“What about Black Lives Matter?”

Posted by Sappho on December 30th, 2022 filed in January 6 Select Committee

I’m making a separate post for parallels drawn between Black Lives Matter and Trump’s incitement of an assault on the Capitol on January 6. I recognize that many of the people making this comparison may genuinely believe that Black Lives Matter protests, as a group, were overwhelmingly more violent than the assault on the Capitol on January 6, even though that’s flat out false and the opposite is in fact true. After all, overestimation of the degree to which Black Lives Matter protests were violent correlates strongly with support for Trump, and support for Trump is naturally tied to unwillingness to believe that his actions on January 6, or the violence they inspired, were as awful as they in fact were. But in fact there’s no comparison.

What about the violence of Black Lives Matter?

Let’s start by explaining the gravity of what happened on January 6:

“For the next few hours, an attack on our Capitol occurred, perpetrated by Trump supporters many of whom were present at the Ellipse for President Trump’s speech. More than 140 Capitol and Metropolitan police were injured, some very seriously.” from the Jan 6 committee executive summary.

Find me a Black Lives Matter protest where more than 140 police were injured, some very seriously. I dare you. I double dare you.

Second, let me point out that Black Lives Matter protests were in fact overwhelmingly peaceful, but have been misrepresented by critics as far more violent than they actually were, by taking instances that happened in a few blocks of particular cities and projecting them onto a broad nationwide movement.

93% of Black Lives Matter protests were completely peaceful even if you count the pulling down of Confederate statues among the things that qualify a demonstration as not being completely peaceful (the study that came to this finding explicitly included all property damage in the not peaceful category).

Nothing done in the summer of 2020 justified Trump’s actions on January 6, 2021.

Next, let’s address the “what about Biden” arguments, that try to suggest that Biden and other leading Democrats played a role in Black Lives Matter demonstrations that’s comparable to the actual role that Trump actually played in inciting, refusing to act on, and excusing the assault on the Capitol on January 6, 2021.

Why didn’t Biden and Harris condemn the riots?

They did, on multiple occasions.

I challenge you to find any statement from Trump, at the time when his followers were putting up a noose for his Vice President, that condemned threats to hang Pence anywhere near as forcefully as this response to the riots, from Biden: “I want to be very clear about all of this: Rioting is not protesting. Looting is not protesting. Setting fires is not protesting. None of this is protesting. It’s lawlessness, plain and simple. And those who do it should be prosecuted. Violence will not bring change, it will only bring destruction. It’s wrong in every way. “

But Biden could have told everyone to disperse and go home!

In the first place, why the hell should Biden have told everyone involved in the George Floyd protests, in cities all over the country, to go home because property was damaged in a distinct minority of locations? This argument tries to throw back at Biden the argument that’s made about Trump’s refusal for 187 minutes to tell people to disperse from the Capitol, and it doesn’t apply. Everyone who trespassed in the Capitol on January 6 was breaking the law, but most people who joined Black Lives Matter protests in 2020 were not only peacefully protesting, but peacefully and legally protesting. I myself attended Black Lives Matter protests in 2020 that consisted of standing on public sidewalks holding signs, socially distanced and wearing masks – a Constitutionally protected activity.

In the second place, no Biden couldn’t have sent everyone home. In May, 2020, when the protests started, Biden was not even officially the Democratic nominee, let alone the President. He didn’t start the protests, and he couldn’t have stopped them even if he had wanted to.

What about the bail fund?

“According to one estimate by the Washington Post’s factchecker data unit,police have made 14,000 arrests in 49 cities since the protests began in late May, and the vast majority of them involved locals charged with low-level offenses such as violating curfew or blocking a roadway. “

ABC News (Australia), 6/27/2020, “Antifa, Boogaloo boys, white nationalists: Which extremists showed up to the US Black Lives Matter protests?”

With thousands of people being arrested for low level offenses, some of them unable to make bail, during a pandemic prior to the availability of vaccines where leaving people in jail awaiting trial for low level offenses had added risks for spreading disease, yes, some Democrats supported a bail fund.

There is a report, widely circulated in right of center media, that a bail fund sprung at least one person, while awaiting trial, who had been arrested for shooting someone. I don’t believe that bail funds should be used to release people suspected of shooting someone, even if such people are innocent until proven guilty and may in some cases eventually be acquitted, so, just as I think no donations should have been collected or applied to bail out Kyle Rittenhouse, I think also don’t think that the Louisville Community Bail Fund  should have posted $100,000, in 2022, for the release of Quintez Brown. On the other hand, I see that in May, 2022 a judge ordered Brown remanded from home detention, where his lawyers had argued he could receive mental health treatment, to jail awaiting trial, so it’s not clear to me that the Louisville Community Bail Fund did bail him out for any significant amount of time, and in any case I don’t see how the Louisville Community Bail fund’s actions in 2022 could reflect badly on Democratic support for bailing people out for mostly low level offenses like curfew violations in 2020.

There was another report, that was widely circulated on left Twitter in 2020 and that I doubt got much circulation among Trump supporters, of a person bailed out by a bail fund in 2020, where the facts were as follows: The man was in his house when some Black Lives Matter activists knocked on his door seeking shelter, who were trying to get to safety after their demonstration had been ordered to disperse and tear gassed. He let them in, and then later drove them to their car so that they could drive home, but was arrested because, to drive them to their car, he had gone out after curfew. I mention this to point out that the stories circulating among Democrats about the bail fund, in 2020, were very different from those circulating among Republicans.

What about the rejection of Trump’s sending police to Portland?

Let’s look at the timeline here:

June 1, 2020: Black Lives Matter protesters gather in Lafayette Square. This peaceful protest is cleared, before curfew, by the use of pepper balls. People affected by the pepper balls include a priest at St. John’s Church in Lafayette Square, who had set up a first aid station just outside the church for any who might need first aid during the protest. After the square is cleared, Trump poses for a photo in front of St. John’s Church.

June 2020: Days after Lafayette Square is cleared, anonymous federal forces begin to appear in Washington, DC.

July 2020: Federal forces appear in Portland, Oregon, in unmarked cars and without clear identification badges. These are deployed as part of PACT, an executive order signed by Trump in response to a wave of monument and memorial removals across the country, and are deployed to Portland, officially, in response to the smashing of windows in a federal courthouse.

Now, a lot worse happened in Portland in 2020 than the smashing of windows in that federal courthouse, both in terms of property damage and in terms of violent clashes between opposing protesters, so from the point of view of Trump supporters, who as a group see Black Lives Matter demonstrations as violent, it’s easy to sell this rejection as an inexplicable rejection by Democrats of Trump’s attempt to rescue a burning city. But consider:

1. Democrats already suspected that Trump was planning not to leave office if he lost the 2020 election, and that he might attempt to abuse his authority over federal police and the military to stay in office. The Jan 6 Select Committee executive summary relates that, by the time of the election, these concerns were shared by the military: “The Select Committee recognizes that some at the Department had genuine concerns, counseling caution, that President Trump might give an illegal order to use the military in support of his efforts to overturn the election.”
2. A peaceful protest had in fact been cleared by federal forces from Lafayette Square, shortly before the deployment of federal forces to Portland, and, in the Lafayette Square case, Trump’s appearance for a photo op soon after the clearing roused suspicion that the protest was cleared for his personal benefit.
3. Lafayette Square was seen as a possible dry run for actions after the election, and this suspicion was, at the time, widely discussed among Democrats.
4. The federal forces deployed to Portland were in unmarked cars and were not requested by the city government of Portland.

Yes, Democrats feared giving too much leeway to a president whom they suspected of planning to abuse his power steal an election if he lost more than they feared broken windows in a Portland courthouse.

Given Trump’s actions leading up to and on the day of January 6, 2021, I don’t think Democrats were wrong in this fear.