Storming of The Capitol Was Stupid, But Democrats’ Flaming Hypocrisy is Outrageous

Written by Robert Knight

How could the U.S. Capitol Police have been so ineffective when rioters who broke away from the massive, peaceful pro-Trump rally besieged the building?

Here’s a theory: It wasn’t Antifa or Black Lives Matter out there on the Mall. Perhaps they honestly didn’t expect this kind of violence from a normally law-abiding group.

Over the years, large demonstrations by tea parties and pro-lifers have had zero violence, with participants even cleaning up litter. By contrast, BLM/Antifa riots erupted this summer in 48 out of the top 50 cities, with dozens of murders, Molotov cocktails, arsons, beatings and destruction of entire city blocks and police stations.

For the left, violence is just another hammer in their toolbox. Not so conservatives. So perhaps we shouldn’t be too hard on the overwhelmed Capitol cops. Even so, the Electoral College ballot counting by the vice president amid persistent charges of vote fraud should have raised the security level to the nth degree.

The storming of our national Capitol building was shocking, horrendous and beyond stupid. A police officer and a woman protester died, along with three more deaths from “medical emergencies.” The spectacle of our nation’s center of government being overrun was something we never thought we’d see in our free republic.

The riot was tailormade for the Democrats’ ongoing narrative of dangerous right-wing groups agitated by a reckless president. They accused him of deliberately inflaming the crowd to violence and are calling for his immediate removal from office.

I don’t believe for a minute that the president intended for the rally to take the turn it did. And, reports of anarchist agitators in the crowd need to be investigated. However, when the violence broke out, he could have been far more forceful in his tweeted order to the mob to stop.

The media were enthralled, knowing that they will be using this abomination over and over to bash all 74 million people who voted for Mr. Trump along with anyone identified as less than “woke.” Already censorious, the cancel culture is about to go full-jacket Maoist.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez blamed Sens. Josh Hawley of Missouri and Ted Cruz of Texas for the Capitol riot and deaths. They, along with four other U.S. senators and 121 Republican House members, had voted to object to counting Arizona’s electoral votes, asking that allegations of vote fraud first be examined and confirmed or put to rest. They were voted down by large margins.

With millions of people convinced that the election was stolen, an emergency audit might have been viewed as “protecting democracy.” Instead, anyone who wants an authoritative examination are accused of “destroying democracy,” as The Washington Post likes to put it.

AOC tweeted to Mr. Cruz that “both you and Senator Hawley must resign. If you do not, the Senate should move for your expulsion.”

Fake conservative columnist George Will, who had repeatedly urged voters to turn Congress and the White House over to Democrats to punish Republicans for supporting Mr. Trump, savaged the two heroic senators: “From this day forward, everything they say or do or advocate should be disregarded as patent attempts to distract attention from the lurid fact of what they have become. Each will wear a scarlet ‘S’ as a seditionist.”

Millions of Americans might want to put a red “S” emblem on these two men’s chests for a different reason.

There was no such talk of “sedition” during the summer, when more than 570 leftwing riots tore up the nation’s cities. In fact, Democrats and the media kept insisting that the BLM/Antifa uprisings were “mostly peaceful.”

A study out of the Princeton-affiliated Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED) was obviously geared toward making that point. But discerning readers may conclude otherwise.

The report says that between May 24 and Aug. 22 “peaceful protests” were “reported in over 2,400 distinct locations around the country. Violent demonstrations, meanwhile, have been limited to fewer than 220 locations — under 10% of the areas that experienced peaceful protests.”

Oh, OK then — unless you live or make your livelihood in one of those places.

Two years ago, left-wing protesters occupied the Hart Senate Office Building trying to block Brett Kavanaugh’s U.S. Supreme Court affirmation. When leftist mobs from the Women’s March pounded on the Supreme Court’s doors, MSNBC praised them for “besieging the Supreme Court” and “confronting senators.” Violent mobs attacked Sen. Rand Paul and others after the Republican National Convention. A mob set fire to the church near the White House and threatened to scale the fence. Nobody blamed prominent Democrats.

All this in no way excuses the Capitol mob, but the flaming hypocrisy is outrageous.

In June, now-President-in-Waiting Kamala Harris and Biden staffers actually helped raise money for rioters. She tweeted: “If you’re able to, chip in now to the @MNFreedomFund to help post bail for those protesting on the ground in Minnesota.”

Riots were erupting nightly. People who protest peacefully don’t typically need bail money. There were no calls for her to resign from the Senate for aiding and abetting the violence.

In June, she also told Stephen Colbert, the late-night CBS host, that she applauded “the power of the people to take to the streets …. everyone beware, because they’re not gonna stop …. And they should not. And we should not.”

Maybe she thought at the time that things wouldn’t go her way.

This article was originally published at The Washington Times. Mr. Knight’s website is roberthknight.com.