We've been watching this shit for a while but what do you think this looks like to, say, a 60 year old working class woman, or a guy in his 50s who's facing pandemic-related lay-offs at his office job? They've seen a lot of civil disobience over the years, but if they live in proximity to the more antifa-infested cities, what do you think they would want done?
By now, they might be desensitised to it. My own relations expected the badgeless army of masked government agents to show up and disperse these crowds a long fucking time ago. Not even arrest them, just crush their shithouse '''defenses''' and scatter them to the wind. I thought we'd get something like that with CHAZ but it imploded before that could happen. What's even the point of the protests anymore except for BLM and Antifa to assert their ownership of the city centers?
It's fucked, and I think the only way for Trump to avoid blame is to hammer home the reality, which is Democratic mayors and governors have all the cards here. Their own cities getting demolished is within their purview, and Trump is under no obligation to save them from themselves. Still, disturbing these mayors think the two fictional boomers I mentioned above are gonna wind up blaming the president for all this, and not the elected officials that had the means to clamp down on the violence and get the police reinforcements right from the very beginning.
And what we see online in reaction to the Proud Boys is very much 'Scenario A', but will it be effective propaganda? After 3 non-stop months of Scenario B?
Like maybe the Portland mayor could ignore the pet communists because of cognitive dissonance, but now its really blowing up in the leadership's face. You've got 2 groups who both watched some Hong Kong protest videos on Vice.com, and a couple infographics on Roman shield formations and think they're ready for prime time. The police are washing their hands of it all by highlighting their lack of resources, but I don't think you can call in the National Guard and then request they ignore the xirs and exclusively target the militiamen wearing MAGA-hats. By now I'm leaning into the theory they were hoping for a shooter or some executive over-reach, but neither Trump nor the schizos bit, so now they're left with crumbling, corona-rife, communist infested cities with nothing to show for it.