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The Capitol is not the Bastille.
The horror show at the Capitol last month was not an insurrection, which is marked by armed troops or revolutionaries. This was a mob rioting with insufficient police power to prevent them from penetrating the building.
The incitement for this action was dastardly and perhaps criminal, and was squarely at the feet of then-President Trump to encourage or discourage. I am an independent voter, but whatever your persuasion—Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, whatever—this was an unspeakable atrocity. Some of you may cancel your subscription over my comments, but they aren’t political, they are simply factual.
Leaders in any capacity should galvanize people and bring them together, coalescing disparate interest groups, reaching compromise, and above all creating fairness and justice. Those are our ideals in the US as well as in many other countries, though we (and they) have too often not lived up to them. But we try. We have to keep trying, and try harder.
The irony, of course, was that the people storming the building claimed to back “law and order.”
I believe that the decision after the vandalism began to let the energy wane and clear the place without an aggressive police action was intelligent, and reduced further violence. Prosecutions have begun as people are identified. I also believe that the comparisons to much more aggressive police tactics at Black Lives Matter and similar rallies are well supported.
A Black Lives Matter protest in the streets is a part of our tradition of protesting injustice. On the occasions those protests turned into riots and stores were robbed and property burned, they had become criminal endeavors. Protesting Joe Biden’s election is a matter of free speech, but trying to physically disrupt the government becomes a criminal act.
We need to separate and honor legitimate calls for social justice and reform from crazed conspiracy theories and demagoguery. This is my opinion for your consideration. If you don’t agree, that’s your right. If you choose to depart because of it, so be it.
The limitation of riots, moral questions aside, is that they cannot win and their participants know it. Hence, rioting is not revolutionary but reactionary because it invites defeat. It involves an emotional catharsis, but it must be followed by a sense of futility. —Martin Luther King, Jr.
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