Capitol Protests

“A riot is the language of the unheard.”

This quote from Martin Luther King was repeated numerous times last year during the rioting turned looting last year in Minneapolis, New York, Kenosha, Philadelphia, Seattle, Portland and other cities. The media and the Democrats largely gave the rioters a pass because the reasons for the protests which preceded the riots were “righteous” in their view. Their logic is simple: the United States was formed as a racist country, systematic racism is embedded deeply in our society, this racism is made manifest in police wantonly killing black people in large numbers. Therefore our whole culture and society must be torn down and rebuilt on a new and better foundation.

This viewpoint combined with an existing view of more and more victim tribes – blacks, women, LBGQ, Latinos – all oppressed by white men and all of whom were guilty of bias, whether overt or unconscious. This combination lead last year to a cancel culture movement that denied our actual history, resulted in people being fired from jobs because of a comment they made years ago, public shaming of apostates to this new secular religion, tearing down statues, rewriting our nation’s history and its founding.

People who disagreed with these points of view, most of whom were conservatives,  reviled. They were cursed and called racists, misogynists, white nationalists, homophobic. They were insulted, ignored and condescended to. It was a long time building, The recent start began with Paula Jones being dismissed as “trailer park trash” by Bill Clinton’s handlers, Hilary Clinton’s dismissive phrase applied to them as “deplorable”, Obama’s referring to them as “clinging to their guns and bibles”. These Americans who worked, built families, went to church and tried to do the best they could were scorned and mocked by the media. They saw college kids fainting at being upset by a counter argument, military service as for the non-elite and our flag trampled on.

They saw and felt what was happening to their country and they elected a deeply flawed man who shared their view as president. And, he put in place policies that strengthened our country economically, militarily, and geopolitically. He put American people and American interests first. He said what he believed, he followed through on his promises, he did not dissemble. He was crass, often commenting without enough thinking and counter punched.  His brand of populism resonated with them.

And from the beginning he was attacked – continuously and viciously – by the press and by Democrats. His first call for impeachment occurred before he was sworn in, Democrats refused to come to his inauguration, he was hounded by an Obama created Russian scandal and a special counsel.  It was hard to find a positive media reference for any of the good things he accomplished. Even his economic successes were credited to Obama.  Every mistake was amplified, every error mocked.

Throughout his presidency he was attacked without mercy or subtlety by a completely biased media and an unhinged Democrat party. The deep state sought to undermine him, agencies in government were complicit in false claims, and then lied to courts about him. Most importantly, his supporters were described in the same terms as him. As he was viewed as an unpleasant and noxious person to be shunned, so were his supporters.

Then the 2020 elections were held. The press was almost uniformly against him, they highlighted every mistake and ignored his opponent’s, the big technology companies censored only him, and the election itself was deeply flawed. This was not a fair election.  In too many states election official violated state law, in too many cases absentee ballots were not validated, in too many cases witnesses to fraud were ignored and cases thrown out court, not on the merits of the cases, but on procedural grounds.

His supporters were outraged, believing the election was stolen. Thousands came to Washington to show support for him and protest the election. The Capitol Police was understaffed and under planned and overwhelmed by a few hundred of them who broke in the Capitol building and did damage. When informed of the curfew and the police presence was increased they withdrew. This was not a coup attempt; it was not an insurrection. Those are ridiculous allegations.

The people who broke in to the capitol building  should be arrested and prosecuted.  What they did was wrong and should not be tolerated.

But the ones who broke in, the ones who came to Washington to March do not represent the 75 million people who voted for Trump.

Let’s give them the same premise that motivated MLK’s quote at the start of this post.

That’s what I think.