What happened at the Capitol building in Washington D.C was evidently one of the most despicable acts of violence that we have seen in the 21st Century. What made it so odious was not due to the amount of damage done, or lives lost, even though both of those things happened. No, it was because a sitting President of the greatest western power in the world, with one of the longest standing democracies in the world, openly and brazenly incited a violent attack on democracy itself.
Tweeting and bloviating absolute nonsensical garbage since the election. Baseless and unsubstantiated claims on election fraud have been perpetually voiced and subsequently parroted by his loyal followers. I believe that he has every right to explore all legal avenues to try and prove widespread election fraud. Go for it. Get your lawyers, get your evidence, and take it through every court system that you can. Work as hard as you can to make your case and prove yourself right. I support him whole heartedly in that pursuit. He does not however, have the right to undermine the very core values and principles of a strong democracy without any qualms or scruples.
Claiming victory before the election votes have been counted is antithetical to liberal and democratic values. Claiming that an election is fraudulent every single day for months, and convincing 40% of your country of that lie without any significant evidence of that fact is antithetical to liberal and democratic values. Not agreeing to a peaceful transition of power when the President elect is due to be sworn into the Presidency, and instead saying “we will never give up, we will never concede, it doesn’t happen. You don’t concede when there is theft involved”. Yeah, that is antithetical to liberal and democratic values.
Unfortunately, the reaction and evaluation of these events has once again been distorted and twisted into another ridiculous story of White America versus Black America and BLM protestors versus Pro Trump protestors. “If that was BLM there would have been dead bodies everywhere”. “They were using tear gas, pepper spray and rubber bullets for BLM”. “There is no way this would have been allowed to happen if they were BLM protestors”. Oh really? Ok then, let us look at what happened over the American summer.
Now before I go any further, I want to distinguish a distinction between protestors and rioters. I believe that on both sides of the political spectrum, 90-95% of protestors are peaceful and that a small, yet very robust fringe occupies the remaining 5-10%. This I believe is true for both sides. As soon as you engage in violence, destruction, and theft, you are no longer protesting. Once you take part in this kind of behaviour, you are now rioting, and you need to be punished to the full extent of the law. Ok moving on.
If you think that peaceful BLM protestors were violently attacked by police and law enforcement, whilst MAGA protestors could do whatever they wanted with impunity, then you have either used Facebook memes as your source of information, or you live in an echo chamber of woke ideologues who would not know what oppression was if it hit them in the face. These BLM rioters (not protestors) burned down buildings, burned down police stations, ransacked and destroyed businesses — for months. BLM rioters successfully created an autonomous zone for three weeks in Seattle. Portland endured over 100 days straight of continuous rioting, looting and violence. Los Angeles had a curfew and was shut down for over a week due to BLM rioting. Businesses were forced to board up their windows and display signs on their doors that stated, “We support BLM” and “minorities and people of colour work here, so please don’t burn down my shop”. These riots were allowed to continue for months on end, with no repercussions for the majority of them.
What happened at the Capitol as an isolated incident was worse. I say this because not only were they causing violence and destruction, but they were openly trying to put a stop to a constitutional democratic process. For those of you that do not know, congress was meeting to certify the electoral college and officially confirm Joe Biden as the 46th President of the United States. Storming the Capitol, in the nation’s capital, is far worse than storming a Target or Foot Locker. This is true in my opinion.
What is also true however, is that in their totality, the BLM rioters caused far more destruction, damage, and death than what occurred inside the Capitol. Furthermore, this repugnant narrative that has been fabricated stating that the police were complicit in the violence is utterly disgraceful. Tear gas was used, pepper stray was used, rubber bullets—oh wait sorry—real bullets were used. A 35-year-old woman was shot in the neck by law enforcement and subsequently died. Three other rioters died. A policeman was also killed, and 16 other members of law enforcement were hospitalised.
How is that different? They were simply outnumbered by the rioters. Would you have preferred the police to just start shooting with abandon at the large crowds that were approaching them? What would you with all your knowledge on violent mobs have done, were it you facing these barbarians? Another fact that has been supressed by those pedalling and adding topspin to this narrative is that the D.C Mayor was advised by the DOJ and Pentagon leaders to call in the national guard ahead of the MAGA rally. She decided to decline this offer and effectively tell them to "stand down". Now I am sure she would have had her reasons for doing so and I am not arguing that this was a good or bad decision. In retrospect it looks like a horrible decision, but that is easy to conclude after the fact. What I am arguing, is that this particularly important piece of information being removed from the mainstream narrative is inexcusable and deeply irresponsible.
There are also people claiming that no arrests have been made and that these people will all get away with it because they are “white”. This is false. Arrests have been made, they are currently being made, and will continue to be made. Remember that these halfwits are not the sharpest tools in the shed. They were all either caught on video, caught on surveillance, or even more outrageously — caught live streaming the event on their own Facebook pages. These people will not get away with it because they are "white". They will be caught and arrested because they are “morons”. It is so important that rioting and violence is criticized and exposed for what it is and this needs to be done on both sides of the political aisle. On the contrary, it is just as important that peaceful protests and public displays of unity are commended and protected on both sides of the political aisle.
This was the perfect moment for President elect Joe Biden to enter the conversation and continue his quest for unity and equality. A moment to try and bring the country together after this unprecedented event. Now is that what we saw? Of course not. Instead, it was more of the same divisive redirect that so many criticize the incumbent President for. Only this time with less hyperbole and words like “really big, tremendous and billions”. It is the same old; us versus them, black verses white, police versus people of colour. Only this time it is from the other side.
This must stop. This is not progressive, nor is it productive. We must learn to talk about our differences honestly and dispassionately. We need to show kindness and compassion to others that do not hold our views. Do you expect to change someone’s mind by yelling at them and calling them racists and bigots? Would you be convinced of someone’s argument if they approached you that way? There are far more good people that hold bad ideas, than there are truly bad people in this world. Rid yourself of this false dichotomy of red versus blue and Democrat versus Republican. Find a common ground with your fellow citizens — as Americans.
