Have the FBI arrested any yet? Damn Trumps FBI, they must suck, NSA on every phone, tweet and post and not one conspiracy charge? Oh, they're the Deep Sate protecting ANTIFA.,
Pointing out a couple of things. First off paint balls aren't "non-lethal" but "less than lethal". During the George Floyd protests here in MN they were used by LE along with rubber bullets. While no one died from them there were several people who have lost eyes from them and suffered some pretty bad wounds. There is a reason why for things like paint ball wars you are required to wear eye rigid eye protection, helmets, and chest padding. Also under Obama there were night time protests including riots. Remember Ferguson and Baltimore. There is a legitimate argument that Obama didn't do enough and I remember him saying he regrets he couldn't do more to stop them. They seem worse now and Obama did more to try to unite things including speaking at the memorial services of LE that had been killed.
Obama didn't do enough... Again, compared to what or whom? And we have quite a few examples of Trump actively encouraging violence since his first campaign.
I never said they didn't exist - I said they were not the threat they were being made out to be - that they aren't going around destroying people's properties - that in fact they show up to counter-protest right wing groups. You are the one lying here by making up what I said to fit your narrative.
What percentage of America has been effected by riots? Because that's what the GOP is doing with Covid. The answer is a decimal of a percentage
You're still dodging the answer on how "Protesting at night" in the time of covid will sway the hearts and minds of the American voter to reform and vote for the agenda these people are presumably protesting for. Outside the fact that people are needlessly dead and with no end in sight... Occupy Wall Street and the aftermath of the encampments was an incredible failure in terms of motivating the public through protesting the message and getting out the vote. OWS was a logistical nightmare to Homeland Security, so it wasn't without risks as a public safety nightmare. Can't really say Obama or Dem city leaders fully backed them either when they funneled in homeless to increase instability in those camps. So the narrative goes both ways. Different audience. Different leadership at the helm. Different trigger point. It seems like those night protesters are muddying the message to the extent where you, who has consistently responded for them, can't explain the merits in their night activities. OWS encampments and CHAZ imploded under their own weight. Did the good vibes spread to the voting booths? Did it matter? If you're truly concerned about criminal and social justice reform getting passed, now's the time to truly start questioning these unforced errors and whether anyone has a true grasp about the messages coming out of these protesting areas.
I can't control when people want to protest. Nor do I know how protests sway the hearts and minds of anyone. People are unhappy, and they express it. Most of the people protesting at night are not looking to cause damage despite the false claims from the right that they are antifa thugs. Most of them are just disaffected people who are angry. Their goal may not even be to sway people's minds as much as it is to express their dissatisfaction. I have never claimed they were effective or a good thing. My only claim is that they aren't filled with the antifa thugs others are alleging.
You and Jerry Nadler seem to be the only people claiming this. Surely, you can see that whoever these people are, they are using Antifa's name to organize under. And if that is the case I see two noble causes being sullied - BLM and anti-fascism. If we can agree to that, the question I have is why wouldn't the left or the Dem's come out and denounce it right away? Why wait until the poll numbers are being affected?
There are always extremist on both sides of any government. But I don't think any Democratic office holder has ever advocated violence, Can you find one? Maybe if Watts had a Democratic Congressman in 1968. *other than Faux News, OAN, Brietbart etc.
The fact is that riots happened under Obama. Obama himself has stated that he regrets not doing more to heal the divide of this country. I fully agree that Trump has been dividing us further and I fully agree with Mattis that no president in recent memory has divided us as much. My point was to note that night time protests and riots aren't a new thing or one solely under Trump.
I agree with a lot of this. The destruction is very unhelpful to trying increase social justice. When Occupy happened I made the point that for Occupy to make a different they had to move beyond just focusing on occupation to actually doing something. I know by the time that LE moved into clear many of the Occupy camps, also in many cases done by Democratic mayors, many of the people in those cities were happy to see them go. From my own city while support is still overwhelmingly for the cause of BLM there definitely seems to be a wariness and exhaustion over things like rioting and looting. When the rioting broke out last Wednesday in Downtown from what I could see was that it was overwhelmingly opposed and criticized in Minneapolis. The language that Chief Arradondo used was the harshest that I've heard from him and there appeared to be almost no opposition to calling out the National Guard. One problem is that with movements like this there really isn't any leadership or central messaging. The looting in Minneapolis certainly wasn't organized or encouraged by BLM as there were representatives of BLM trying to stop it. It appeared to be opportunistic. When I saw the Third Precinct broken into and set fire it was madness. There was no coordinated effort behind it. In fact early that day there had been people trying to restrain others from breaking into the precinct. I'm guessing this is the same for Portland and Kenosha. The rioting, looting and arson isn't coordinated.
I wonder what else he wishes he had done and why he didn't do it if that's true. Do you know? (I'll google it now but) Remarks by the President After Announcement of the Decision by the Grand Jury in Ferguson, Missouri https://obamawhitehouse.archives.go...ouncement-decision-grand-jury-ferguson-missou I was going to paraphrase, but it's worth it's entirety. (I love that man)
Obama addressed this somewhat in his last SOTU. He lamented that he wasn't able to overcome politics. I think like with the leadup to the 2016 election Obama was very cautious at times and didn't want his own actions to seem as "putting his finger on the scale". His remarks over the Ferguson grand jury show how much he was trying to walk a fine line.
