The rolling Kristallnacht of “mostly peaceful” protests organized and sponsored by the unholy union of Antifa and BLM continues unabated in those mostly progressive Democrat party municipalities such as Chicago, Minneapolis, Portland, and New York. Give the protesters, rioters and looters credit for stamina; they’ve kept it up for nearly two months now, and look to be going strong, still. They haven’t much dared venture out and away from those progressive sanctuaries, although half a dozen did make a trip to Sturgis to provoke the bikers rallying there, which futile bit of resistance theater they did from behind a screen of local police. Which brings to mind Insty the Blogfaddah’s oft-repeated observation that the police which the Antifaites and BLM protesters wish to abolish are there to protect accused criminals from the rest of us. Frankly, it would have been laugh-out-loud comic if the bikers in Sturgis had been allowed to pants the Antifaites and run them out of town naked, but there you are. Obviously the Antifaites and BLMmers are hoping to provoke an over-the-top violent reaction and a blooming new crop of martyr Horst Wessels; they must be quite annoyed that so far, the rest of us have kept our temper. Although there was that incident in Austin late in July, wherein a protester learned too late that brandishing a weapon in a threatening manner towards a driver who is a licensed concealed-carry holder and an active-duty soldier moonlighting as an Uber driver … might just have an adverse outcome.
But one has to wonder what are the civic authorities in Portland, Minneapolis, etc. getting out of all this destructive unrest. The sane, productive and enterprising or just those with no toleration for civic degradation of the place where they live and work are fleeing in job lots, taking their votes (one might hope) their taxes, and in the case of businesses, their jobs for workers with them. What’s the gain in this for mayors and city councils? Is it that they are a bunch of time-serving progressives incapable of looking at a likely long-term outcome, like Detroit? I will not rule out abject stupidity on the part of prog politicians, but there must be a reason for deliberately pursuing policies that drive out the productive and cater to the terminally resentful. One thought comes to mind the Curley Effect: securing long-time political hegemony for one’s own ilk, at the long-term expense of the municipality. Or is there some kind of real estate scheme in effect a 21st century civic variant of ‘block busting’: frighten desperate home and business owners, forcing them to sell or abandon formerly high-value urban real estate at a minimal value, so that they might be scooped up for later redevelopment? Discuss as you wish.
PS – I still believe that Election Day in November will not bring a stop to anything. Instead, it will intensify.
If you have been convinced that those who share the territory you live in with you, share neither politics or culture or morals with you; then to you they are NOT your countrymen. As differences grow, they can and will eventually be considered to be your mortal enemies. We have at least two, and it can be argued many more “nations” within our borders and it has been generations since there was an attempt to make them consider themselves to be countrymen. Usually there is only one way to resolve the problem of multiple nations inside one set of borders.
Especially when at least one considers the other(s) not to be fully human.
Be ready, no matter who wins in November . . . if we have elections in November . . . if the votes are legitimate . . . and counted accurately . . . and reported accurately . . . and honored.
Subotai Bahadur
SB makes a good point. I was thinking about this recently when reading about the National Popular Vote crowd – what makes them think we still have a nation?
There was a time when I thought that Kurt Schlicter’s “People’s Republic” series was a bit of grim dystopic speculation, and now in my despairing moments, it seems to be turning into a documentary.
I still wonder, though – what are the powers that be in these dysfunctional Dem-ruled cities getting out of it? Votes – yeah, likely. Ill-gotten gains through chicanery? Also likely.
There was a very cynic and realistic thought I spotted a few days ago: in a disaster of some sort – how can you make money out of it? I spoke briefly to a small local contractor in my neighborhood the other day – he’s building an elevated deck and a screened porch on the back of a neighbors’ house. A brief talk to an employee of the local Lowe’s – everyone is doing home improvement stuff to their houses and gardens. Renovating a spare bedroom as an office and school-room. Doing a backyard oasis. The local groceries were hiring shelf-stockers, and Amazon was hiring delivery drivers so fast that they could barely give them training. (This I heard from a driver who was totally baffled at finding my front door…)
So I do wonder – what’s the economic benefit to trashing the city that you have authority over and driving out the productive citizens?
I’m somewhere in the middle, on all this.
Right now, the precious little flowers of the left have it all going their way; the “authorities” are on their side, and nobody is really resisting their little games because the “rest of us” haven’t been pushed far enough or seen that there are enough people on our side to make pushback worthwhile. Easier to just abandon the shitty cities to their fates, than put up a fight that the “authorities” are going to censure and prosecute.
The real question is going to be what happens when the normies get their backs up and start pushing back on both the “authorities” and the leftoid goons. One of two things will happen–Either it’ll be like Kent State, where there was a sudden realization that “Hey, we could get hurt doing these things…” on the part of the left, and they’ll go crawling back to Mom’s basement, or… The fight will be on. Then, it all depends on who has the will, and what goes from there.
Right now, a bunch of people are just writing off the cities. When the owners of all those buildings wake up to the lost value and equity, there will be hell to pay with regards to the tolerance they’ve shown for the leftoids and the idiot politicians they blithely supported in the “before times”. At some point, these interests and entities are going to say “Enough…” and then there will be different people running things. I think Oregon is going to be majority-Republican outside the central urban corridor within a generation, and that urban corridor may well be entirely disenfranchised wasteland without real political power, just like Detroit is today in Michigan.
Shooting starts, and remains sustained? No idea where that’s gonna end. But, I don’t think that the 13% black population is going to come out anywhere near on top, and the Democrat coalition of minorities will survive, either. The blacks are already going after the trannies and the queers, and the Mexicans are eyeing the blacks and thinking how easy it would be to just get rid of the lazy bastards…
Not that I hold with any of that bullshit, but that’s what I observe happening and expect to continue happening. End of the day, I think that the US is going to be a mostly blended spectrum of white-hispanic with some Asian admixture. You’ll have some blacks, but they’ll be like the crypto-Jews of the Spanish Reconquista, hidden and secret, passing for darker brown white-hispanics.
Funniest thing about it, in a purely historical sense? The Democrats are almost certainly going to be the prime movers in the coming pogroms, ‘cos they’re going to seamlessly become the “Hispanic Party” as soon as they need to, once all the blacks are gone or neutralized.
@ Sgt. Mom,
Whenever you see politicians acting against self-interest, look for the money. In this case, they’re getting paid off by the Tides Foundation and the likes of George Soros.
Why are they letting that happen? Shortsightedness and human folly; they’re too stupid to realize what their actual jobs are, or what sustains the cities they run, so when Satan proffers his cash, they grab it with both hands.
What I can’t quite figure out is how/why the Trump administration hasn’t taken the tools they have for financial monitoring and tracked down the money pipelines for all these Black Bloc and Antifa organizations. The fairy tale that they’re sustained by donations cannot possibly be true–The money comes from somewhere, and that means it should be vulnerable to RICO prosecutions.
All of these left-wing foundations like the Ford Foundation, Tides, and all the rest? In my view, they’re just like the old monasteries that bedeviled the politics of the late Middle Ages, and at some point, the government is going to have to do something about them. God knows there is a ton of money in them, and that a lot of them are doing things inimical to the best interests of these United States. I think that’s going to be something that needs attention, in the coming years. I’m also pretty sure that they’re going to be financially looted, at some point, ‘cos “…that’s where the money is…”.
It’s pretty simple. Those who would take over the United States (Soros, et al) discovered that pouring money into the election of a president is insufficient to achieve the goal. So a multi-pronged attack was conceived. One, ruin the public schools by removing the teaching of history and critical thinking. Two, take over the secretary of state and prosecutor positions by pouring money into elections which few people care about. Three, release the devils of anarchy and tell your wholly-owned prosecutors to free the devils when caught. Four, make a dog’s breakfast of national elections with things like mail-in voting by using your secretaries of state. Six and final, use a low-impact viral disease to panic the public.
When all of these are complete, the people will beg for any leader who promises a way out. Hitler gained power because he used the economic crisis caused by the onerous reparations demanded by the Western allies to scare the population into believing he was the cure. But that never ends well. No dictator ever ultimately acts in the interests of his people. Ever. The democrats are no different.
California is objectively worse today than it was a few decades ago. Anyone you ask will tell you that. And yet in only 20 years it’s gone from a functioning two party state to one with only one party, and the basis for that party to dominate national politics as well. Where’s the logic to that?
The Curley effect (I’ve never heard of it before) at least presupposes that politicians reward their supporters, but what we see in many places today is bizarre self destructive nihilism that benefits no one. Even the pitiful mayors of Portland, Minneapolis, NYC, don’t get anything out of it, as the brown shirts they enable openly loathe and mock them. It’s quite disturbing.
As far as how the people that own the buildings vote, they don’t. Because mostly it’s not a person it’s a thing, an REIT. A real estate investment trust. If you have a 401K or IRA there’s a good chance some of your money is in one, either directly or through a mutual fund. So the real answer is you, but you probably don’t vote in New York or Portland either. The same goes for the tenants, they’re mostly corporations.
The problem is that the long run extends past the next election. Seeing these places circling the drain may be enough to stop others from joining them but we’ll all end up paying a price
Kirk:
I think Oregon is going to be majority-Republican outside the central urban corridor within a generation.
Faster than you think. Republicans already win the rural areas .
Oregon 2016 Presidential vote. It has a good election results map.
Oregon’s November vote’ll probably have similar surprises.
and that urban corridor may well be entirely disenfranchised wasteland without real political power, just like Detroit is today in Michigan.
Let us hope so.
A guy from my NE hometown became a schoolteacher, like many of his aunts and uncles, and taught at the school he attended as a kid. Not surprisingly, when he was still teaching he was lefty- loved the Sandinistas. After he retired he moved to Oregon- like NE minus the winters. He is still pushing for Socialism. Guess he never learned what Socialism did to Nicaragua.
Kirk
All of these left-wing foundations like the Ford Foundation, Tides, and all the rest? In my view, they’re just like the old monasteries that bedeviled the politics of the late Middle Ages, and at some point, the government is going to have to do something about them.
Henry VIII confiscated the Catholic church’s monastaries.
But one has to wonder – what are the civic authorities in Portland, Minneapolis, etc. – getting out of all this destructive unrest.
I have wondered that, too, Sgt Mom. And if they really took their jobs seriously, instead of hoping to remain entrenched in that job come hell or high water, they would have dispersed the mobs. Call out the National Guard if necessary.
The really strange thing – I have wondered – why don’t the cops at least use tear gas and/or rubber bullets?
And I read some of these city councils and mayors have prohibited them from doing so.
Isn’t that bizarre?
Only thing I can think of is that while they have nothing to gain, they fear that they have something to lose politically by moving against them. The groups are big enough to throw their elections.
Or are they?
On California’s deterioration: I read an interesting post on how a section of Los Angeles, Venice, is getting an apocolyptic look to it with gangs in the streets opening taunting home owners, and homeless with tents along the roads.
And these people in multi million dollar homes are moving out.
Which makes me wonder why would anyone want to move in to a multi million dollar house amid all of that squalor?
Actually, I believe Oregon has become another Illinois. I do not trust the results of the election in 2016, and I have no confidence the election in Oregon (or Illinois) will be fair in 2020. It is highly unlikely that a candidate as bad as Hillary won 70 to 20 in the largest county in Oregon, and did as poorly in the other counties as she did. I suspect widespread election fraud. The same thing happens in Chicago every election.
Stealing from James Altucher; Bandwidth may be equivalent of the repeal of the 17th Amendment of leftism. Bandwidth, as Altucher states allows for company meetings from anywhere. Doing away in large part, office spaces and the need for bodies to travel, park and meet & eat in centralized locations. Many Americans (and companies) have quickly adapted to this method of idea production. It’s not feasible for all trades, nor is it ideal BUT, it has already become a large part of the new way American business works.
This decentralizes the need for large swaths of commercial real estate. It also reduces tax bases and land use. Blue cities should take note, their revenue stream was not interrupted even though this model has been implemented for over a decade now. The blue-City created unrest has been the catalyst that has shown hundreds of employers that bandwidth business models have viability.
This has the effect of distributing blue-minded employees over a large geographic area, physically breaking up a coalition that could easily gather if needed for rioting or voting. It casts them out of cities into out-County suburbs (not necessarily good but).
Methinks many blue-city/state politicians indulged the rioters as fantasy thinking a REAL problem was being addressed through ‘legit’ protest when simple discipline within ranks of municipal police was all that was really needed. Blue politicians have killed the goose that produced their golden eggs.
Tim McDonald Says:
It is highly unlikely that a candidate as bad as Hillary won 70 to 20 in the largest county in Oregon
Really? Have you seen who they elected locally? I think it’s very plausible. The electorate has become dumber than a box of hammers on average. They vote because of whose team they’re on, not the qualities of the candidate.
Maintaining a military campaign for over 80 consecutive nights of battles requires resources for water bottles, gas for Molotov cocktails, helmets, shields, umbrellas, power tools, lasers and strobe lights, fireworks, communications, lawyers, cars, ‘security’ thugs etc etc. One might hope the FBI would be pretty well acquainted with some players in this drama, its organization and financing. But it’s all chicken feed to the data bazillionaires who hope to rule the brave new world when the police go home.
Look at the Medieval Period. Peasants, Serfs, Lower class, working class – forbidden to have weapons. Until they went in the Army. Why? Look at the way that the Church and the LORDS treated them. Give them weapons and the will to use them and watch the shit hit the fan.
Further on Oregon. If you look at various propositions and referenda, you’ll see that Portland Metro and Lane County (Eugene) are reliable Leftist voting areas, while other cities west of the Cascades are a bit more mixed. Jackson County (Medford and the People’s Republic of Ashland) is slowly moving right, and them being saddled with a Soros DA with the usual outrages is helping the rightward push. East of the Cascades and south of the Columbia river area, it’s pretty right leaning with a few exceptions. (Bend is fairly leftish now.)
I live east of the Cascades, and in the sole “protest” for Fentanyl Floyd, the shopkeepers in Klamath Falls brought their AR-15s and their friends (with ARs and AKs; we’re not proud) to prevent any unpleasantness a la Portland. The BLM crowd decided that discretion was the better strategy, and they decamped for places where they were less likely to get perforated. IIRC, the only arrest was for drunkenness.
I’ve looked for Antifa/BLM activity in Medford, and barring a reputed white supremacist who pointed a handgun at the protestors and got arrested, it’s been pretty quiet. My guess is that the more active yahoos in the far left groups have gone up to Portland and Seattle. If they reduce those two cities to ashes, it’ll get interesting in southern Oregon, on both sides of the Cascades.
I doubt it’s this well thought out. I think they are mostly dupes who don’t realize their policy positions end in Detroitistan. Maybe it’s a natural market function; property values are over inflated, the populace is so fat and happy (don’t leave out the bitter ones who didn’t make it) they abandon the mores that got them there, spend money like a drunken sailor on social programs/development and the whole thing topples like a house of cards for the Ponzi scheme it is.
Since the Pacific Northwest is not overwhelmed with Covid I can only assume the rioting is seeing Covid at bay the same way peaceful protests do. If they stop who knows how bad things could get up there. Either that or they have superior mask technology among the Antifa goons and someone should look into that.
@ Sgt Mom,
Studies have demonstrated that violent protest hurts turnout for progressive candidates. But it energizes conservative voters who want to stop the lawlessness and chaos. Thus it would not be surprising for Antifa’s tactics to backfire. Trump may get a majority of the popular vote because of the backlash.
Even better, some states have changed the rules for their electoral votes to give them to the winner of the national popular vote. So some deep blue states might vote for Biden but their electoral votes would go to Trump.
I love the smell of Karma in the morning.
@Kirk
The corollary to Dems becoming the de facto Hispanic party is GOP or its successor becoming the de facto white party.
Big question is then what do the whites on their way to being a minority on the Dem side do? They wont be in the drivers seat much longer. For that matter the powerful Jews there too… Hispanics (and blacks) have no Holocaust reflex to use.
Watching some of the complaints by POC women on pampered white feminists further and shrewdly provoked by Trumps Susan B Anthony pardon is a foretaste.
I too have been wondering how these Lefty politicians will benefit by having their cities destroyed, and I think most will prove to be “Useful Idiots” that are also expendable. In any location with a viable alternative (functioning Republican Party) they will be tossed out as they well deserve but will leave behind destroyed cities. Portland seems unusual in that their stupid Mayor’s opponent is an even more left-wing Antifa supporter. Are there no Republicans (or even Libertarians) left there to run against these idiots? I.e. I think anyone could run against them as a law-and-order candidate and win in the next election. I doubt many of the rioters are actual voters that would provide support for the radical candidates. Same for the City Council members who supported the rioters (which seems to be all of them). Vote them all out!
— What’s the gain in this for mayors and city councils? Is it that they are a bunch of time-serving progressives incapable of looking at a likely long-term outcome, like Detroit? I will not rule out abject stupidity on the part of prog politicians, but there must be a reason for deliberately pursuing policies that drive out the productive and cater to the terminally resentful. —
It’s possible, at least, that extreme cowardice is the major part of the explanation. Politicians aren’t noted for courage. The rampaging mobs, if not buffered off by the police – and what sort of attitude have the police taken to the mobs? – are a threat to anyone within their range. The typical politician, let us remember, is “a man devoid of principle – a mere counter in a grotesque and knavish game. If the right pressure could be applied to him, he would cheerfully be in favor of polygamy, astrology or cannibalism.” (H.L. Mencken) At any rate, it doesn’t take much pressure to bend a “progressive” politician when the hounds of the Left are baying.
“The corollary to Dems becoming the de facto Hispanic party is GOP or its successor becoming the de facto white party.”
This isn’t the case, though, not really. And the corollary to the Dems trying to become the party of upscale white women is that the GOP will become the party for non-white men. And even right now there are plenty of upscale white liberal women who are not at all happy that their heroes in the suffragist movement are getting cr@pped on and cancelled as racists.
“What do the Lefty politicians think will come of all this?”
I honestly believe they haven’t thought that far ahead. Note that we now have two or three generations that went through progressive indoctrination via our pozzed school system. These folks know nothing of history, have not been taught critical thinking skills, and have no grasp of cause and effect. They certainly know nothing of human nature. All they have is ideology — magical thinking. They really believe that they need to do is turn the crank on the churn in the correct direction, and goodness will result. Most of this radical crap is coming from the younger generations.
“What do the politicians and enablers get out of it?”
They get to squat atop the rubble holding the biggest clubs once sectarian violence consumes their cities. Think “Somali warlords”.
There will be less loot to seize and apportion to allies (because it’s all been trashed and burned), so the New Bosses will be objectively poorer, but like the old Soviet apparatchiks their relative power and greater affluence (“They have EGGS! And TRAVEL PERMITS!”) over the remaining proletarians will be that much greater. And that’s the point.
The Democrats at least since FDR have used agitprop and manipulation as part of their election strategy. During FDR’s time and for a time afterwards, the Democrat politicians were able to govern (i.e., mayor Richard J. Daley). Over the years the focus has increasingly been on getting elected, and less on governing after the election. Now pols like Wheeler and Lightfoot are clueless when they have to do their jobs.
The real question I have at this point is just what actions Antifa and BLM will take with regard to the November elections. Here in Oregon, the ballots go out about 2 weeks before the election, and can be either mailed in or deposited in specified ballot drop-boxes. All the ballots, including absentee ballots must be RECEIVED by 8:00 PM on election day; postmarks do not count.
If the Antifa/BLM terrorists want to create election chaos here in Oregon, all they would need to do would be to start stealing or destroying ballot drop-boxes, and on election eve, attack the county election offices where the ballots are ultimately collected and counted. I shudder to think of how that would play out, even if the disruption effort was only slightly successful. Similar efforts by the terrorists around the country would have a devastating effect on the integrity of the election process, and who knows what would happen then. Would there be an effort to conduct a re-vote? How would the delays caused by a re-vote affect State and Federal compliance with the laws (including Constitutional law) that control the election process?
Patrick,
I have no doubt that that is how the politicians see themselves. If it all goes south, one of the few consolations will be the look on their faces, in the inevitable videos, as they’re killed by the real thugs when they realize that they aren’t any better at thugery than anything else.
I would be shocked if in October we don’t see real cases of mail box sabotage, and it get blamed on mysterious white men wearing Hawaiian shirts and red hats in the middle of the night in places like LA, Detroit, etc.
The right has no organized shock troops, for multiple reasons including media distortions and a lack of deep pockets to support them. The left is in the middle of honing theirs.
If Trump wins, there will be riots in cities all over the country. Cities with black populations exceeding 25% will experience destruction levels comparable to Minneapolis.
If Biden wins (by hook or by crook) there will be comparatively minor violence. Not from Republicans, but from the same group that riots when “their” team wins the NBA championship.
If Trump wins, the economy will stagger along, trying to get past the damage caused by lockdowns.
If Biden wins,we will be in a full-blown recession, heading to depression within 9 months.
The deterioration of the cities amplifies the velocity of the left’s take over of suburbs. Those large concentrations of blue votes in big cities can now be pushed to red suburbs…in conjunction with the Dems already in progress plan of forced quotas and low income housing requirements in the ‘burbs. Breaking down the cities and reconfiguring the geography of the blue vote leads to a true national take over.
BonHagar Bandwidth may be equivalent of the repeal of the 17th Amendment of leftism.
If so, was the kerfuffle over “Net Neutrality” an opening skirmish?
Buddhaha The right has no organized shock troops, for multiple reasons including media distortions and a lack of deep pockets to support them.
The volunteer first responders — “The Cajun Navy” being a better-than-usually publicized example — demonstrate that top level “organized” troops aren’t strictly necessary. The news about Steve Bannon today, accused of bilking conservative “build the wall” supporters — accusations which parallel accusations against self-aggrandizement of NRA officials and the plethora of “Tea Party” fund-raisers and *organizers* who organize supporters into donations to grifters — anyhow, the RIGHT is by now rightly suspicious of organizing efforts. Too many fall apart and leave the militia un-led. Jordan Peterson? Milo Yianopolous? The right is at its best when self-directed — as Glenn Reynolds quips, “A Pack, not a Herd”. If it comes to arming a militia, the Left has to hire a truck to ship a pallet load of newly purchased weapons and ammo to the battle. The Right has to open a closet …
I think Oregon is going to be majority-Republican outside the central urban corridor within a generation, and that urban corridor may well be entirely disenfranchised wasteland without real political power, just like Detroit is today in Michigan.
Kirk, I have news for you. Oregon, Washington State, and even NY State are already majority Republican, outside of urban areas…
Oregon, 2016 election (Blue==GOP!!)
https://uselectionatlas.org/RESULTS/state.php?year=2016&fips=41&f=0&off=0&elect=0
Washington:
https://uselectionatlas.org/RESULTS/state.php?year=2016&fips=53&f=0&off=0&elect=0
NY:
https://uselectionatlas.org/RESULTS/state.php?year=2016&fips=36&f=0&off=0&elect=0
The REAL question, if anything, is whether the liberal morons fleeing the cities will continue to vote for the same idiotic liberal policies that caused them to flee.
So far, this has been the case with the flight from Cali, which has led to far more left-leaning in traditionally Republican states, such as AZ and Nevada.
We’re faced with two models of governance. Mob rule going under the disguise of ‘democracy’. ‘Democracy’ being who’s paying the mob and who’s paying for protection. And, constitutional republicanism. Blue state, red state, respectively, sorta.
And, we had our Antifa/BLM parade here in Casper, Wyoming. The all came in on their bus–again who paid for it–and you know they were ‘casing the joint’ to see what sort of violence they could visit upon our town. Never had a chance to break a window. The police were out in force in riot gear. More importantly, were a sizable collection of citizens (in the truest sense of the word) lining the parade route openly carrying their AR15’s. According to one of my patients, the wife of one of those cops, it was the latter that really PO’d the Antifa/BLM types.
Compare that to the looting and vandalism on Chicago’s Mag Mile. Citizens outside their businesses openly armed? In Chicago, there would arrests; not of the looters but of the citizens protecting their businesses. With stern castigation by the mayor and her cronies that ordinary citizens would dare to openly arm themselves to protect their livelihoods. Therein lies the hopelessness of corruption of our big cities. You home and business may only survive with the permission of our elected leaders who may, ideologically, see that these are actually worth saving. If not, it’s the socialist broken eggs/omelet troupe.
That’s the fundamental difference. Everyone in Casper understood that no one was looking for a fire fight. But, the armed citizen sent two messages out that day. To our municipal leaders that there will be order. And, of course to the marchers itching to unleash mayhem.
November 3rd boils down to picking one of those two models of governance.
With the left, it’s always and everywhere option (1), crawling back to mom’s basement.
There isn’t enough testosterone for one-on-one combat in any of the girls, and the boys are useless.
I’m going to be contrary. I admit upfront that I can’t predict the future, but I think the left has screwed up, bigtime. My guess is that all this was a setup, needing only a trigger.
George Floyd was that trigger. The problem is that they pulled it was too early for their purposes. They needed this to happen about September or October, late enough that people couldn’t figure out that it was all a setup, and thus rush head long into electing Kamala the Cop because Black Lives Matter.
Instead, they have many leftist-controlled cities burned or burning, with no avalanche of cash incoming to rebuild the ruins and payoff all the politicians and their pet rioters. A tactic that drags on too long becomes a drag.
Thus, instead of the narrative being guilty white racists groveling before the saintly people of color and handing over truckloads of cash, we have leftist rioters shrieking racial slurs at black cops- and Baltimore GOP congressional candidate Kim Klacik giving a tour of that city with actual residents stating bluntly that they do not want to defund the police.
And- by the way- Portland is still burning.
Call me crazy, but I just don’t think this makes the democrats look good, or encourages people to vote for them.
I strongly suspect that most of the rioters aren’t there night after night for weeks on end. These are live-fire training exercises for antifa and BLM. I think that antifa are shuffling in people to train them in rioting and giving them a feel literally for what to expect when they do it in their own home town. I think all the cities are going to blow up if Trump gets elected.
I strongly suspect that most of the rioters aren’t there night after night for weeks on end. These are live-fire training exercises for antifa and BLM. I think that antifa are shuffling in people to train them in rioting and giving them a feel literally for what to expect when they do it in their own home town. I think all the cities are going to blow up if Trump gets elected.
This may well be completely true- but if so it demonstrates just how fatuous these idiots actually are. When I think “live-fire training” it isn’t rioters shining lasers at cops, rioters throwing bottles of frozen urine at cops, or even rioters setting fires. It’s people shooting rifles at far away targets, often paper cutouts of people the shooter doesn’t like, perhaps today including antifa scum.
I am also reminded of various videos I’ve seen of leftists getting ambushed by reality, such as the protesters who lay down in front of a moving train- and then scrambled away in terror when it failed to stop for them in about 100 feet- or multiple videos of protesters holding “defund the police” signs but who immediately started bleating for the cops when bad things happened.
These people are fools.
These people are fools.
I think there are several groups. The looters are mostly black and the typical inner city black that has never held a job. The white kids are mostly anarchists who are being paid to do this. I’m hoping the DOJ is collecting data on the payment networks for the second term. If Biden wins, that is all off but then we will have civil war.
Some of the anarchists have interesting jobs, like school teachers and university staff members, mostly in Berkeley but I suppose these types can be found in other university towns. Tucson school teachers had a demonstration a year ago organized by an avowed communist.
I have seen the term Kristallnacht used on FB, to refer NOT to the riots, but rather to the sending of federal officers to protect federal property.
This done by people who are over 40, not academics, with serious professional jobs or businesses.
David: I’ve heard perfectly reasonable liberals say that Trump will flee to Russia the day after he loses the election. When pressed they appear to honestly believe this, or at least they play act as if they do very convincingly, never breaking character. Of course these same people were saying a few weeks ago that Trump will have to be removed from the Oval Office by the military on election day. The world has gone completely mad.
*I meant inauguration day in that next to last sentence of course.
“I’ve heard perfectly reasonable liberals say that Trump will flee to Russia the day after he loses the election.”
Note that the people who are so afraid of RUSSIA almost never express concerns about China.
This makes sense for many professional politicians, lobbyists, etc, and for some executives and investors, because there is a lot more money to be made from China than from Russia.
But a lot of people who are none of these things are following the same pattern.
For what it’s worth, I don’t think many if any of the people on the street are being paid. That would leave a very broad path, practically a super highway, back to the funders for RICO liability. While the local authorities might be inclined to turn a blind eye, the feds won’t. At least not for now.
I think the street people are divided between the young and stupid, playing at being woke and your garden variety low life thug. As time has gone on and even the dumbest of the former start to realize the sort of fun having a conviction for arson on your record will entail, the thugs are predominating.
Early on, we saw the stupid in the guise of those lawyers that got caught with molotov cocktails. The latest crop to have distinguished themselves have had long rap sheets. Not that there isn’t a distinct element of stupidity in committing felonies on camera. The credulity of the media would be amusing if it wasn’t so predictable and destructive. When the “umbrella man” in Minneapolis was identified as a Hell’s Angel, you’d have thought that there was something surprising about an organization best known for dealing drugs also countenancing arson and suppressing the police.
I have perfect faith that the great majority of the outside money is being siphoned off by the same sort of non-profit parasites that infest all of the organized “movements”. Far more worried about their salary and perks than actual accomplishments, secure in the knowledge that the next “Board” that hires them will be as clueless as the one that provides their present gig. They’re probably smart enough to have heard of RICO and not inclined to spend money on anyone but themselves. As the cannon fodder lose interest, it will probably peter out like the “occupy” movement did. They just don’t have the raw material to build anything lasting, or, outside of the true believers, the inclination.
As the excellent Days of Rage essay on the topics of the book by the same name starts, two years after Kent State:
The Left will still have plenty of options for violence.
People are also totally missing out on the spiritual aspect of this combined Color, Communist, and for this point, especially Cultural revolution. It’s a holiness spiral, and most of the Leftist authorities who are allowing Antifa/BML/RevCom to literally run riot are in part doing so because they have to at least as holy as the former, else they too will get canceled.
“When the “umbrella man” in Minneapolis was identified as a Hell’s Angel”
That was completely unsubstantiated obvious garbage. It was literally Keith Ellison’s department saying “we got an anonymous tip from someone saying that their friend knows Umbrella Man is a member of Hell’s Angels.” That’s literally all it was. I mean, come on, did that dude LOOK like he was a Hell’s Angel? LOL. But they got it out there on the internet and so now it’s “truth” unfortunately. It was the standard antifa trick of saying that every single person who tries to get away from them when they mob a car is a “white supremacist”.
And just what is a Hell’s Angle supposed to look like? Obesity is common but not universal. I’m not vouching for the identification, merely pointing out that the actions are hardly incompatible with the organization.
I have perfect faith that the great majority of the outside money is being siphoned off by the same sort of non-profit parasites that infest all of the organized “movements”. Far more worried about their salary and perks than actual accomplishments, secure in the knowledge that the next “Board” that hires them will be as clueless as the one that provides their present gig.
I’m not so sure. Who is organizing those pallets of bricks dropped off near riot sites ? It may have declined lately as organizers realize the risk of RICO. I still think there is an organizing entity that pays some of these people. How do the rioters get to the scene? Buses ?
Hmm…skinny white dude carrying an umbrella smashing windows to try to accelerate a riot…yep, totally Hell’s Angel behavior, not at all like antifa….
Suspect some of the motivation is transferal – there was a lot of that at the Democratic convention, it seems to be perhaps the primary factor defining their beliefs and fears. Then there is virtue signalling and greed – who doesn’t want some new shoes or drugs or stylish clothes? For free? And certainly Soros is a factor – he spent so much time setting up the state attorneys for just such occasions not to assume he’d put them to good use. The nationalization of the riots seems to also imply that and the speed with which the bricks and troops were mobilized after the Floyd mess was not some strange accident And there had been talk of a summer of discontent long in early spring. But I’m sure all those things feed the essential human characteristic – the madness of crowds.
the madness of crowds
These crowds are angry as well as mad.
Sgt Mom: “But one has to wonder – what are the civic authorities in Portland, Minneapolis, etc. – getting out of all this destructive unrest.”
Just a hypothesis, no evidence. Far Left mayors etc may have assumed that the Far Left Democrat Congress would ship lots of Federal dollars to them “to rebuild the communities” after the destruction done with the connivance of the local Lefties. This would have provided excellent opportunities for graft, kickbacks, & self-enrichment for the local Lefties — part of which could be recycled into contributions to the DNC, keeping everyone happy.
@Gavin,
That’s becoming my working hypothesis, as well.
There are some interesting parallels with the foreign aid shenanigans that have been going on for decades with Congress; Biden’s son isn’t the only family member of a congresscritter who’s benefited from cushy no-show employment like Burisma, nor is Ukraine the only country that’s been blackmailed into kickbacks to these smarmy pricks.
You get down to it, the whole thing starts to look a lot like an organized crime bust-out, where a legitimate enterprise is taken over and then systematically looted to benefit the criminals. In this case, it’s the DemoRepublican Uniparty that’s been running the DC machine since forever, and we’re only now starting to see what has been going on.
I wondered why Flynn was the target of such vicious and malicious slandering/prosecution. Then I heard about his plans to audit the intel agencies, and all became clear: They had to destroy him, lest he destroy them first.
Mike,
I don’t know. A pile of bricks out of the trunk of a car can be had for free or cheap for cash. A pallet delivery takes machinery and leaves tracks, same with bus charters. Neither take a lot of money.If there’s a paid cadre, I would expect them to stay away from the action.
Cash money to someone dumb enough to go on record that only thinks he knows your name would buy bricks and buses. We’ll have to see how it shakes out. The gov has a thousand motivated defendants that are just now finding out that they’re going to be out thousands of dollars before they even know how long they may be in prison. Bail and legal fees leave tracks as well. I don’t have polling but I’d bet that bunch will go pretty heavy for Biden, at least the ones that can vote.
The right has not responded in kind because they correctly perceive they are being baited to create an incident which can be used by the media to focus blame on them, and bring it to bear on the election.
The day after the election that reason to abstain disappears.
Raven
The longer the Antifa/BLM rioting & intimidation goes on without any pushback from the Democrats running those cities, the more inclined others will be to respond in kind to the Antifa/BLM rioting and intimidation.
How the City of Portland handles the goon who turned himself in for beating up a citizen will be a test of the integrity of the legal process. If the DA decides to go easy on him, others will decide that City of Portland is unwilling to protect them, and they must take protection into their own hands. (Recall how the Spanish government’s refusal to arrest the leftist police killers of right-wing Parliament leader José Calvo Sotelo convinced many on the right that there was no justice for them, and that Franco’s 1936 uprising was the solution.)
On the other hand, if the Portland DA decides to make the goon a sacrificial lamb and hand him a heavy sentence, there will still be doubt about how Portland is going.
As you point out, after the election, those tendencies to not rely on government for protection- for citizens to take upon themselves the restraining or punishment of the BLM/Antifa goons- will only increase.
As Glenn Reynolds has often pointed out, one purpose of the police is to protect criminals from the anger of the population. We have seen plenty of evidence that the police are not going to restrain the Antifa/BLM goons, which implies that those who are not police will have to assume responsibility for restraining the Antifa/BLM goons.But after the election.
Marquise Love, let’s get his name out there for everyone to see. The first test will be if he makes bail, last I heard was $25K. Especially how. If it’s from his, undoubtedly, long suffering mom, that’s one thing. If it’s some “organization” don’t expect to see a trial until he’s caught after jumping bail. At best, it’ll be next year with his defense putting it off as long as possible.
The narrative is especially interesting. The victim was supposed to be helping a “transgender” individual recover some lost possessions from the “peaceful” protesters. Doesn’t sound much like a hate filled redneck running down innocents, merely exercising their 1st Amendment Rights.
The voters will have to make their decision without the benefit of this bit of judicial wisdom.