Update: September 1, 2020: Biden's speech August 31: " I want to make it absolutely clear, so I’m going 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. It divides instead of unites, destroys businesses, only hurts the working families that serve the community. It makes things worse across the board, not better. " Biden delivered.
One trap the Democrats are in danger of falling into when supporting protest marches is separating the peaceful ones from the violent ones. The right to protest peacefully is protected in the Constitution; violent protests are not. We have seen the fear monger in chief, Donald Trump, take advantage of a conception that violent and peaceful demonstrations are the same evil, to scare "suburban housewives' and moderate male white voters back into his fold. Peaceful marches can turn into violent ones unless their leaders maintain control to keep them nonviolent or poor law enforcement strategies provoke a violent reaction with their threats or disproportionate actions.
Expect this next week of the GOP national convention to convey a message that chaos and violence will be what a Democratic victory will bring them, that peaceful protests and violent ones are the same and are to be feared and stamped out by the federal government military-like force. What the convention voices will not note is that the actions that Trump's uninvited federal forces took this summer in Portland inflamed more violence and failed to restore peace. They left after state and local officials demand them to leave. This violence happened in his administration. He made a bad situation worse and there is no reason to believe he will make civil unrest more peaceful in a second term.
One can imagine what a lame-duck second term Trump presidency will look like, as he takes a win as a permission slip to continue his inflammatory tactics. These GOP solutions to suppress even peaceful protests against the brutality of the police and "federal agents" will create hate and fear-filled four more years full of violence. Angry civil unrest will be the rule, not the exception. This is a prediction. It is not a threat, and it is based upon the experience of seventy years of racial strife in this country particularly during this summer. Unless the demonstrators and marchers have faith that their voices are heard and action will be taken, as Joe Biden has made clear he will, reaction to a continued Trump inflammatory modus and tweets will be four more years of strife, more violence, more fear, and more hate. Is this the kind of country we want to live in?
