The GOP’s ‘Mostly Peaceful’ Hypocrisy
Those who complained about last summer’s riots now want to make the case that the January 6 riot at the Capitol was no big deal.
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Last summer, after months of protests and riots in response to the murder of George Floyd, the phrase “mostly peaceful,” often used by the media and Democrats to describe the protests, achieved parody status thanks to a CNN clip.
It showed a reporter in Kenosha, Wis., standing in front of a burning building and cars ablaze. CNN’s chyron read, “FIERY BUT MOSTLY PEACEFUL PROTESTS AFTER POLICE SHOOTING.”
Conservatives loved it—me included. It summed up a long, hot, pandemic summer of being told not to believe our lying eyes when it came to the violence we saw either on our TVs or in our communities. Thousands of properties and businesses around the country had been burned, damaged or looted, costing billions.
Still, the reality was a bit more complicated. The “mostly peaceful” thing was mostly true. A study by the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project found that 93 percent of protests were, in fact, peaceful. Part of the problem, according to the authors, was that the media couldn’t resist showing images of violence (duh!), which created a misperception about the protests.
Conservative critics of the finding rightly noted that focusing on the peaceful protests, some of which became violent, missed the point. First, violence is always committed by a small avant-garde. Downplaying the violence or even making apologies for it ignores the way in which the rhetoric of protesters can foment violence.
Fast forward to 2021. In the wake of the siege of the U.S. Capitol by a mob supporting Donald Trump, the right now clings to the “mostly peaceful” canard.
In March, Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson insisted on a radio show that he wasn’t scared of the January 6 mob, but he would have been if they were from Black Lives Matter. Responding to the backlash to his comments, he wrote in the Wall Street Journal: “Leftists who want to memory hole last summer’s political violence immediately started lecturing me that the 2020 protests were mostly peaceful.” He cited the ACLED study as proof.
In April, Johnson told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that the Jan. 6 crowd was “mostly peaceful.” And last week, Johnson tweeted:
Chuck Schumer @SenSchumer
Of January 6th, GOP Senator Ron Johnson said: “by and large it was peaceful protests” Some Republicans liken the mob to “normal tourists” The Capitol was breached, and Capitol police officers were injured and killed! This Senate will vote on the January 6th Commission. https://t.co/CwIwlNou7DAccording to this thinking, if a few hundred of the attackers fighting the police on the Capitol steps with bear spray and flagpoles never actually made it inside the building, then the Jan. 6 mob was about 93 percent peaceful, too.
Johnson, like most congressional Republicans, opposes a commission to study the Jan. 6 siege. He claims it’s just a partisan Democratic effort to push a “false narrative” about Trump. Johnson sounds reasonable compared with other Republicans who’ve claimed, variously, that January 6 looked no different than a “normal tourist visit,” or that the siege was a false flag operation conducted by antifa or Black Lives Matter. Trump described the mob that eventually chanted “Hang Mike Pence” as a “love fest.”
All of this has had an effect. Some 55% of Republicans recently told Ipsos/Reuters that they strongly or somewhat agree that the riot at the Capitol was led by “violent left-wing protesters trying to make Trump look bad.” Nearly the same number believe the protesters were “mostly peaceful.” And 53% of Republicans think Trump is the actual president while 60% strongly or somewhat believe that the election was stolen from Trump.
Those last two findings are crucial because the violence was motivated by these false beliefs. It’s amazing how easily Republicans can see how the rhetoric of BLM activists can create a permission structure for violence, but they become utterly blind to the same point when it comes to violence at the seat of our government.
There are many legitimate arguments against a special commission to study Jan. 6. Congress already has the power to investigate and is doing so. Many Democrats surely want to use the commission to score partisan points. There are hundreds of criminal cases underway and Congress should be reluctant to muck with them.
The problem with these arguments, often made in good faith by conservative writers, is that they have nothing to do with why elected Republicans don’t want a commission. It’s all pretext designed to distract from the fact that most of the GOP is terrified of contradicting the false narratives still being peddled by Trump and embraced by his core supporters.
It’s absolutely true that his supporters are mostly peaceful. But that misses the point entirely—and deliberately.
a failed coup is just a dress rehearsal for the next one to succeed. and all GOP state legislative efforts this year are steps toward that end. Look at Arizona. BLM was about anger over injustice and in fact, the government (police) behavior toward citizens. The violence is not an answer, but that cause was just. The GOP election fraud cause is not just, it is about power through any means necessary. It's anti-democratic. It can end our democracy. The group that is interested in protecting their superior position in wealth, race, and religion has combined some strange bedfellows. GOP mostly knows better, but winning trumps character whenever you believe you are one of the superiors. Or as jonah has pointed out before, when fear of losing your position of superiority takes hold.
Great piece, Mr Goldberg
The other aspect that really separates the two is that the protests and rioting over last summer were organic and not incited by any politician. They happened because millions of people were incensed by real world events that actually occurred - the police murder of a black man caught on video yet again.
On the other hand, the Capitol riots were incited, based on patent falsehoods. They could not possibly have occurred had Trump and gang not pushed their Big Lie about the election being stolen nonstop for months.
Another enormous difference is that the Capitol riots sought to directly interfere with the transfer of power. They were in fact an attempt to give the keys of the Kingdom to Trump, in a manner directly defying ours laws and Constitution. It was a coup attempt, no matter if it was a somewhat pathetic, unorganized one. A coup attempt incited by Trump for Trump’s benefit.
Part of the reason this commission is SO IMPORTANT, is that despite this coup attempt, Trump still holds the GOP in his clutches. He is the front runner for the 2024 GOP nomination. And although it appears highly unlikely he could
win a general election after that fiasco, there is massive danger to the nation if he loses, as we saw January 6. These events cannot be allowed to be papered over by GOP propaganda and talking points. And a bipartisan commission is the best way to dig into this. If avoiding partisan grandstanding is the goal, you need to take it out of Congressmen’s hands.