Brakes on a Revolution
2020-09-04
Over the last 5-6 months America has seen a surge in riots. These rioters, in multiple states, have conducted a campaign of looting, burning, breaking, theft, intimidation of residential areas, assaults, sexual assaults, and murders that most Americans did not see coming. At the beginning of the year it was inconceivable that anyone would speak with any seriousness about sustained widespread destruction of American cities by political forces, unchecked by party leaders in each targeted city.
I want to take a moment and lay out where we are, and the options available. There’s a lot of talk about not wanting a certain strategy or another to go forward; this aims to give more breadth to anyone participating in that discussion.
The State of the Union
City leaders in Kenosha, Seattle, Portland, Chicago, and elsewhere that riots are flourishing are flat-out unwilling to prosecute rioters. It’s unclear if there is coordination between these city leaders, or if they’re directed to do something by party leaders - but what’s clear is that they flatly refuse to accept federal assistance - and sometimes state assistance. In Seattle, while the responsibility is unclear, it seems obvious that the Mayor ordered the East Precinct abandoned, leading to the establishment of the CHAZ.
In some cities, the district attorney (DA) is unwilling to prosecute rioters. This is most pronounced in Multnomah County (where Portland sits), which elected not only an antifa apologist, but outwardly affiliated DA, who has laid down complete refusals to bring charges against anyone participating in riots, attacking police officers, or destroying private property. Seattle has had a DA who similarly refused petty crime charges since around 2014, with the stated goal of not charging homeless or drug addicts for their crimes in downtown Seattle.
Police are willing and able to stop rioters. Indeed, when left to do their job, they cleared out CHAZ in under an hour. Portland police routinely arrest a dozen or so rioters every night, but are forced to release them within 24hr after a Democratic party bail fund bails them out, or because the DA refuses to charge them. Police across the nation are able to stop the violence in under 24 hours. But they are not allowed to.
Rioters, meanwhile, have continually escalated violence and destruction in the face of this apathy. Originally a Minneapolis issue, the complete failure by local officials to stop riots emboldened rioters across the nation to toe the line in their jurisdictions, each escalating further and further as they realize their leaders are allowing or encouraging them to do so.
So, what is the right path to stopping the rioters?
Patience
The standard way to defeat political terror like this for the last ~50 years in the US has been to simply wait. The Occupation of Alcatraz was the first example of this working - terrorists occupied the abandoned island of Alcatraz for just over a year, fully expecting to be fought by authorities. However, authorities simply waited. Occupiers lost interest and went home, especially after outside support dried up, and they realized they were on a barren island with no potable water or electricity. By the end of the occupation, only a dozen or so hardcore members remained, and were taken into custody.
Since then, many occupations have been treated this way. Notably, Malheur. Is this an option here?
Simply, no. By all accounts, city and party leaders have been attempting to wait out the riots - but this has only emboldened the rioters, with a sort of broken windows effect going on. Riots started in May, and have spread to major cities across the nation without any sign of losing steam. It’s gotten bad enough that open political murders of someone wearing dissident fashion is cheered by rioters.
Waiting has only exacerbated the problem.
Appeasement
Many protests in the US are defused with a handful of meaningless "changes" that have very little substance, but say the right words and make protesters feel like they did something. The changing of an icon here, a renaming there, the establishment of a racist or sexist holiday - something to make rioters feel like their agenda is advancing.
However, these riots have not been susceptible to that. As soon as any inch of appeasement is given, they demand a mile more. It is not an exaggeration to say that the rioters still going out at night to confront police and citizens believe that the entire nation is irredeemable, and must be destroyed and remade in an anarcho-communist image. That sounds ridiculous, and if you’re fortunate enough to have never known any of the rioters, never attended a protest, never been to any of their events - I envy you. This is, however, not some kind of hoodwink; they really do want that.
Appeasement therefore takes on more of a Chamberlain character; rioters demand something, are given it in the hopes that they’ll be satisfied, and instead the rioters escalate their violence and demand more.
While nobody is a psychic, it really doesn’t take one to expect that continued appeasement and apathy will do nothing but embolden the rioters.
The rioters will not stop voluntarily, they must be stopped.
Municipal Police
As discussed above, police are absolutely capable of stopping the riots. They want to. Not many statements are allowed from individual cops, but generally every cop who has made statements has come off as frustrated by the party/city leadership’s refusal to let them do their jobs.
For our purposes, we must assume that while cops could stop the riots, they will not be allowed to.
Federal Police
Federal police have a long history of breaking local corruption. From feds knocking down moonshine operations during Prohibition to Al Capone, all the way to the New York Mob - the feds have a long history of stepping into state affairs when they consider something so egregious that it becomes a national issue.
This is controversial. But federal interference in state affairs has been established as legitimate for over a century. In this case, we’ve seen plenty of cases where federal charges have the intended effect of removing rioters from the streets permanently - with no DA, mayor, or city council able to interfere with federal charges which put the rioters in federal courts and prisons.
In this case, federal intervention enjoys wide appeal. For months local people disgusted by local official’s failure to address or even acknowledge the riots have rallied around the idea of Trump sending federal cops in to save their cities. Trump rather likes this idea, too, and constantly threatens to do so. In some places federal officers have cross-deputized state troopers, such that attacks against them are federal felonies, rather than state felonies.
This has helped, and may in fact be the answer to the question we have. But it is a bit of a bandage on a bleeding wound - the crux of the issue is that local officials will have set the precedent that they won’t do anything to stop terrorism in their jurisdictions. That’s dangerous, since it would further entrench the federal authorities as the only form of justice in the nation - which is an insult to the structure and people of the country. After all, they’ve done it before, and we’re not under any kind of persistent domestic surveillance or subject to any kind of encroachment of our rights, are we?
But for the sake of Kenosha, let’s speak at length on the last option. The option that not many people would like, but which seems to be the only one we have any control over.
Citizenry
Kyle Rittenhouse has been condemned by many people for deliberately putting himself into harm’s way while open carrying in Kenosha during the height of the riots. Multiple attempts on his life happened that night, and he wasn’t the first person to fire a shot (there were four others, caught on video) - but we don’t have to go too deeply into the details of that case. What we can say is that he had no history of violence, handled his self-defense exceptionally well - firing only at deadly and imminent threats - and he did it only to protect local people and businesses from the mob. While there can be some nitpicking, ultimately he was out there protecting others from the violent mob.
The only condemnation of his behavior that can reasonably be made is that he went there too early - he chose to stand up for local people before it was really time. But this begs the question, when do you stand up for others, in the face of unrelenting political violence? Not to put too fine a point on it, but there are some fairly clear historical examples of a populace not standing up for one another, until there is nobody left to stand up for them. How many people need to die, how many buildings burned, how many assaults, thefts, and marches need to happen before citizens are ethically allowed to push back against political terror?
That sounds like a loaded question - but if your instinct is to disagree, please, answer it. Find your line. Define how much more has to happen before you wouldn’t condemn a man standing up to a murderous mob.
More’s to the point, there really isn’t an alternative. We’ve established that the mob will not voluntarily stop, and that the police are disallowed from stopping them. There is a real chance that a candidate who refuses to condemn the riots wins the presidential election, and that both houses may be captured by the same party that is at worst encouraging, and at best ignoring, the destruction. If that happens, can we genuinely expect federal intervention?
It’s easily one of the worst options - but it is one that the United States is uniquely set up to implement. Our citizens are capable of defending themselves from all threats, foreign or domestic. While the only people relishing this idea are not very savory, we need to consider if we value our liberty at all. If the rioters have their way, we will all lose large swaths of it. When the mob is at your door, intending to abolish your whiteness (even if you aren’t white), will you let yourself be beaten to death for their amusement, or will you wish there were more people shooting back? Would you trust your family to the mob?
Again, if these questions sound loaded, that’s probably because you’re experiencing a defense mechanism to avoid thinking about the situation in an honest way. Not wanting to consider something ugly is common, and probably healthy. But when it comes to these times, it’s counter-productive.
We may need to save each other, before there’s nothing left to save.
