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| Why are some promoting that the Capitol riots are worse than the current US problems? |
One year after the US Capitol riot,
Washington seems worried about domestic terrorism only when conservatives are
perpetrators, but polling suggests no one outside the establishment echo
chamber is swayed by the skewed narrative.
As a GOP congressman held up nearly
identical photos of federal buildings being breached – one of the US Capitol
last January and another of the Department of the Interior in October –
Attorney General Merrick Garland sat stone-faced.
Try as he might provoke the nation’s
top law enforcement official to characterize leftist protesters who fought
their way into the Department of the Interior (DOI), Representative Greg Steube
(R-Florida) couldn’t goad Garland into offering an opinion. While Garland has
called the Capitol riot “the most dangerous threat to democracy” seen
in his 44-year legal career, the attorney general said he couldn’t make any
determinations about what happened at the DOI.
What Garland said next at the House
Judiciary Committee hearing on October 21 stunned Steube. When asked if he
believed the DOI rioters, like the Capitol rioters, were domestic terrorists,
Garland replied, “I’m not going to be able to reference
that specific incident since this is the first I know about it.”
The riot in question involved the storming
of a restricted federal government building just about a 30-minute walk from
Garland’s office and just one week before the committee hearing. Environmental
extremists injured multiple security officers, including at least one who was
hospitalized, and 55 were arrested.
If Garland
seemed suddenly unconcerned about attacks on federal buildings in Washington,
he wasn’t alone. The Washington Post referred to the violent breaching at the DOI as
“clashes” between protesters and officers. Other media outlets referred to the
rioters as “occupying” the building and being arrested after a “sit-in.”
There was
no hyping of the incident like that done over the Capitol riot, which media and
political pundits have likened to the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
Some, such as political strategist Matthew Dowd, have called it “worse” than
9/11. Huffington Post White House correspondent S.V. Date said it was “1,000
times worse,” at least partly because it was led by then-President Donald
Trump. Family members of 9/11 victims were outraged by such rhetoric.
President
Joe Biden – whose victory over Trump was challenged by the election-fraud
protestors who breached the Capitol – went so far as to call the riot the “worst
attack on our democracy since the Civil War.” Apparently fond of such
hyperbole, he later called laws passed by several Republican-controlled states
to deter election fraud “the most significant test of our democracy since the
Civil War.” He went on to weave the riot and the new state legislation
together, suggesting they were rooted in the same ideology.
Such
statements might seem outlandish, but the narrative fed a theme: branding
opposition to the ruling party as domestic terrorism – in fact, the only real
domestic terrorism – and portraying the threats posed by American right-wingers
as even worse than overseas terrorists. And a threat that big obviously
required a harsh crackdown.
Despite
the fact that no one was killed by the Capitol rioters, contrary to false media
reports, they’ve been portrayed as racist and bloodthirsty insurrectionists. US
Representative Hank Johnson, the Georgia Democrat who once theorized that an
expansion of US military operations in Guam might cause the island to capsize,
argued that lawmakers would have been murdered if a Capitol police officer
hadn’t fatally shot one of the rioters (the only person who was killed that
day). “I have no doubt that some of us who look like me would have been
hanging from the railings . . . swinging like fruit, strange fruit,” said Johnson,
who is black.
Reporters reacted similarly. In fact, six
months after the riot, Vice News reported that some of the correspondents who
“survived” the incident were still afraid to go back into the Capitol to do
their jobs. Erik Wasson of Bloomberg News told Vice that he’s suffering from a post-traumatic stress disorder and has researched survival techniques, such as
how to use a metal pen as a weapon. Another reporter opted to
take early retirement rather than face the trauma of going back into the
Capitol.
Garland’s Department of Justice (DOJ) has
prosecuted more than 700 alleged rioters, dozens of whom were held without bail
pending trial. Many were locked in solitary confinement. Republican lawmakers
have accused jailers of beating and verbally abusing the January 6 suspects, in
some cases with racist attacks. Some have allegedly been denied visits with their lawyers and family
members.
US Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene
(R-Georgia) last month contrasted the treatment of alleged pro-Trump defendants
to that of race rioters who torched American cities, causing more than $2
billion in damage, and killed dozens of people in the summer of 2020. US
District Court Judge Trevor McFadden said prosecutors were undermining the DOJ’s
credibility by failing to be “even-handed” about riots arising from opposite
ends of the political spectrum.
Other judges have enthusiastically gone
along with the January 6 crackdown. For instance, Jacob Chansley, the costumed
rioter famously known as “QAnon Shaman,” was sentenced in November to 41 months in prison,
despite not even being accused of any acts of violence. Prosecutors called for
a tough sentence against Chansley to “set an example” and deter any future
“assault on our democracy.”
No such example was needed, apparently, in
the prosecution of Joshua Warner, a transgender Antifa activist also known as
Eva Warner. The DOJ last month dropped charges against Warner after the
defendant completed 30 hours of community service. Warner, who was
arrested for allegedly assaulting officers at a Portland riot in August
2020, also was busted for alleged offenses at multiple other riots and let go
without being charged.
Portland was plagued by rioting for more
than 100 straight days in 2020 when Antifa activists laid siege to the Mark O.
Hatfield federal courthouse. Officers were assaulted with hammers, slingshots, and other weapons. Warner’s alleged tool of choice was a powerful laser that
can cause permanent damage when shined into someone’s eyes.
But politicians and media outlets reacted
to the violence in Portland by expressing outrage over the tactics of federal
law enforcement under the Trump administration. Mayor Ted Wheeler demanded that
federal officers “stay inside their building or leave Portland
altogether.” The city of Portland fined the Trump administration $11
million for blocking a bike lane when it erected a fence around the embattled
courthouse.
The New Republic characterized efforts to quell the riots as “a
historic federal crackdown on dissent.” Ironically, CNN opined that by calling protesters who disagree with him
“terrorists, ”Trump had put himself “in the company of the world’s
autocrats.” Never mind that the protesters were committing assault,
arson, and other acts of violence in pursuit of their political cause. Under
Trump’s watch, calling violent rioters domestic terrorists was autocratic.
Just as the political violence in Portland
was downplayed and largely forgiven, an Antifa activist who bashed the office
entrance of US Senator John Hoeven (R-North Dakota) with an axe in December
2020 was spared incarceration. Alexander Starks was
sentenced to probation, rather than the 10-16 months imprisonment that he could
have gotten, and reportedly gushed on Facebook that the DOJ was kind enough to
return his axe. Law professor Jonathan Turley decried the move, saying the axe
was returned “as if it was a form of political expression.”
While the DOJ is cracking down on the
Capitol trespassers, the Democrat-controlled House of Representatives has
formed a committee to undertake a “9/11-style” probe of the riot’s origins. The
apparent idea is to show how Trump and his allies incited the “insurrection,”
just as Democrats claimed when the House voted to impeach the former president
last January.
The panel has tried to play hardball with
Trump allies who have declined to testify in the investigation. Last month, it
voted to hold former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows in contempt of
Congress, calling for him to be prosecuted by the DOJ for refusing to
cooperate. Former Trump advisor Steve Bannon was indicted by the DOJ in
November on the same grounds.
The House committee’s chairman,
Representative Bennie Thompson (D-Mississippi), suggested last
month that Trump allies who decline to answer his questions by exercising their
constitutional right against self-incrimination are essentially admitting to
illegal activity. In some instances, he added, invoking the 5th Amendment
right “says you are part and parcel guilty of what occurred.”
And just as in the case of the QAnon
Shaman, Democrats are seeking to make examples of the Republicans who they
believe promote domestic terrorism. Representative Cori Bush (D-Missouri) said last
week that Congress should commemorate the one-year anniversary of the Capitol
riot by expelling those members who helped incite the “violent insurrection.”
Presumably, Bush and her colleagues would get to decide which democratically
elected representatives are guilty of incitement – and therefore fair game to
be thrown out of office.
While vilifying the Trump supporters who
breached the Capitol, legacy media outlets have sought to paint other political
opposition with the same brush. For example, the media reaction was intense
when an Oregon man, Jared Schmeck, trolled Biden by saying “Let’s Go Brandon” during a
“Santa tracker” Livestream on Christmas Eve. Ron Brownstein, the editor of the
Atlantic, told CNN that the stunt was “fundamentally about insurrection.”
Media coverage of the insolent jokester’s
use of an anti-Biden slogan was so overheated that some online commentators
mocked the press for giving Schmeck more critical and extensive coverage than
Darrell Brooks, the Black Lives Matter supporter who allegedly killed six
people and injured 62 by ramming his car into a Wisconsin Christmas parade in
November.
Conservative author Dinesh D’Souza said Schmeck struck a nerve because he used a slogan
that mocks both Biden and the media, and he exposed the president’s lack of
mental acuity. “Let’s Go, Brandon, I agree,” Biden replied on the
Livestream, apparently missing the fact that he was the butt of Schmeck’s joke.
MSNBC host Nicolle Wallace was among those
who blasted Schmeck’s insult against Biden, calling it a “slow-motion
insurrection.” Her guest, author Jason Johnson, called for a DOJ or
CIA investigation and said the “Let’s Go Brandon'' phrase is “the
cry of people who want to violently take over this country and oppress anyone
who is not like them.”
The statement was one of many examples of
mainstream outlets trying to paint anti-Biden Americans as dangerous. When
supporters of the riot defendants organized a September rally in Washington,
media outlets predicted a possible sequel to January 6. CNN said Capitol Hill
was gripped by renewed fears of political violence. NBC News said that as
“Trump fans” gathered again in Washington, “the specter of white
privilege looms large.”
As it turned out, the approximately 400
attendees were outnumbered by police and reporters. An armed man at the rally
was arrested, only to be released after it was revealed that he was a federal
officer.
The media’s messaging appears to have done
little to change public opinion. A University of Massachusetts Amherst poll
released last week showed that 71% of Republicans still believe that
Biden stole the 2020 presidential election from Trump. Only 58% of Americans
overall said Biden is the rightful president, while 22% of Republicans said the
election result was “definitely not legitimate” – results that were almost
identical to the responses when the same survey was carried out last April.
The poll showed predictable polarization
on the Capitol breach, with 62% of Republicans seeing the participants as
“protesters,” rather than rioters, and 68% of Democrat respondents considering
them “insurrectionists” and “white nationalists.” A whopping 86% of Democrats
support continuing efforts to investigate and prosecute perpetrators of the
riot, compared with just 29% of Republicans.
UMass Amherst professors lamented the
survey results, saying the poll showed “Republicans and Democrats
living in diametrically opposed realities.” They also knew who to
blame, citing “persistent and baseless claims by the former president
and his sycophants.” Perhaps just like their survey respondents, the
pollsters saw reality through the lens of their political ideology. UMass
Amherst ranks as one of the most liberal colleges in
Massachusetts.
Another poll suggested that Americans are
about equally divided on the seriousness of the Capitol riot. A November survey
by Iowa’s Des Moines Register revealed that half of the respondents believe the breach
was an insurrection and a threat to democracy. Republicans and Democrats were
polar opposites on the question, while 50% of independents agreed that the riot
was a threat to democracy.
Still another poll found that more
Americans are worried about US-based extremist groups than overseas terrorist
organizations. The August survey, which was done by the Associated Press and
the NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, found that 65% of Americans are highly concerned about
domestic terrorism, compared to 50% who are troubled by extremist groups based
outside the US.
As for the
perceived political bent of the domestic extremists who merit concern — whether
the chief bogeymen come from the far left or right — likely depends on the eye
of the beholder. Increasingly, political views shape the opinions of the alleged
perpetrators.
Consider the case of Thomas Sibick, a New York man who was charged as a Capitol rioter but later renounced Trump, saying he loathed the former president. After receiving a letter from the defendant about his change of heart, US District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson ordered that Sibick be released into the custody of his family, saying he had earned “the benefit of the doubt.”
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