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@bmdrocks21
The riots throughout the summer were 100% forced from the top-down. The cause was less rapid than the singular event on Jan 6, but the lies spread in the media about high-profile cases over a course of about half a decade led to that rioting.
First of all, the idea that this came from the media is nonsense. The number of people being killed by police has not risen significantly over the past decade. What has changed is the fact that ordinary people now have the ability to capture this and spread it without the media being needed. This is why all the high profile cases were being catapulted into the mainstream. It didn’t come from the media, the media was forced to report on it because of the backlash this was getting by anyone with a smart phone.
Second, even if we grant this premise that it came from the media, the argument still fails. The media didn’t plot anything. There was no end game to reporting on these police incidents. There was no date where the media said “hey everyone, come on down on this date and stop this”. If Derek Shovin hadn’t killed George Floyd in broad daylight in the slowest most cruel way possible, it's likely none of the riots would have happened.
Third, “the media” is just a lazy catch all phrase uttered by right wingers who love to pretend that what’s going on on the left is any different than the right. We can argue all day about which side of the spectrum is actually doing the lying here, but right wing news plays no less of a role than left wing news in ginning up the base. What’s different about the right vs the left on these two issues is the fact that right wing politicians were also front and center in inciting this, which is who I’m talking about when I talk about “the top”.
These two things are not even close.
But exactly how was democracy threatened?
January 6th was not a spontaneous event. If you actually want to understand how and why this is so bad you need context.
Again, it was not pushed by some vague notion like "the media". The one person who pushed all of this and whom none of this would have happened without was the president of the United States.
January 6th was the culmination of a months long effort by him to hold power no matter what the voters decided. When they rejected him, it was only onto the next step. At that point it was him making use of stochastic terrorism, and once the probable outcome occurred he was not punished for it. That, is why democracy is in serious danger at the moment. Because of people like you pretending there was nothing to see here while those who were behind inciting it continue to learn from their mistakes and set the stage for the next election.
Sounds only somewhat bad to me.
This is just disingenuous. If it were antifa beating police officers on their way to the Chambers of Congress to stop a Trump certification you would be grabbing you're pitchfork and torch and you know it.
That hostile force? No guns, no killing.
So beating police officers, busting through police barricades protecting the US Capitol, smashing windows to get in, vandalizing the US Capitol while chanting to hang the vice president, and forcing Congress to hide in bunkers while they were supposed to be certifying an election is not a hostile force? Is this a joke?
The president told them to go home on the day of.
After three hours of the entire world watching in horror. After there hours of everyone from Kevin McCarthy to Ivanka Trump to Sean Hannity and Laura Ingram pleading with him to put a stop to it.
How many hours of this before a president Hillary Clinton told antifa to go home would you have been ok with?
This is both why I am so fascinated by this topic and yet why it's such a pointless effort. It just amazes me watching people twist themselves in pretzels to make arguments they don't believe.