this is most people, and the only reason it doesn’t feel that way is “Twitter is not real life”. The most extreme people shout the loudest.
I'm not on twitter! I mean, like, my very nice and not previously political in-laws who were talking about rioting as the language of the oppressed. I guess there's potentially a significant age component.
I think in June a lot of politicians took a moderate tone because they needed at least some cooperation from protestors in order to end the violence and looting. Even though that rhetoric kind of trickled down to ordinary people, I don't think there's actually a substantial pro-rioting constituency.
I don't necessarily disagree, but that's an extremely small number of people. I don't think it extends much beyond that group.
Interesting comment on the 538 blog (https://fivethirtyeight.com/live-blog/georgia-senate-election-results/#300872 ) which relates to this. Part of why people resisted public criticism of the summer protests is that the police response felt disproportionate, and they (we? I include myself) didn't want to sound like we were justifying that response:
Maggie Koerth: "It is difficult for me, as a reporter who was on the street during the protests in Minneapolis last summer, to not be comparing and contrasting police response to each set of protests. I am obviously not seeing everything going on there, but I haven’t seen police shooting less-lethal munitions, like beanbags or rubber bullets, at any of these people on the Capitol steps. Which is hard to square, emotionally, with things I saw in Minneapolis, like my reporting partner being shot in the face by a police projectile or a protester I was interviewing in an otherwise empty lot being shot in the leg with similar rounds by officers pushing back a far smaller group of protesters who were making much less contact with the officers. I’m certainly not the only reporter thinking about that.
On the other hand, we reported here at FiveThirtyEight over the summer about how those kinds of responses — which escalate tensions between police and protesters — don’t actually reduce violence and, in fact, increase the likelihood that protests will become more violent. So is a less-aggressive police response here evidence-based?
..."
I struggle with this a bit. I, too, live in Minneapolis, and, like Maggie, was aghast at some of the police violence committed against protesters. The incident with the reporter that she alludes to was particularly brutal. And yet my takeaway from this summer was that, when there is even a *hint* that violence may erupt, police need to have a *large* presence from the get-go. (To be clear, large in terms of numbers, not use of force.)
Recall the Minneapolis third precinct police station arson, which is the incident that kicked off three nights of literal mayhem. There, the Mayor and Chief made a calculated decision to withdraw police, explicitly telling them *not* to engage with the protesters. The thinking was, if we don't rile them up, surely they'll just back down. Maybe take over the building and snap some righteous selfies, but nothing more. Instead the protesters burned down the station, and then proceeded to torch and loot city block after city block, which precipitated even more tense encounters when the police rushed to play catch-up (including the incident Maggie discusses above). It took two days and the national guard to bring things under control.
Likewise here. The DC Police (and perhaps the Mayor too) seemed to think, "well, if we have a large police presence, that'll just stir the MAGA pot up, and it'll risk more violence. Best to keep things chill." And this despite information suggesting this crowd could get out of control. Suffice it to say, it didn't go well. And the police shot and killed a protester, an event about which "Defund" advocates have had precious little to say.
Now compare these two incidents to Louisville post-Breonna Taylor charge decision. There, the police came out en masse the moment the non-charges were announced, in careful coordination with gov't authorities. The most dedicated protesters were still able to get out there (albeit in a constrained way), and social media went haywire, but Louisville remained standing, and no police or protesters were injured.
Anecdata, I realize. But I'm just losing faith that the most politically engaged (politically outraged?) in our society can be trusted to handle protesting unaccompanied. God willing with Trump out of office, and with new non-white leaders like Rev. Warnock and Kamala Harris at the helm, we can master once again the art of the (wholly) peaceful protest.
I don't know what the ideal police response is -- it's a tough question. But it was still obvious this summer that (a) there were many, many cases in which police were not responding well and (b) they were often in conflict with the political leadership.
Maggie Koerth has a post today on people collecting data about police response, which seems like an important step.
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-polices-tepid-response-to-the-capitol-breach-wasnt-an-aberration/
But in 2020, Kishi’s ACLED — a data-reporting project that began documenting armed conflicts and protests in African nations — extended its work into the United States. Using information gathered from local media, NGOs, individual journalists and partner organizations, ACLED researchers have catalogued months of detailed information about protests, including when clashes with law enforcement have happened and the type of force used by police. “We don’t necessarily have information on the number of Black vs. white protesters … but we do have a larger view,” Kishi said. “How is law enforcement responding to demonstrations associated with the Black Lives Matter movement versus demonstrations by the right wing … in support of [a] president that may or may not involve organized armed illegal groups?”
Maybe the weak crowd control was an attempt at maintaining calm, although that doesn't really track with me because it would have been backed by riot police on standby. I think what we saw was more like Charlottesville 2017, where armed groups came together promising violence and authorities basically shrugged it off as larping until the street fights started.
Capitol Police and all the myriad LE departments that should have been supporting them looked to be just totally unprepared for violence, and really need to evaluate why that happened.
Well, Biden gets it. Trump tried to gotcha him on this during the debates, and Biden said they should be prosecuted. Seems like a huge constituency to me - just not on Twitter.
You really are a troll.
Confessions of a former woke-ster here. I refused to condemn the looting and violence at the time because I was convinced that I, as a white person, was not capable of objective moral judgement of the behavior of groups composed largely of people of color; that I couldn’t be sure it wasn’t my anti-Black bias at play so best to err on the side of understanding and defending/ignoring. Took me a moderate mental breakdown to realize my entire identity was founded on a bizarrely skewed view of the world before the curtain fell.
***as a white person, was not capable of objective moral judgement of the behavior of groups composed largely of people of color***
I spent last summer in Seattle. Everybody I spoke with had more or less the same take on the (considerable) violent unrest there: "Mostly anarchistic white kids with lots of tattoos and nose-rings."
I'm not in a position to objectively judge the merits of this view (I stayed clear of CHAZ/CHOP until things quieted down), but that really did seem to be the consensus.
I felt free to judge the hell out of the white kids. (This is where the “anti-racism is the new racism” argument really becomes clear)
Very interested in that story. But if it’s traumatic don’t relate it just on my account
I’m working on a succinct way to share that story. Haven’t found it yet. How do you explain that everything you thought you knew for sure was either kinda wrong or very wrong? It gives me a lot of understanding for these crazies storming the Capitol (arguably, too much.)
Possibly a bit similar to my realization that my all-encompassing evangelical worldview that I knew for sure was right my entire life was very wrong.
Extremely similar, I bet. Wokeness is very much like a religion- it’s a form of transcendence and becomes the bedrock of all of your social connections. You can’t reason someone out of it with a clever social media post- you’re asking them to give up their sense of self and risk all of their friendships. And yet, I now see how dangerous it is to the moral fabric of society, so I do think people need to “wake up” from it. It won’t be easy though.
Marie thanks for sharing your experience. I know many people who are caught up in woke (critical theory) ideology to some degree and I have been trying to figure out how to reach them in an empathetic and cautious way. Do you have any tips or things that helped you escape wokeness that others could use in conversations with woke friends?
I don't know how to balance a feeling that you're right and a feeling that the constant murdering of innocent people that we're only just now becoming aware of by the police is a moral crime that's unspeakably evil to which it feels kind of impossible to overreact to.
Like how should we react to the fact that you and I employ a bunch of maniacs who sometimes have a bad day and kill someone for no reason and face no consequence and it's totally legal, acceptable behavior and that many of our citizens has sympathy for the maniacs.
I think that “constantly murdering” paradigm missed the mark so widely as to be wrong. There’s too much police violence. There’s also less now than ever before and so little in comparison to all the arrests made it’s virtually a rounding error. One preventable murder of an unarmed civilian is too much. And the optics are bad enough to destabilize a nation. But we need to be sanguine that we hear about them precisely because they’re rare, and that assuming “police are violent” because of the incidents that occur is akin to assuming air travel is rampantly dangerous because of the high profile crashes we see. Analogous cognitive bias.
(Usual Disclaimer - I say this as a liberal who dislikes Trump, agrees racism is a problem, etc)
I feel like the impunity is the problem not the deaths. If the police can kill you for the crime of sleeping in your bed then like it doesn't matter how many good things they do.
It's not the risk that bothers me it's that police officer I see on the road can be ready to shoot me like Philando Castile and there's no reason for them not to.
I don't understand why the number of police killings would matter. 1 is the same as everyone. The problem isn't that George Floyd is dead it's that we give the state the right to kill without cause.
“1 is the same as everyone” is one of the most brazenly wrong political statements I’ve heard in a long time outside of the right wing echo chamber. In a country of more than 300 million people with who knows how many hundreds of thousands or millions of police encounters a year, whether it is 1, 100, or 10,000 makes *all* the difference. It is the difference between a bad egg who should be prosecuted and a broken system.
What difference does it make? They can’t be prosecuted.
Seeing several of these on video, and then seeing that according to American law they did nothing wrong. If you are sitting in your car and a police officer shoots you dead for literally nothing that’s legal he did nothing wrong. Choke you to death nothing wrong. Shoot you lying in bed, nope nothing wrong. It’s enough that I’d almost rather be dead than live and prosper and do well with incredibly rare cases like this.
If conviction was the norm then I’d feel like we were in normal public policy trade offs.
I remind myself that a lot of people feel that way about things that I don't, and that having even a partly functional society means you work things out in other ways, and institutions are less robust than we think they are, and you can always make things worse.
and, who often respond to peaceful protests with violence.
Why can't we just go to town hall meetings, discuss issues and vote?
I am quite confident that the vast majority of Americans feel similarly. Just not perhaps the most "political" ones.
With you
I think that's plurality view, but it's also the default, uninteresting view so it doesn't get the partisans worked up on social media.
+1.
It's a sad and pathetic moment for our country. That said, I think this will backfire massively on the Republican party. The rift between the pro-governance wing (Romney, Collins, Toomey) and the mad hyenas of Q-Anon and faction is going to get MUCH bigger. This will not help them in the suburbs. And it will have resounding effects for anyone who believes in the professionalism of government (even if they come from a right wing worldview). There is a revanchist faction that does not care for that, but I believe they will continue to be a minority. As purple district Republicans are pushed out by a mad primary system, I see them going into the wilderness for quite a few years until they elect a Charlie Baker / Larry Hogan type to lead them out.
2022 is going to be an absolute bloodbath in the suburbs. I'd be surprised if the Chamber of Commerce isn't a deep-blue organization within five to ten years.
100% agree. I have relatives that have never voted for Democrats, but they will not support this. It doesn't mean they go blue, but they will stay home more often... or go Libertarian. Either way, it erodes GOP influence.
The National Association of Manufacturers called the insurrectionists "Armed Thugs" in a statement today:
https://twitter.com/carlquintanilla/status/1346921397193494530
But the Chamber of Commerce and other business organizations becoming blue would require the party to keep close to Biden's left, and nowhere near Elizabeth Warren's. That's why MY's graf about the left is so important. They have the power to destroy future Democratic majorities.
Yeah. It's going to be hard. But they have to stay the course with broadly popular ideas. Infrastructure alone, if done thoroughly, could last the entire Biden term. There are plenty of things. The most noisy parts of the left need to be patient and watch the Republicans destroy themselves. Unfortunately, if the left moves too quick, they will lose that opportunity.
Frankly if the Pro-Governance GOP wing can dump the Grover Norquist orthodoxy, quite a bit can get done.
Yeah, I think it will be very interesting to see what kind of natural rifts emerge as long as McConnell doesn't have control of the floor. I am sure the Democrats have a few tripwires they won't engage, but I am guessing there will be more legislation in the next few years. That is healthy. Could draw backlash, but the contrast will be stark.
We'll see. You would've thought the near depression that ensued on W. Bush's watch would have angered the country against against the GOP indefinitely. You might have thought the same thing about 911 (happened on W. Bush's watch). Let's hope Fed tightening in 2022 doesn't precipitate major market losses and a cooling economy. I'm not confident in the rationality (or memory) of the American electorate.
Yeah, if you would have asked me even a week ago I would have thought that Josh Hawley was a leading candidate to take the populist mantle from Trump and win in 2024. Not after this...in my dreams he would be punished by the Senate along with Cruz but don't see that happening. The punishment will have to come from not realizing his ambitions.
I think this may be a bit bullish on hopes for Democrats. I would say all this fades away from memory given 2 weeks (a month tops) especially with new president. I think the most likely political effect on elections from today will be approximately nothing.
Maybe - but I think it stays associated with the Trump brand for longer than that, and the Trump brand is still going to have some importance in politics for at least another cycle
I hope this will happen. In the grim game of "how will the administration end?" back in 2017 I thought the answer was: Trump would start spying on Republicans in Congress and Congress (Republicans) would finally get the guts to stand up to him. I am very glad that didn't happen (I underestimated the independence of the intelligence community) but this seems to rise to that.
Here's hoping for an impeachment, and a conviction in the Senate this time. I really, really hope the 15 or so GOP Senators required have finally gotten the message, and we can put an end to Trump 2024. That's the biggest threat to democracy going forward. (Unfortunately we may not be able to do anything about Cruz.)
If the senate has the guts to do that, they may actually save the Republican brand in the near-term (not save for us, but for the center-right types). If they don't, they are choosing the wilderness path. It will take a few elections, but the Trump-endorsed primary challengers will have base fuel, but they would lose in the suburbs of Oklahoma City. Let alone Nassau or Fairfax county.
"If they don't, they are choosing the wilderness path."
But that's assuming Trump can't win in 2024, or that Cruz can't. They are both extremely dangerous and anything can happen. Again, I really, really hope you're right ...
I'm actually very bearish on a Trump-style populist like Cruz's chances for the simple reason that Trump hates sharing the spotlight. Trump would absolutely sabotage a populist, QAnon-sympathetic Cruz before it got going
This seems basically impossible to me. Trump is still by far the most popular figure among Republicans. Saying no to a crazy, ineffectual, unpopular coup attempt is one thing, impeach is another, much less likely thing, entirely.
I hope that this event means that Josh Hawley has overplayed his hand because his weird brand of right wing populism makes me ready to more deeply consider Calexit. The victories in Georgia are such a balm and they really seem to point a way forward. I hope that a lot of the folks who are caught up in these fever dreams have some regrets about what is transpiring today and that it helps the fever to break.
I was on board for California exit going back to the Bush years and nothing that has occurred since then – including 2008 through 2016 - has changed my mind.
Please don't abandon the rest of us to be governed by the deplorables. I already face it in my state government - I don't want my national government to be irredeemable as well.
I try to be specific and literal (rather than colloquial) when using legally defined terms like “sedition” but to my non-lawyer eyes it sure seems like this fits under 18 U.S. Code § 2384 - Seditious conspiracy:
“If two or more persons in any State or Territory, or in any place subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, conspire to overthrow, put down, or to destroy by force the Government of the United States, or to levy war against them, or to oppose by force the authority thereof, or by force to prevent, hinder, or delay the execution of any law of the United States, or by force to seize, take, or possess any property of the United States contrary to the authority thereof, they shall each be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both.”
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2384
This is sedition. I was against the summer riots, but this is so much worse. These people should have been fired upon when they attempted to breach the Capitol.
The National Guard should have already been deployed - then it would never have come close to this. The Capitol Police deserve a formal apology.
I might be in the minority on this but I really do not think shooting them would be good, acceptable, or even efficacious. The protestors were of course horrible, but in my opinion avoiding deaths is good, even if the people in question did something bad. Not to mention some people dying could have sparked a whole new, larger group.
Yep. In an ideal world they're all in prison by the inauguration, but shooting is too far for all the reasons you stated
Fired upon, yes, but since it looks like they were naturally bottlenecked I would’ve liked to see some kind of riot foam deployed unless lethal force was absolutely necessary. Just think of the pictures and headlines if these people had been splooged into submission.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sticky_foam
Possess any property of the US contrary to the authority thereof...it doesn't get any clearer than that.
Do we have it confirmed that the National Guard wasn't deployed because Trump didn't want them deployed?
I would also like confirmation about this story. Still early days, but that's insidious if it's true. And hard to be surprised at.
My understanding is that when the National Guard is activated in a state, the decision is made by the governor of the state. But when it is activated in DC, the decision is made by the President. It sounds like Mike Pence approved their activation after repeated requests from the DC Mayor yesterday afternoon, but all reports I saw said it was unclear why Trump hadn't been involved in the decision, if indeed he wasn't.
It is morally reprehensible and misleading to draw any sort of equivalence between what happened today and progressives' hesitation to condemn rare instances of violence from people who were themselves victims of far more concerning and systematic police violence over the summer.
How can you possibly say the people doing the looting this summer where themselves victims of police? You have no idea if that’s the case. You’re simply racially profiling.
The protests -- even the peaceful ones (which were the vast majority of the protests) -- were met with police in riot gear, rubber bullets, tear gas, etc.
Source?
The point is that the police response to the protests this summer was far more violent than the protests themselves, leading many people to hesitate to draw focus to the violence of the protesters and away from the violence of the police. There is no equivalent justification for failing to condemn today's violence.
Yes, I do think that. Here is a thread of ~1000 instances of police doing that: https://twitter.com/greg_doucette/status/1266751520055459847?s=20
I probably wouldn't include left-wing twitter as outside of the NYT/Vox bubble
Lol it's possible he has switched parties by now (for obvious reasons) but that guy was a republican when he began posting those videos, and I think the videos speak for themselves. In this case, I don't think I'm the one in a bubble...
Matt, I think you're being a little kind to the Capitol Police here. Yes, it seems like there was a failure by management to deploy them adequately, but in the face of rioters who ignored their orders, they seem to have often done nothing but fall back. From the photographs it really doesn't seem that there were that many people.
It took until they were at the door of the house chamber before anyone planted their feet and said we will shoot you if you come in here. In the senate they failed completely. When there's footage out there of cops joking around and taking selfies with people inside the house, there needs to be reckoning on their utter refusal to do their job.
Things are still muddy. I've also seen video/photos of them trying to do something but being massively overwhelmed.
At first look it seems clear the main problem was they were drastically understaffed.
Specifically I'm thinking about events like this: https://twitter.com/igorbobic/status/1346899437520621568
After this photo was taken these guys ended up in the senate chamber. The police had sufficient resources here to put these guys in cuffs. Instead they handled them with kid gloves.
"The police had sufficient resources here to put these guys in cuffs."
From my POV, this seems wrong. The police did not seem to have enough resources to spend time arresting every single person in the capital. They let them in the Senate chamber once the Senators were evacuated, but when the House members hadn't evacuated, the police were ready to massacre the rioters...that's what it's in the top photo of this post
To my understanding these pictures are relatively early in the day. The senate door is behind this picture and there were still senators in there. These were the first guys to get that far (and I haven't seen any pictures of people in the senate chamber that aren't in this picture.)
If you follow the thread downward you can see what lead up to this - one unsupported cop keeps understandably moving back, the point where these photos are is when he finds a support and it turns into a stalemate.
Maybe they could have arrested them. Maybe they could have pushed them back with batons. But their job was to do *something* more than walk backwards while shouting.
What's the point of America's massive police force and all of its commensurate problems if you can just disrupt our democratic procedures and the cops will barely even resist?
Arrests take time and take a cop or two to actually do! It didn't seem like the type of situation where a couple cops should leave the scene to make arrests and take them to the station. It was an all-hands-on-deck situation--at least that's what it seemed like to me
Like I said, I'm not going to strongly argue that they could have gotten all of them in cuffs, I'm not a cop.
But it seems like more was called for that standing around talking to them. They have guns and batons and tasers and pepper spray. If this were a blm crowd they'd have been going hog wild with those.
It was a surreal video, to watch this poor man running from all those people. Did he actually end up leading them into the capital?
It was incredibly chilling seeing that.
I believe they were inside the capitol. My assumption without anything to back it up is that he knew where there were other police and was understandably heading in that direction.
They should have shot these scum.
Be curious to see if we have someone with experience here that could comment but I'm skeptical they could've done it without a high risk of escalating things to gunfire.
>Instead they handled them with kid gloves.
Can anyone speculate on why this is? I mean I think I know the answer but I want someone smarter than me to say it
The National Guard should have already been deployed, like they were for BLM protests, as MY notes.
I am disgusted by some of the comments I’m seeing here. How the hell can you compare people protesting for criminal justice reform, even if some were excessive, with violent insurrectionists attempting to seize the US Capitol??
It became fashionable for a time this spring and summer to post about that MLK quote about riots as the voice of the unheard, but without the full context:
“And I would be the first to say that I am still committed to militant, powerful, massive, non-violence as the most potent weapon in grappling with the problem from a direct action point of view. I'm absolutely convinced that a riot merely intensifies the fears of the white community while relieving the guilt. And I feel that we must always work with an effective, powerful weapon and method that brings about tangible results. But it is not enough for me to stand before you tonight and condemn riots. It would be morally irresponsible for me to do that without, at the same time, condemning the contingent, intolerable conditions that exist in our society. These conditions are the things that cause individuals to feel that they have no other alternative than to engage in violent rebellions to get attention.”
And so yes, committing violence is bad. But come on, look at the conditions that underly the two causes here. On one hand, you have minorities protesting the conditions of violence that have been inflicted on them. On the other hand, you have delusional chauvinists antithetically opposed to the democratic process.
And look at the magnitudes here!! The protests of the summer were largely peaceful, but some did result in property damage. At worst there was what, a handful of people that tried to damage a courthouse? These people today SIEZED THE US CAPITOL BUILDING. Any suggestion of equivalence is grossly misguided.
My only question from today is how to beat punish every single person who participated in today’s invasion. Personally, I want to see them hit with the maximum possible penalties possible, up to life in prison if possible. But we don’t want to make them into martyrs, so maybe just a sedition charge or something. But they MUST be punished harshly.
And of course, if our congress had any decency, Trump would be impeached by the end of tomorrow.
Nobody ever riots because they think they’re on the wrong side of history. The people breaking into the Senate think they’re justified too.
For both moral and practical purposes, protests must be peaceful. And yes, that can be very difficult! My group organized a thirty thousand person march, and we had tons of trained volunteers as “de-escalators.”
We had another huge march later, and a much smaller one in a neighboring district got all the press coverage because a couple antifa assholes punched some reporters. All the hard work of tens of thousands of people, wiped away by a couple wannabe revolutionaries.
And I totally agree with what you said! I’m sure *they think* they’re correct. But I think anyone reasonable can clearly that they very clearly are not. And we have to be able to enforce the laws that say what we deem to be acceptable!
And yes, I agree that protests should be peaceful! The work you’ve done in ensuring that your protests were peaceful is admirable. But I’m just saying that to equate the two protests, or even the types of violent outcomes we’ve seen, is simply unreasonable. Their motivations, their originators, their implications, are clearly different. A ‘both sides’ approach here is absurd.
That’s the contradiction of pluralism. We have rules about how to handle unresolvable differences. When Trump was legally elected, we peacefully protested for seventeen days. If Biden’s election were overturned, I sure hope we’d be out there, and I suspect there’d be some violence (but vigorously denounced by Biden).
We’ve also had anti-vaxxer protests in California, which I **vehemently** disagree with, and I think what they are advocating for is dangerous. But they still have a right to protest (they threw menstrual blood on people, which they did not have a right to do).
Yeah, I think we’re agreeing? I’m drawing a distinction between the people who were just there protesting in general, and the smaller subset who broke into the Capitol. The former should not suffer any legal repercussions; it’s a clear execution of their 1A rights, even if I certainly find their position dumb, distasteful, and anti democratic.
However, the ones who seized the Capitol absolutely deserve the most effective punishment we can. Idk, I’m not usually a fan of ‘punitive punishment as deterrence’ for everyday crimes, and I hope we can avoid turning them into MAGA Martyrs, but *something* must be done to show how unacceptable it is to do this. They went well beyond any reasonable exercise of the first amendment.
Yeah hard agree here. I am not a fan of harsh punishment, but if ever there's a time to make examples of people, it is now.
"When you adjust for the totally normal and acceptable fact that cops harass black people more than white people, they use an unjustified level of force on both ethnic groups equally."
"Police encounters" is a vague term that does not necessarily mean an encounter between the police and a violent criminal.
Ok, source? Here's one that says the opposite, https://www.pnas.org/content/116/34/16793. And the way you phrased that makes it sound like you're talking about the Fryer 2016 paper, to which there is this response https://www.nature.com/articles/s41599-018-0110-z.
I want to agree with you, but I've been convinced by those who say that the national media grossly underplayed the level of death and destruction that occurred alongside the protests this summer, and I think it's actually you who has got the magnitudes reversed. See this, for example: https://www.axios.com/riots-cost-property-damage-276c9bcc-a455-4067-b06a-66f9db4cea9c.html
Frankly, I think all that "voice of the unheard" shit is giving away too much moral ground. What does looting a Target have to do with racial justice? Leftists should have been united in vehemently denouncing rioters, just as we often saw happening on the ground. How many videos did we see this summer depicting black activists begging anarchists not to destroy shit? If anyone was in need of cancellation this summer it was the "In Defense of Looting" author.
I sympathize with the valence of your response, but I think it's counterproductive. Whataboutism is pointless. Bad things are bad, even when placed next to worse things.
***How the hell can you compare people protesting for criminal justice reform, even if some were excessive, with violent insurrectionists attempting to seize the US Capitol??***
Because they (those protestors who went beyond mere peaceful marches in favor of looting/destruction/arson etc) have something in common with Trump's thugs (violence).
I'm skeptical of "throw the book at them." I think you get diminishing deterrence benefit, and if people like me (on the left) call for strong penalties when our general political view is that the US is over-incarcerated, it communicates that this is about pay-back and retribution, not justice. I think something more measured would be consensus for a much wider group of Americans - particularly because rioting isn't going to sit well with some people on the right.
Not entirely sure what others are saying but in my opinion the comparisons aren't between the Capitol riots and BLM Protestors. They should be specific to BLM-associated people or groups who engaged in acts of violence, looting and vandalism. It's completely wrong to break into congress and it probably is a more serious crime like sedition. But it's also wrong (and not helpful to BLM's cause) to burn down a Wendy's because a police office shot someone in their parking lot the night before. Some kind of comparison can be made there
I'm skeptical of "throw the book at them." I think you get diminishing deterrence benefit, and if people like me (on the left) call for strong penalties when our general political view is that the US is over-incarcerated, it communicates that this is about pay-back and retribution, not justice. I think something more measured would be consensus for a much wider group of Americans - particularly because rioting isn't going to sit well with some people on the right.
"And I hope that progressives will recognize the overwhelming importance of securing those wins, and be willing to make whatever concessions to the moderates are necessary to make them comfortable with taking those steps. It’s progressives more than anyone else who’ve recognized the danger of the moment we’re in today and hav been in for years. But part of recognizing the danger is prioritizing victory. Some issues just aren’t winners, especially given the slanted nature of America’s political geography. And to win — fair and square and without mob violence — is critically important right now. More so than making edgy or self-indulgent statements."
This is extremely important. The Republic is riding on it. We may not be able to get Manchin and others to change (though there's hope after today) but we can make sure that progressives aren't a millstone around the Democrats' necks by changing messaging and emphasis and agreeing that compromise is a fundamental part of democracy.
“...by changing messaging and emphasis...”
What, lying is the solution? Huh.
By not being dumb liberals who call themselves socialists - the worst possible branding in US politics - only because they don't know what socialism is.
By emphasizing what can get passed in Congress (whether by raw votes or persuasion to get the raw votes) rather than shibboleths and posing.
By not demonizing their own allies and describing any compromise - a basic element of any democracy - as treason or corruption or whatever.
That's not lying. That's being a grown-up.
“By not being dumb liberals who call themselves socialists...”
You support dumb liberals? I can’t get behind supporting dumb people.
So this is an unpopular take on today's insanity but I'm sticking with it and losing friends to the left and right. Trump deserves maximum blame for this fiasco without question, but I do question how much if any guilt should be apportioned to the rioters. It's all very theoretical, but I have to assume that the large majority of these rioters aren't thinking gee I wish Biden hadn't won, I'm going to go take over the capitol. That's a really big and dangerous step. Instead, I think they are, not unreasonably, taking their lead from the leader of their country and whatever talking heads they take their guidance from, that the election was stolen and it's their patriotic duty to right this wrong. It seems like a similar motivation to the crowds that overthrew governments in Russia, Eastern Europe and the Middle East. They're being stupid but patriotic in their own bizarre minds. As a counterfactual, what if the election really were stolen, which was usually the case in the countries I mentioned previously? As a lone rioter you don't have access to any firsthand information one way or another. But if your political leader, your opinion leaders, and all the people you know and trust are saying it was stolen, then it's not a bad thing to act on it. In fact, it would be a very good thing and a last ditch attempt to maintain a functional democracy.
I hate Trump and all he stands for, but I just think his misguided followers deserve some sort of benefit of the doubt assuming they do in fact believe the election was stolen and was really a Trump landslide. Going easy on them might encourage future craziness, but I'm genuinely torn as to what I'd do with them right now.
A protest is one thing, but Trump didn't direct them into the rotunda or into Pelosi's office. They knew what they were doing. And when they are blubbering at their sentencing hearing how they are good family men and women, the judge can maybe knock a couple months off of their sentences.
I think they should be arrested, since they did break and enter government buildings. However, I think you're right that we do have to be careful how we look at rioters, and even more so, how we look at Trump supporters. The vast majority of people think they're acting for the good of the country. We should denounce them, but also try to convince them...
More than one of them were carrying Confederate flags and at least a few of them set up a noose and gallows on the Capitol grounds. Idiocy is also not a defense for those that aren't outright white supremacists. So anytime someone's candidate doesn't win they get the benefit of the doubt that they thought election was stolen? Madness.
Agreed, and I think this distinction gets lost but my original comment was saying that motivation matters. Proud Boys and their ilk probably are just looking for a fight and to overturn a fair election. The Qanon crazies though probably believe they are genuinely defending the country and I think should be treated differently. (And I don't know the details of what Qanon believe so that might not have been a good example)
That makes sense to me. I don't really know what QAnon people believe either, but I wouldn't be surprised if many serious Q followers have some kind of untreated mental illness or major hole in their life.
QAnons need to be put in rubber rooms. Permanently.
https://www.axios.com/poll-qanon-americans-belief-growing-2a2d2a55-38a7-4b2a-a1b6-2685a956feef.html You're talking about tens of millions of rubber rooms!
Stupidity has never been a defense to a charge of sedition.
Good, since I just asked they be arrested
I'm sure all the SS troopers though they were "acting for the good of the country." These people are The Enemy. It's too bad we let their traitor ancestors off the hook 150 years ago.
>but I'm genuinely torn as to what I'd do with them right now.
I'm also torn, but the prevailing sentiment I see hear now is "well what if these were BLM/leftist protesters? How would they be treated?"
I think the broad middle politically speaking who say they support or at least understand BLM but don't like violent protests are the key. They don't like violent protests, period.
Which reminds me: BLM's ability to swing a huge number of people to recognize police killings of unarmed blacks as injustice was an amazing coup - one for the history books and one I hope lasts. There's some optimism for you on such a dark day.
I think the people who breached the Capitol should be tried to the fullest extent of the law, up to and including sedition. I can, at the same time, do a thought experiment and remember how I felt in the aftermath of the 2016 election- that it had to be rigged, it couldn't be true, and the stake of the country was at risk. If Hillary Clinton and prominent Democrats spent 2 months telling me that it was a fraud, the Russians had outright stolen the election, and the future of the country were at stake- who knows what I would have felt justified in doing. Not breaching the Capitol, but certainly protesting outside of it. I still think people should be held accountable for their choices, but I can at the same time imagine what might drive them to make those (poor) choices.
Why did you think it had to be rigged?
I couldn’t believe that enough people would vote for Trump, the margins were so razor thin, and I was in total denial that he could actually become president. Weren’t most Democrats?
This just isn’t an acceptable way to adjudicate an election. The whole point of elections is to peacefully transfer power. Republicans were there when the votes were counted and Trump had the opportunity to bring his voter fraud claims to court. Those are the avenues you get to try.
The key sentences in your post I disagree with are “it's not a bad thing to act on it. In fact, it would be a very good thing”. There’s ultimately no better way to know whether Biden “really” stole the election, so everyone has to live with the results of the process.
I think this is kinda similar to how the justice system doesn’t (and can’t) guarantee that it finds the truth, only that you get a fair trial.
Every single one of these traitors, whether they came there planning to do it or not, needs to be arrested and chucked away in a supermax forever. As a reminder to the rest of the evolutionary U-turns that it's time for them to go.
Your point reminds me of the guy who took a gun into Comet Pizza in DC. What he did was clearly wrong, but he seems to be the one person who was willing to act on his beliefs!
I was just thinking about him, and he seems to have felt genuine remorse for what he did after he understood that he'd been duped. I'd love to have the same sort of spark go off in the minds of the duped protesters but that seems pretty unlikely.
tl;dr of way too many of the comments here:
Clearly the mob today is justified at stopping the certification of Joe Biden’s election victory, damaging the capitol building, etc because Antifa/BLM riots bad.
They should reread Matt’s post because he does not draw that kind of equivalence and, although not hyperbolic like most of the media right now, is pretty clear that he sees the treatment of today’s “protesters” as quite different from the treatment of left wing protesters.
He calls it a putsch and an insurrection. He notes that the national guard was deployed in force in June and even includes a helpful picture. I think we need to take the following point more seriously and quit lumping (or pretending) Matt in with the false equivalency crowd.
“If this goes down in the books as a fun day at the zoo for the people involved, we will see more of it. Especially because given what we know of the partisan makeup of American police forces, the odds will always be that mobs of this sort tend to get kinder treatment than leftwing mobs.”
When people were talking today about law enforcement against the rioters, I was thinking about George Washington and the whiskey rebellion. Deterrence can be important but if it goes too far it can slow down the process of healing and moving on.
More damaging that the riot rhetoric is the "corporate Democrats are like Republicans" and whatnot. No one on the left should blur the line between what the GOP has fomented and any Democrat.
I’m guessing some of the comments this thread make the case for your distaste for comment sections. Some appear to be arguing forfascism with a friendly face. In Singapore, it is a crime to chew gumorwear your hair long.
That's just scf0101.
Perhaps Mattie needs to do something about trolls on this Substack. So uncongenial.
I don't see it as trolling. Raises some good points that aren't necessarily being refuted. FWIW I think a lot of good points are being raised by everyone, and it's a productive conversation. It's easy enough to disengage if you're over it.
So far the best thing about this comment section, as opposed to place like the NYTs or left-wing twitter, is that it's less of an echo chamber. It's ok to disagree and even to think someone is so wrong that you don't respect their arguments. But I think there's a lot of value in actually having these debates play out, saying your piece, and then disengaging if it's not working for you.
Obviously there are trolls (I think the name was Galleta or something?) and you have to draw the line somewhere, but this is far from that place.
scf doesn’t seem to be trolling, just more conservative than everyone else
Yep I agree. Just the only one talking up Singapore.
One thing I find very frustrating in discussing the events of last summer is that I have nothing like a quantitative scale of what happened - how many people were involved, how many injuries were caused by participants, how many injuries were caused by police, how many buildings were damaged; and most importantly, I have even *less* information about any other potentially comparable events, like the 2017 women's march, various marches and/or riots in 1965 or 1968, events in other countries. Everything I've seen in any news outlet seems woefully incomplete and/or anecdotal, so all I can see is people reporting what they want to report about whether any events last summer were actually destructive.
I see someone's been going through this thread posting a link to a quantification of the insured property losses due to events of May 26-June 8 in the low ten figure range (https://www.axios.com/riots-cost-property-damage-276c9bcc-a455-4067-b06a-66f9db4cea9c.html) which is definitely a helpful start. But it's really hard for me to tell how to compare that to even Rodney King in 1992, because I don't know whether more or fewer businesses carry the relevant kind of insurance, so I can't tell if this is a large or small figure.
The underdiscussed consequence of liberal participation in the erosion of norms that promote lawlessness is that given the partisan makeup of police forces, it'll make it increasingly less likely that they'll actively intervene to protect Democratic lawmakers.
I'm fearful that an erosion of norms of civility that lead to a woman in pussyhat yelling at a Republican official at lunch or small groups of anti-police brutality demonstrators standing outside the Mayor's house, being viewed as acceptable, will lead to armed neckbearded men yelling at Democrats in restaurants and camping outside their homes.
I think it might be worth acknowledging that the majority of protests this past spring were peaceful (and often met with violence by law enforcement) and were made in the name of democracy and of equal justice under the law. no comparison in any way to what is happening today.
The majority were peaceful, but that seems like it should make it even easier to condemn the non-peaceful ones
I think that's a tough sell when you have videos of people lighting buildings on fire.
To clarify, I agree that what's happening today is much worse, but "mostly peaceful" just sounds like a way to sidestep condemning the actual violence that occurred.
We have negativity bias. One burning police car negates 5,000 peaceful marchers. And the ongoing siege of the Portland police station was not conducted by people who want a stronger democracy. They were assholes who enjoy breaking stuff.
One thing to note, BLM/antifa wouldn’t be caught dead wearing Biden/Harris merch, while Proud Boys, etc, all wear MAGA hats. We can and should speak out against our own violent fringe.
Agreed but negative bias also applies to police violence. The actual statistics are so, so different from what I heard this summer.