Inanity Abounds on Both Sides in the ‘Law and Order’ Road Show

As the Trump administration takes its “law and order” show on the road after a dress rehearsal at Lafayette Square in Washington, D.C., and a soft opening in Portland, Oregon, let me just say I’m disgusted with almost everybody involved. 

Let’s start with the Portland demonstrators. Contrary to heroic PR efforts from many in the mainstream media, these aren’t great people. Oh sure, I have no doubt some, even many, are decent enough on a personal level. But even decent people become ugly when they lend their bodies and voices to mobs and riots. Even if they just watch, they’re encouraging rioting and violence. 

Then there’s the mainstream and left-wing media. When right-wing protesters—foolishly in my opinion, but also peacefully—gathered to denounce lockdown orders during the early days of the pandemic, virtually everybody to the left of Fox News insisted it was dangerous, fascistic and scary (which, by the way, is how the media mostly covered Tea Party rallies a decade ago).

But whether it was peaceful protests in the wake of George Floyd’s killing or even rioting and arson, the non-right media covered it all in a spirit of near celebration, with the occasional tsk-tsking for some excesses.