Tim Blair: The Left is tying itself in knots to justify destructive Black Lives Matter protests
They claim to stand against Donald Trump, but Black Lives Matter anarchists are doing everything they can to keep the 45th US President in the White House, writes Tim Blair.
Opinion
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Peace continues erupting across the US, destroying property, endangering lives and leaving entire city blocks in ruin.
Leading anti-Trump network CNN last week presented live footage of multiple cars ablaze in peace-torn Kenosha, Wisconsin.
A caption explained to viewers that what they were seeing wasn’t anything to worry about, mildly noting “fiery but mostly peaceful protests”.
Arson is now merely a pacifist statement. This sort of thing has been happening for months.
Back in May, MSNBC reporter Ali Velshi told viewers: “This is mostly a protest. It is not, generally speaking, unruly.”
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Well, except for the Minneapolis building on fire in the background. And the three other fires Velshi said he could see in the immediate vicinity.
Those fires, the reporter claimed, were caused by “people who are doing things to public property that they shouldn’t be doing”. Nothing gets past this bloke.
In any case, Velshi believed the destruction was somehow justified: “It does have to be understood that this city has got, for the last several years, an issue with police, and it’s got a real sense of the deep sense of grievance of inequality.”
During the same month, CNN host Don Lemon described city-wrecking riots as the “mechanism for a restructure of our country or for some sort of change”.
His CNN co-host, Chris Cuomo, denounced riot critics in June, saying that “too many see the protests as the problem”.
CNN, the Washington Post, MSNBC and the New York Times kept downplaying the riots – sorry, the “peaceful protests” — right up until very recently.
Then, for at least some of the riot-deniers, something changed. Suddenly the riots were bad.
Possibly this altered view was prompted by a decline in polling for Donald Trump’s opponent following the Democratic National Convention. Joe Biden and running mate Kamala Harris actually sank a little instead of receiving the usual post-convention bounce.
It may be that pundits dug deeper into polling data to discover why presidential favourite Biden had apparently hit a wall.
There is no shortage of compelling information. Three recent studies have shown increased support for police and growing hostility towards rioters.
Whatever the cause, CNN chuckleheads Lemon and Cuomo abruptly charged their opinion — not because riots are bad in and of themselves, but because the riots may help Donald Trump retain the presidency.
“What’s happening in Wisconsin, it’s a Rorschach test for where this country is and I think it probably represents the biggest threat to the Democratic cause,” Lemon said last week as the Kenosha mayhem continued.
“The rioting has to stop. Chris, as you know and I know, it’s showing up in the polling. It’s showing up in focus groups. It is the only thing. It is the only thing right now that is sticking.“
Before they appeared in polling and focus groups, evidence of riots previously showed up in news footage from dozens of US cities, in destroyed businesses, in assaults on bystanders, in shootings and in hospital admissions.
None of that was of any great interest to the likes of Lemon and company. Now, however, things are becoming serious.
Now Joe Biden might not make it to the White House.
Many Biden supporters, you might say, have come to “see the protests as the problem”. The Black Lives Matter anarchy so glibly dismissed by Cuomo in June is now a dominant campaign issue.
President Trump and his Republican team hammered home pro-police, anti-riot messages during all four days of last week’s Republican National Convention in Washington DC.
They then received bonus publicity when BLM activists attacked departing Trump supporters.
“Amid Peaceful Protest, Crowd Surrounds Rand Paul After Trump Speech,” a National Public Radio headline reported. Senator Paul, who was with his wife at the time, saw it slightly differently.
“The mob continued shouting awful death threats,” Paul later wrote.
“Curses. Shoving. One person in the mob violently slammed into a policeman just behind me. I turned to see the officer losing his balance.”
Peace hurts. And Biden may feel that pain. In 2016, leftist filmmaker Michael Moore startled his allies by accurately predicting Trump’s surprise election win.
Now, with Trump behind in most polls just as he was four years ago, Moore is again speaking of a Trump triumph.
“Are you ready for a Trump victory? Are you mentally prepared to be outsmarted by Trump again?” Moore asked on Facebook.
“Do you find comfort in your certainty that there is no way Trump can win?
“I’m warning you almost 10 weeks in advance. The enthusiasm level for the 60 million in Trump’s base is OFF THE CHARTS! For Joe, not so much.”
If Trump does prevail, CNN’s Lemon has already devised a rationalisation. It will be because the American people are stupid and bad — and he’s not talking about those particular American people throwing bricks through shop windows and setting fire to cars and buildings.
“They like what he presents. They like the lies,” Lemon said last week about Trump voters.
“They like the shiny objects. They like the racism.
“They like the misogyny. They like all of it.”
Riots will be a major factor in the 2020 US election. So too will be commentators such as Lemon — but just not in the way they might imagine.