In “Democrats’ Achilles Heel: Ostrich-like Silence on Spikes in Urban Crime” on August 21, and “Folks, If Crime Stats Begin Rivaling Covid Stats, Trump Wins! So Shut Up, AOC!” on July 12, I argued, in fact warned, that BLM protesters are looking too much like marauding rebels without a cause.
Only this explains BLM mobs bum-rushing restaurants in New York and Washington, and not only forcing terrorized diners to raise fists and chant “Black Lives Matter” but also ransacking places like proverbial bulls in china shops.
Far more troubling, though, are protests that end late at night with protesters burning cars and buildings, vandalizing and looting businesses, and launching guerilla warfare against the police.
Hundreds of demonstrators faced off in downtown Louisville ahead of the Kentucky Derby on Saturday, with guns and camouflage replacing the traditional scene of colorful hats and bespoke suits. Meanwhile, protests on opposite sides of the country (in Portland and Rochester) turned violent as police fired tear gas and activists threw incendiary devices.
The skirmishes were the latest in a series of tense confrontations over racial justice in a summer that has been marked by violence and acrimony in many American cities.
(Washington Post, September 6, 2020)
Incidentally, my frustration became such in mid-August that I wondered among friends why Black protesters were always vandalizing and torching their own neighborhoods. Well, one of those friends must have betrayed my trust because, just days later, Black protesters were plundering and pillaging along uber-rich Magnificent Mile in Chicago like the Janjaweed through poor villages in Darfur.
But this is no way to win support and influence politicians. Which is why I urge BLM leaders to hold a press conference to:
- condemn the violence and looting and decry the mischievous way these actions are making a mockery of the BLM cause for racial justice;
- apologize for the bullying attempts to enlist supporters, and entreat die-hard supporters to stop their fascistic behavior in the name of BLM (in fact, leaders should call out and admonish the privileged white kids who apparently see these protests as little more than venues to play urban guerillas, or to channel Nazi Brownshirts as the case might be);
- insist that those responsible for the violence and looting are infiltrators who seem hell-bent on hijacking their cause; and
- declare that, to neutralize infiltrators, BLM protests will take place only during daylight hours (e.g., 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.), and that, at the appointed time, leaders will ask legitimate protesters to go home in peace, leaving the police to deal accordingly with the wannabe vandals, looters, and rioters who remain.
Polls show that BLM protests have lost a lot of the public support they had in the wake of that white cop murdering George Floyd. Holding such a press conference is the only way to reclaim that support. BLM leaders would be wise to do so ASAP.
After all, President Trump is damning all protesters as vandalizing anarchists. Therefore, time is of the essence to prevent this from resonating among voters who can swing November’s election in his favor.
Put another way, Michael Moore famously warned during the 2016 presidential campaign that Hillary’s failure to allay the employment fears of blue-collar workers in swing states – like Wisconsin, Michigan and Iowa – would cost her that election. She failed to do so, and it did.
In a similar vein, it is self-evident that Joe Biden’s failure this time to allay the safety fears of suburban moms in swing states will cost him this election. Biden would be wise to take heed, diligently.
But he would do well to weave the following point into his stump speech:
- The president is scaremongering with incendiary rhetoric and political ads, warning that the vandalism and looting that have marred BLM protests in a few urban areas will soon spread to “blacken” suburbs across the country. But ask yourself why, instead of protecting urban Americans from this wanton violence, Trump is just using it to scare suburban Americans. The truth is that this affirms what his own defense secretary, James Mattis, warned us about after he resigned in utter dismay; namely that this president believes his political fortune lies in dividing Americans every which way but loose, the national welfare, including national security, be damned. Therefore, a vote for him in this election is a vote for even more of the violence that he is actively stoking — on his watch — to scare you
Related commentaries:
achilles heel… crime stats… George Floyd / Jacob Blake thread…