There's been a lot people and conservative talking heads who are trying to claim that there is fundamentally no real difference between the BLM protests and what happened at the capitol. And frankly this is both naive and insulting. It's a ridiculous claim.
Did the protests this summer go too far? Absolutely yes. Do the people who vandalized buildings, burned down stores, incited violence need to be punished? Or course. Rioting is never a good a thing and I pushed back against anybody this summer who said it was (with the exception of pulling down racist statues, which I saw as an essential step in moving our society forward from its racist past). Both events resulted in property damage and violence, but there are some clear differences worth considering.
1) During the two main weeks of protests this summer 19 people died. This was a mixture of police, bystanders, and protesters. Some of these by the police, some of these were by protesters, some of these were by vigantes and extremists who either wanted to take law into their own hands or use the chaos to commit crimes. Some of these deaths were connected to far-right terrorist groups. This was over TWO WEEKS across the ENTIRE UNITED STATES.
During the attack on the capitol, five people died. One police officer who was beaten to death, one woman who was shot trying to break into the senate chamber after being told to stand down along with a number of people who were shown on video to have the intention of taking hostages or murdering senators, two died of medical problems, and one was trampled to death. This was over the period of a couple hours in one building.
2) Much of the protests this summer were a part of struggle for the civil rights of minorities in response to the unwarranted murder of a black man at the hands of a police officer that was painfully caught on tape. We cannot confirm the murder was racially motivated (it very likely wasn't, in fact), but it came on the heels of numerous shooting and strangling deaths by police officers committed upon innocent people of color. Again, we cannot verify that these deaths were the racially motivated, but that's the belief of numerous people. Compared to other developed western countries, the United States has a extremely disproportionate number of deaths by police. This led a to a widespread call for a reform of the police system.
The protest in DC was instigated by the lies of a political party. They were a large number of people there standing against what they saw as a widespread election fraud that has been backed by scant evidence. Even the accusers have not provided sufficient evidence of voter fraud to give them any legal standing to dispute the election. President Trump was given numerous opportunities to prove his allegations and has explored every legal recourse he has. They've filed nearly 60 lawsuits (only in states where they lost...clearly cheating only happens there) and has won one I think. The vast majority were either dropped or never got to court due to lack of evidence. A bipartisan investigation has declared this the most secure election in American history. Trump's allegations of voter has been denied by judges he's appointed, governors who have supported him in the past, and the supreme court itself. He lost the election.
Donald Trump called upon his base to swarm DC on the date of the vote certification, dropping numerous vague threats and claims that they could overturn the results. Many within his base congregated with the sole intention of committing acts of terrorism and overthrowing the government. These intentions have been clearly documented on social media. On the 6th of January, Donald Trump, Rudy Guilianni, and his son urged the crowd the march on the capitol to stop the verification of the vote, a democratic step that confirms the election of the president of the United States. The crowd did as he urged them to and stormed the capitol building. They broke through the barrier and started beating police officers. Many of them armed. They were chanting that they'd hunt down numerous members of our government and murder them. It is by the hard work of the police that they were unable to breech the house and senate chambers before our representative were evacuated. They defecated over the halls, stole sensitive documents, destroyed government property, planted bombs. Not all of them, but a good number of these people entered with the purpose of trying to overturn a democratic process as illustrated by our constitution. They broke in to start a revolution. How do we know? They filmed themselves doing it. They filmed themselves saying it. When this was finished. Donald Trump told them he loved them.
Here's the main difference here. The protests over this summer were there to bring attention to violations of civil rights. They never tried to overthrow the government. Last week was a coup attempt instigated by the president. He didn't want the votes verified and he organized a mob to stop it, or at the very least disrupt it. There is no evidence as of now that Mr. Trump had the intention of getting his base to breech the capitol itself, but it was a foregone conclusion given the circumstances and his rhetoric that very clearly told them that they should stop this democratic process.
Do I think that the Democrats who encouraged violence are wrong? Of course I do. I don't think they were wrong to encourage protests, though. Protests brought America Civil Rights. Protests brought us workers' rights. Protests made us a country. It's a huge part of our culture and I don't think it should stop. But calling what happened on January 6th a protest is horribly naive. We've never seen a protest, including that of this summer, attack the capitol with the purpose of killing important members of our government and stopping the verification of a legal election. That's what a coup is. THEY ARE NOT COMPARABLE. Quit doing it, because they are objectively very different things.
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