What do you call it when half the population doesn’t feel free to protest at their own nation’s Capitol?
Some call it the situation we’re now in — and they say that the recent “Justice for J6” (January 6 prisoners) rally is Exhibit A.
The September 18 event was always a no-win situation for conservatives, as President Trump explained in a Federalist interview last week. “‘On Saturday, that’s a setup,’ Trump said, referring to the rally,” the site relates. “‘If people don’t show up they’ll say, ‘Oh, it’s a lack of spirit.’ And if people do show up they’ll be harassed.’”
This common-sense prediction was vindicated because after only about 400 to 450 genuine protesters attended the rally, Congressman Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) tweeted, “The very small crowd size at the #JusticeforJ6 traitorous rally shows the waning influence of the former President.”
Some may say Lieu’s hurling of the term “traitorous” smacks of projection, but his is one interpretation.
Here’s another: that conservatives did what Trump essentially told them to — avoid the rally — reflects his continued influence.
Yet another interpretation of the rally’s underwhelming attendance pertains to a much more serious matter. This reality, writes journalist Andrea Widburg,
highlights problems flowing from the draconian consequences the government meted out to the January 6 protestors: They’re having a chilling effect on conservatives exercising their First Amendment rights to peaceable assembly. Last year, during riots in honor of George Floyd, an ex-felon hopped up on drugs who violently resisted arrest, people destroyed public and private property, looted stores, and attacked police officers. Those protesters and looters arrested were often released immediately on their own recognizance and, just as often, saw their charges dropped.
The January 6 protests are different. We know the Capitol Police invited many people into the building and those people simply wandered through peacefully and then left again. They caused minimal damage to the building, although they did scare our congresspeople, a group that should always be remembered for its cowardice and histrionics. There was only one unnatural death (as opposed to deaths from heart attacks or a drug overdose) when Michael Byrd, a Capitol police officer, murdered Ashli Babbitt.
Nevertheless, January 6 was followed by a nationwide FBI dragnet, humiliating and overwhelming (and sometimes mistaken) arrests, hidden evidence, outrageous charges (which then get reduced to things such as “parading” if defendants go through Maoist “re-education”) and, as noted, months in prison without charges or trial. At least one prisoner was severely beaten. There’s also reason to believe that many of the people attending the rally on January 6 were provocateurs, whether from the FBI or Antifa [or BLM], intentionally trying to destroy conservatives. This is truly the politics of personal destruction.
Add to this that from the Trump phenomenon’s beginning, the president’s supporters were often attacked, sometimes brutally, in liberal jurisdictions; some were killed.
The reality, too, is that we now have a multi-tiered justice system, as Widburg essentially stated. It’s not just that there are different standards for the power haves and have-nots and the races (with whites getting greater scrutiny). It’s also that being “woke” now generally means never having to say you’re sorry; being conservative often means being very, very sorry if you dare even open your mouth.
Thus, when leftist rioters such as BLM and Antifa create mayhem — as they did with 600-plus violent 2020 riots — the authorities tend to give “those who wished to destroy space to do that,” as ex-Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake put it in 2015. But when conservatives merely want to demonstrate peacefully, the cavalry is called. As an example, consider the now infamous, and widely mocked, Justice for J6 rally picture below.
As journalist Michael Tracey quipped, “How do you do, fellow insurrectionists[?]”
Blaze Media reporter Elijah Schaffer explained:
Pockets bulging with nothing in them
The same digital watch (non apple)
All black sunglasses Athletic builds
Dude still wearing his dress socks
Well groomed short faded haircuts
Suspiciously watching someone record them in a group
This is a piece of art
Then there’s the “protester” in the video below.
(Hat tip for tweets: Widburg.)
But there is a bright side. We’re moving toward a point where, as Soviet-born comedian Yakov Smirnoff sarcastically quipped decades ago about the USSR, there’s “always a policeman around when you need one” (and when you don’t).
Anyway, another message here relates to disgusting elitism: If all you want to do is destroy poor and middle-class people’s neighborhoods, hurt some of them, and cause them billions in property damage, you’ll get “space to do that.” But don’t you dare cause AOC stress or make the congressmen and senators late for their cocktail parties.
Of course, that this double standard also stifles dissent is by design. Yet it can have another effect as well.
Moving Us Toward Break-up
Conservatives have already long had to endure “woke” tyranny, where they’re “canceled” for not kowtowing to pseudo-elite culture and are censored by Big Tech (I’m still under Twitter “suspension,” after six months). They were told last year in New Jersey and elsewhere that they couldn’t peacefully protest lockdowns, attend church, or conduct business while BLM’s riots were allowed in the name of “anti-racism public health.” So yet another message is clear:
Conservatives don’t really have a right to free assembly and peaceful protest in Democrat-controlled states.
In fact, approximately 50 percent of the citizenry is essentially being told they mayn’t demonstrate at their own nation’s Capitol.
How long can this continue before they begin viewing Washington as not really representing their “own” nation? And if you had a large number of older children and treated half of them contemptuously and as second-class, would you be surprised if they flew the coop?
Telling half the country that they have no place in the country — except to shut up and obey — is a recipe for national dissolution.
