Protests and Riots

I already wrote a blog about the different definitions of those terms. It seems even the mass media doesn't make the distinction any more, preferring to define them by motivations instead of behavior. To sum up, protests don't do any real harm. They may annoy you, but they don't actually hurt you.  Riots hurt people, physically and financially. 

 

Any crowd can turn it into a riot. It's happened at rock concerts and after major sporting events. One guy throws a beer can, some others think that looks like a good idea, and it grows from there. And that's a spontaneous event. 

 

It's more likely during a protest.  Protestors are already angry. That's why they're protesting.  Because it's more likely, the police might show up in full riot gear. The protestors see that and are insulted. They might even feel the urge to do what they feel they're being accused of.  So what happens when the first punch is thrown or window broken? 

 

There's been talk, and not entirely without basis, that the riots of 2020 were caused by outside agitators.  They joined a BLM protest and deliberately incited it.  Deliberately. This was a BLM protest, but a disproportionate number of those arrested was white. Many of them were found to be sympathetic to causes that directly oppose BLM. 

 

The bricks thrown by rioters were already there, usually at construction sites.  There's not much weight to stories of them being shipped in by the opposing political party of the one telling the tale.  There's very little weight to the notion of the conspiracy rising to those levels.  I have no doubt, however, that the riots were the result of someone's psychological manipulation of the crowd. 

 

But who?  Many people are pointing their fingers at “Antifa”.  To the best of my knowledge, Antifa is a loosely affiliated group who collectively stands against fascism. Their definition of fascism is unclear, but their methods… well, let’s just say rioting is within their skill set.  If these riots are not the work of Antifa, they’re the work of someone similar.

 

It might even be as simple as “Hey, let’s go down to that protest and start some crap. It’ll make them look bad.”  It could even be “Cool, a riot! Let’s go break stuff and steal something!”  I can find no reason to believe these riots are anything but a symptom of America’s larger problem.

 

The Great Trump Divide. I’m not blaming any of this on the man himself, at least not directly.  Had Clinton won in 2016, I’d be calling it the Great Clinton Divide. I believe the Russian Meddling in the 2016 election was not to help either specific candidate. They have profited for decades from the Divided States of America, and saw us uniting behind maverick politicians like Bernie Sanders and Gary Johnson. So they stepped in. Before that election, we were a protest. They turned us into a riot.

 

And we let them.  We’re continuing to let them. Shame on us.