2020 Protests megathread

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Who's ready for the race war?

This isn’t a race war, it’s a class war. Anything saying otherwise is propaganda.

As a member of the Proletariat, I am supportive of the Bourgeoise struggle here. Because Rioting brings down property value.

Please tell me this is some sort of sarcasm.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Taxes should automatically go up in major cities where there is mass violence.

I know lots of American conservatives have a proudly "when all you have is a hammer" attitude towards tax policy, but I genuinely cannot imagine how that could possibly help.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

This is the first time I've ever watched the news with a glass of alcohol in hand in my life. Good going, 2020.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

LAPD hit and run.

https://twitter.com/ohhjazzio/status/1267219103414026242

https://twitter.com/SophiaLeeHyun/status/1267216604388978689

So a protester gets in the way of a cop car while's hes driving and he's the victim.

Do you know what a crosswalk is?

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

LAPD hit and run.

https://twitter.com/ohhjazzio/status/1267219103414026242

https://twitter.com/SophiaLeeHyun/status/1267216604388978689

So a protester gets in the way of a cop car while's hes driving and he's the victim.

Do you know what a crosswalk is?

Do you know what running into the direction of a cop car is?

My mistake; I misinterpreted what I was looking at in the Twitter video.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1267227396341669889
Shades of Nixon '68. Get ready, folks!

If Trump really wants to run for reelection as an incumbent using the strategy of a challenger from before most voters were born, more power to him.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Stealing this insight, with his permission, from Antonio (with whom I've been discussing events extensively off-forum; he's focusing mostly on the R&P and History boards these days and if I weren't a glutton for punishment I would be doing that too). It feels really good to not be on the "authoritarian" side any more after the arguments over the lockdowns. Now that people are actually baying for them hoodlums' blood and cheering on police for running down protestors with their cars, it's nice to be able to focus one's hate in that direction again.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

BREAKING: War president who thinks a mask makes him look weak is now hiding in a bunker.  

Should he be brave and order the Secret Service to pull a Tiannenan Square? What do you want him to do? Open the gates and let a mob of white kids pull him apart? What do you want from him?

Under normal circumstances, the President addresses the nation and articulates a clear strategy for ending the violence in the streets. Instead, the President has made a series of tweets oozing with inchoate rage and blind fury. This just angers the rioters even more and perpetuates lawlessness.

The problem with that is the fact that the left doesn’t view Trump as a symptom of a problem as much as they think the problem itself.

That is the problem, yeah, and you're right that it makes it hard for Trump to do anything about it. If he had just gone radio silent I'd have some sympathy and even respect for that. The issue, as it so often is, is that he's such a loose cannon on social media.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

"Liberal Democrat" Kate Brown in Oregon sends in the National Guard against protesters in Portland Oregon, a few hours ago...

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Hours after Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington characterized Trump's recent actions as "antithetical to the teachings of Jesus", he's now also drawing flak from Catholic Archbishop Wilton D. Gregory:

President Trump drew fresh criticism from religious leaders on Tuesday when he and first lady Melania Trump visited a shrine to Pope John Paul II in Washington, D.C.

The trip to to the Saint John Paul II National Shrine drew a sharp response from Washington Archbishop Wilton D. Gregory, who said, "I find it baffling and reprehensible that any Catholic facility would allow itself to be so egregiously misused and manipulated in a fashion that violates our religious principles."

...

Gregory said in a statement that John Paul II was a defender of the dignity of human beings who "certainly would not condone the use of tear gas and other deterrents to silence, scatter or intimidate them for a photo opportunity in front of a place of worship and peace."

https://www.npr.org/2020/06/02/868188511/catholic-archbishop-criticizes-trumps-visit-to-st-john-paul-ii-shrine?t=1591131034353

Gregory is a black, you see.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Hours after Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington characterized Trump's recent actions as "antithetical to the teachings of Jesus", he's now also drawing flak from Catholic Archbishop Wilton D. Gregory:

President Trump drew fresh criticism from religious leaders on Tuesday when he and first lady Melania Trump visited a shrine to Pope John Paul II in Washington, D.C.

The trip to to the Saint John Paul II National Shrine drew a sharp response from Washington Archbishop Wilton D. Gregory, who said, "I find it baffling and reprehensible that any Catholic facility would allow itself to be so egregiously misused and manipulated in a fashion that violates our religious principles."

...

Gregory said in a statement that John Paul II was a defender of the dignity of human beings who "certainly would not condone the use of tear gas and other deterrents to silence, scatter or intimidate them for a photo opportunity in front of a place of worship and peace."

https://www.npr.org/2020/06/02/868188511/catholic-archbishop-criticizes-trumps-visit-to-st-john-paul-ii-shrine?t=1591131034353

Gregory is a black, you see.

It's weird to see the Catholics and Protestants united

DC tends to have fairly convivial relations between Catholics and mainliners iirc. (In some of the dioceses like Arlington that are around DC, on the other hand, the local Catholic Church is much, much Trumpier.)

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

HOLY COW

https://twitter.com/ppollingnumbers/status/1267941135521067011?s=21

America is waking up.

Relevant.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Hours after Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington characterized Trump's recent actions as "antithetical to the teachings of Jesus", he's now also drawing flak from Catholic Archbishop Wilton D. Gregory:

President Trump drew fresh criticism from religious leaders on Tuesday when he and first lady Melania Trump visited a shrine to Pope John Paul II in Washington, D.C.

The trip to to the Saint John Paul II National Shrine drew a sharp response from Washington Archbishop Wilton D. Gregory, who said, "I find it baffling and reprehensible that any Catholic facility would allow itself to be so egregiously misused and manipulated in a fashion that violates our religious principles."

...

Gregory said in a statement that John Paul II was a defender of the dignity of human beings who "certainly would not condone the use of tear gas and other deterrents to silence, scatter or intimidate them for a photo opportunity in front of a place of worship and peace."

https://www.npr.org/2020/06/02/868188511/catholic-archbishop-criticizes-trumps-visit-to-st-john-paul-ii-shrine?t=1591131034353

Gregory is a black, you see.

It's weird to see the Catholics and Protestants united

DC tends to have fairly convivial relations between Catholics and mainliners iirc. (In some of the dioceses like Arlington that are around DC, on the other hand, the local Catholic Church is much, much Trumpier.)

Update: Trumpist propaganda organ Catholic advocacy group "Catholic Vote" has released a statement accusing Archbishop Gregory of launching a partisan attack on muh great and glorious New Constantine Equal-to-the-Apostles True Blue Christian President.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

I'm genuinely not sure I trust 2020 to be a free and fair election at this point. Sitting US Senators are calling for the military to be used to put down protests on US soil (and the New York Times is running this fascist drivel for some reason), and the conservative Christian intelligentsia has been ramping up the warmed-over Falangism for at least a year now.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

I mean I'm no fan of Tom Cotton but this isn't some guy in a white hood and a tiki torch we're talking about here,

It's Tom f**king Cotton, Beet.

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Tom Cotton has never been among my favourite Senators, but a strong plurality of the Democratic Party agrees with Tom Cotton's position, so if you find this problematic, it's probably a tactic to cause outrage against it.

If I find what "problematic", the idea of the US military occupying its own country?

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Tom Cotton has never been among my favourite Senators, but a strong plurality of the Democratic Party agrees with Tom Cotton's position, so if you find this problematic, it's probably a tactic to cause outrage against it.

If I find what "problematic", the idea of the US military occupying its own country?

The fact that a huge portion of the nominally left wing party supports that

I'd certainly say I do, yeah. If you're suggesting that the NYT ran Cotton's piece so that the idea would be associated with, well, Tom Cotton, then I guess that's clever of them.