Rioters Not All Equal

Jan. 6 vs. the BLM riots

Leftist elites and the legacy media view left-wing rioters differently than rioters on the Right. Law-breaking and violence are tolerated and even encouraged in riots on the Left. In contrast, severe punishment is meted out for minor infractions, or even Constitutionally protected activities, for protests on the Right. Where does this hypocritical behavior come from?

It’s derived from the 1965 book Repressive Tolerance authored by Herbert Marcuse. A neo-Marxist, Marcuse is considered the father of the New Left. In this book Marcuse calls for tolerance of left-wing ideas and leniency for leftist law-breaking. He also promotes intolerance and repression of ideas and activities originating from the Right.

These Marcusian conceits have spread throughout the U.S. and Western societies. When Leftists are in power, they stamp down on conservatives, employing harsh tactics like fabricated hate-crime accusations, cancelations, censorship, human rights violations and lawfare.

Nowhere is this left-wing-promoted inequality before the law more evident than in a side-by-side comparison of the 2020 BLM riots with the January 6, 2021 riot.

The 2020 BLM riots

The following information comes from the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data project (ACLED), a nonprofit that worked in conjunction with Princeton University researchers. Concerning the 2020 BLM riots:

• Out of 12,000 protests, 660 were catalogued as riots. These riots were clearly not “mostly peaceful protests.”¹

• The riots caused $2 billion in damage and were the costliest in U.S. history.²

• At least 25 Americans were killed.³

• Tens of thousands of police officers were injured.⁴

• The Lafayette Square riot organized and attempted an invasion of the White House. President Trump and his family were evacuated to secure bunkers when rioters made it past fences around the White House. Police officers were hit with rocks and some suffered broken bones.⁵

• Very few of the crimes were prosecuted. George-Soros-funded district attorneys released most rioters who committed crimes without any punishment. Former vice president Kamala Harris facilitated a fund to bail out lawbreakers. In many cases, no record was kept of the individuals who committed criminal offenses; they were simply given a clean slate.

• The 2020 U.S. murder rate went up 30 percent, a dramatic increase. This increase was linked to the police pulling back after the riots, a phenomenon known as the “Ferguson effect.”⁶

• Additionally, murders increased 11.5 percent in districts having BLM riots between 2014 and 2019, resulting in 3,000 additional homicides.⁷

The Jan. 6, 2021 riot

In contrast, here is some of the information published about the Jan. 6 riot:

• During this riot, five people died. One was an unarmed protestor with clearly visible hands who was shot at close range by a police officer; this was the only homicide in the riot. Another was a police officer who died of natural causes later the same day. The others were protestors who died of natural causes or, in one case, a drug overdose.⁸

• More than 1,300 people were arrested, with more than half being charged with numerous crimes. In addition, more than 900 were prosecuted and convicted while about 500 were incarcerated.

• Despite mass media headlines about “insurrection,” none of the defendants have been charged with insurrection.

• About a quarter were charged with obstruction of an official proceeding, an unconstitutional charge, according to a U.S. Supreme Court ruling last year.

• Many arrests of the defendants were conducted by SWAT teams, a highly unusual and inappropriately aggressive tactic. Those convicted have had unusually long sentences—in some cases, more than 20 years in prison.

• The core constitutional rights of the defendants were violated in many cases. Judges, prosecutors and juries were not impartial or unbiased as required by the U.S. Constitution’s due process protections for defendants. Many were the exact opposite. Requests to move trials out of Washington, DC, were all denied, despite DC’s long record of politically biased courts and juries. Some defendants were deprived of their Brady rights—a requirement that all evidence supporting a defendant’s innocence must be turned over to the attorneys for the defense.

The bottom line

In the wake of the courts’ multiple due process violations, President Trump recently pardoned many of the January 6 defendants. In addition, a re-examination of the January 6 riot is currently underway in Congress. Unlike the first time, this inquiry is supposed to be bipartisan.

But an investigation of the 2020 BLM riots still remains to be done. The American public needs to find out to what extent the riots were organized and promoted by Black Lives Matter, the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation and other leftist extremist groups. The paper trail must be followed to discover who has been funding organized rioting and leftwing extremism. Those who funded or engaged in illegal acts—as well as those who continue to do so—must be brought to justice.

1. Mike Gonzalez and Katharine Cornell Gorka. Next Gen Marxism: What it is and how to combat it. Encounter for Culture and Education, Inc., Encounter Books, 2024.

2. Mike Gonzalez and Katharine Cornell Gorka. Next Gen Marxism: What it is and how to combat it. Encounter for Culture and Education, Inc., Encounter Books, 2024.

3. Lois Beckett. At least 25 Americans were killed during protests and political unrest in 2020. The Guardian, 10-31-2020. theguardian.com/world/2020/oct/31/americans-killed-protests-political-unrest-acled

4. Tom Fitton. Rights and Freedoms in Peril: An Investigative Report on the Left’s Attack on America. Threshold Editions, Simon & Schuster, LLC, 2024.

5. Tom Fitton. Rights and Freedoms in Peril: An Investigative Report on the Left’s Attack on America. Threshold Editions, Simon & Schuster, LLC, 2024.

6. Mike Gonzalez and Katharine Cornell Gorka. Next Gen Marxism: What it is and how to combat it. Encounter for Culture and Education, Inc., Encounter Books, 2024.

7. Mike Gonzalez and Katharine Cornell Gorka. Next Gen Marxism: What it is and how to combat it. Encounter for Culture and Education, Inc., Encounter Books, 2024.

8. Tom Fitton. Rights and Freedoms in Peril: An Investigative Report on the Left’s Attack on America. Threshold Editions, Simon & Schuster, LLC, 2024.