2020 Protests megathread

[Badger]

Trump's speech was great. No mercy for rioters and looters. Trump's bringing me (and many other pubs) home with these remarks.

Or protesters. Don't forget based on what happened in front of the White House that there will be no mercy for peaceful protesters either.

[T'Chenka]

Trump's speech was great. No mercy for rioters and looters. Trump's bringing me (and many other pubs) home with these remarks.

Trump isn't the right girl for you man. You know it, I know it. Her showing up at 2AM in lingerie with steaks and beers doesn't change that.

[GM Team Member and Deputy PPT WB]

If this is what “brings you home”, you really have taken off the mask and are just shameless about it. Jesus Christ.

[Badger]

These police have intentionally assaulted members of the press, medics and other neutral parties.
Anyone who continues to defend these monsters is an unprincipled crank.

https://twitter.com/AshleeMullany/status/1267596369562394627

If you aren't voting for Biden I don't want to hear it.

"Sorry, I'm ignoring massive human rights abuses because I suspect your voting intentions."

This is completely missing the point, but you do you.

[Badger]

Red meat for the midwest suburbs.

Imagine believing that FUBAR disgrace helped Trump with Midwest suburbanites

There are a lot of people in the suburbs annoyed or even tee off at Trump's incompetence who will choose him as the lesser of two evils over perceived chords of rampaging blacks and antifa anarchists.

More tellingly, at least two anti Trump conservatives on Atlas, grass roots and Sprouts, have openly expressed heightened willingness to support Trump over these actions. This is potentially going to bring home Republicans wavering on Trump.

That said, he can be as Law & Order is he wants, but Trump is still clearly the chaos candidate. People tired of should be thrown at the fan rather than merely incidentally hitting it are going to be even less likely to vote for him.

[Badger]

https://twitter.com/KatiePavlich/status/1267607363533578246

Maybe, just maybe people are expecting more out of the president of the United States than they are a handful of looters and arsonists. But you do you.

[Badger]

Why does he look like a fourth grader bsing his way through a book report without having read the book?

This one comment was actually funny and it made me laugh.

Trump's imbecilic and condescending attempts to pretend he's a practicing Christian of any consistent doctrine is probably the thing he does that pisses me off the most. When I drunkenly booed him at a rally in 2016 the thing that really set me off was when he said he "loves the evangels [sic] Christians." Using a church as a prop like this, especially without the church's approval is offensive.

LOLOL! I respected you before, but that just reached towering levels to hear you boo'd Trump at a rally 4 years ago, and did it while drunk no less.

So what happened? Did you get thrown out? If so was it secret service or local cops, or maybe just some local Maga heads?

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

The scene in Seattle seems pretty tame to invite the response they’re getting. The police are dropping stun grenades and using pepper spray quite liberally.

Even "Left-Wing" West Coast Cities are getting met with disproportionate response violence even with relatively peaceful protest from overwhelmingly White Citizens in many places....

The Alameda County sheriff is rather Trump friendly for a county where Trump didn't even get 15%.
https://www.eastbayexpress.com/SevenDays/archives/2017/03/20/critics-call-alameda-sheriff-gregory-aherns-support-of-trump-attorney-general-jeff-sessions-a-disgrace

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

https://twitter.com/BarackObama/status/1267459874788646912?s=20
thanks Obama!
we need more level-headedness in this nation right about now. And we need it more than ever.

[Beet]

I'm seeing reports that a police captain was shot in the head in Las Vegas. This is only going to provide more justification for martial law. Trump is loving this.

[Badger]

These police have intentionally assaulted members of the press, medics and other neutral parties.
Anyone who continues to defend these monsters is an unprincipled crank.

https://twitter.com/AshleeMullany/status/1267596369562394627

If you aren't voting for Biden I don't want to hear it.

"Sorry, I'm ignoring massive human rights abuses because I suspect your voting intentions."

You have no interest in removing the root of the problem and are therefore in no position to decry its effects. Period.

The root of the problem is systemic white supremacy in the United States that emboldens racists everywhere to commit horrendous acts. Trump is just a symptom of that.

Trump aggressively encourages that white supremacy, post with rhetoric and action - - you can't find a black man in his administration outside Ben Carson and it shows. Plus at policy level Heat has rolled back Department of Justice oversight on Renegade police departments. It's no irony that the head of the Minneapolis Police Union extolled him at a rally in 2017 and all the good work he did rolling back the holder / Lynch regime - - his words - - handcuffing the cops.

At worst it's a chicken or egg question, but both are really really freaking important. At worst, one would say there would be no such Nationwide protests if Obama were still president. Racism would still be present of course, but at least people can trust that someone at the top genuinely cared about it.

[afleitch]

I just woke up. Am I right that Trump got people tear gassed for a photo op in front of a church and held the bible upside down?

[Badger]

Imagine the tedium of droning on about "party unity" when the entire country is unraveling at its seams. Tone deaf to the nth.

Uniting progressives, regardless of their party registration, is crucial to getting rid of the man who is overwhelmingly responsible for the country's current condition. So, kind of true?

[Badger]

Wasn’t the military used in 1992 by HW

Yes, to a limited degree. However, as you and I can agree Trump is a person completely lacking hws penchant for restraint and basic Humanity.

[Progressive Pessimist]

I don't know how you could argue in good-faith that any of this is good for Trump.

Even if you buy into the idea that suburbanites find "law and order" rhetoric appealing still, Trump's little stunt today evokes imagery of a police state within a dictatorship. Is that appealing? Is retaliating in an overreactive fashion against peaceful protests appealing? What is the proper way to protest now? Like the "Unite the Right" folks in Charlottesville who murdered someone, and whom he defended? Is that the right way? Is that what he wants Americans to take away from this? Are uneauivocal supporters of his now the only protected class in this nation who are to be guaranteed basic rights? It sure seems that way to me.

 Nevertheless, it appears that our esteemed President made yet another situation worse in addition to somehow making himself and his presidency look worse. He has now inserted himself into a situation which he cannot untether himself from, no matter how much he may try. Trump is the King Midas of degradation.

[Badger]

https://twitter.com/davidhogg111/status/1267616830316822531

Best tweet ever.

" you know, I always wanted to know what it would be like to experience the Spanish Flu, Great Depression, and 1968 riots all at once while Andrew Johnson was president."

[Badger]

https://twitter.com/FOXNashville/status/1267570523632013312?s=19

https://twitter.com/Oregonian/status/1267282082532741121?s=19

https://twitter.com/Breaking911/status/1267306821947097088?s=19

Obviously those police officers are outliers, because many on this site claim that most/all cops are bad and evil 🤷‍♂️

These gestures are a step in the right direction, but why aren't we seeing officers openly commit to defunding and demilitarizing their departments? If they really want to be apart of solving this systemic problem, they wouldn't just be kneeling and saying a nice speech while minutes later deploy teargas and rubber bullets to these people (which is getting more clear that they've been using on violent and peaceful demonstrations).

>I want police to be more professional, better trained, and better able to screen out undesirable recruits
>Why haven't police committed to defunding themselves!?

Do people actually believe this tf

     I guess they are supposed to host a bake sale to fund that training and screening.

Ah, the penultimate libertarian response.

[Badger]

People keep beating around the bush. Want the broader solution to this crisis in twenty words or less?

Police have to be made to fear maintaining the status quo more than they fear change. Until or unless that happens, cops are going to behave as they've been behaving, and protests are going to continue to occur as they have. When/if cops are just as fearful (or more) of losing their jobs, pensions and families in the middle of the night due to their homes getting firebombed as they are fearful of somebody looking at them funny in the street while they are armed with surplus DOD gear, change will happen. Until then, social, political and cultural gravity will continue to apply here and the status quo will reign.

 

Dude. Did you seriously just suggest that part of the solution to police brutality is that they need to fear their family home being firebombed??

[Adam Griffin]

People keep beating around the bush. Want the broader solution to this crisis in twenty words or less?

Police have to be made to fear maintaining the status quo more than they fear change. Until or unless that happens, cops are going to behave as they've been behaving, and protests are going to continue to occur as they have. When/if cops are just as fearful (or more) of losing their jobs, pensions and families in the middle of the night due to their homes getting firebombed as they are fearful of somebody looking at them funny in the street while they are armed with surplus DOD gear, change will happen. Until then, social, political and cultural gravity will continue to apply here and the status quo will reign.

 

Dude. Did you seriously just suggest that part of the solution to police brutality is that they need to fear their family home being firebombed??

Fear? Absolutely.

Do you think it works differently for the other side of the "both sides" coin? If looters have no consequences or worries for their actions, you'd obviously expect them to run rampant for all eternity. Likewise, if police know they can go on nightly crusades in the streets beating up whomever they desire and committing all sorts of atrocities and civil injustices without worry of personal consequence, they will engage in the same fundamental behavior. If, however, they know such behavior carries tangible consequences to their personal life, limb and property, they will reconsider their behavior accordingly and bring themselves to heel.

[Adam Griffin]

While we're on it:

I also keep seeing stupid memes on social media that are to some effect "WHY DOES ONE GET AWAY WITH IT AND NOT THE OTHER!?!?!"

Because one is fully armed and the other is a bunch of effete and/or emasculated disarmed urban whiners holding cardboard, you dum-dums. Obviously there are racial components to the perceptions of LEO actions and "protests", but ultimately: if thousands of people armed with assault rifles were marching through the streets - looting or not - right now on the opposing side, cops wouldn't be acting the way they are. Cops only inherently understand two things from a psychological profile: power and fear. If you have comparable or overwhelming power and/or the ability to make them tangibly fear retaliation, they won't behave this way. Just like many of them who were your classic high-school bullies picked only on those with no consequence, they will do so in their adult lives while being compensated to do so if there is no fear of genuine retaliation.

This is the legacy of the Unarmed Modern Left: it can't hold authoritarians to account for s[inks]t. MLK and Gandhi tactics are worthless in 21st century America.

[Meclazine for Israel]

[afleitch]

For what it's worth, the Daily Mail (Daily Fail, Daily Heil etc) bailed on Trump.

[Middle-aged Europe]

Tucker Carlson blasts Donald Trump... for being too soft on the protestors:

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/06/01/tucker-carlson-trump-protest-295628



I guess Twitter will soon be working overtime to hide Trump's coming tweets on the matter.

[Landslide Lyndon]

Tucker Carlson blasts Donald Trump... for being too soft on the protestors:

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/06/01/tucker-carlson-trump-protest-295628

I hear in the dictionary they have Tucker's photo next to "trust fund baby chickenhawk".

[Ye We Can]

People keep beating around the bush. Want the broader solution to this crisis in twenty words or less?

Police have to be made to fear maintaining the status quo more than they fear change. Until or unless that happens, cops are going to behave as they've been behaving, and protests are going to continue to occur as they have. When/if cops are just as fearful (or more) of losing their jobs, pensions and families in the middle of the night due to their homes getting firebombed as they are fearful of somebody looking at them funny in the street while they are armed with surplus DOD gear, change will happen. Until then, social, political and cultural gravity will continue to apply here and the status quo will reign.

 

I mean this might be the answer if your ultimate goal is open conflict with the government, and if so good luck with that sh*t lmao.

I guarantee that reprisals against police (as well as the disgusting implication here that random police officers families are fair targets for firebombing as political pressure???) will not garner you any sympathy and simply if anything will make the police more likely to fly off the handle in intense situations. Be careful with what you wish for.