Liz Cheney can speak for at least a dozen of our elected leaders, who all responded to the mob attack on the Capitol by saying, "This is what America is not."
I think Malcolm X was a lot closer to the truth when he said, "Violence is as American as apple pie."
From the riots against the Stamp Act in 1765, to the Boston Tea Party, to the 1812 riot in Baltimore against anti-war newspapers, to the 1863 draft riots in New York, to the lynch riots of Jim Crow, to violent clashes between labor unions and scabs, to the police riot during the 1968 Democratic Convention, to the hard hat riot in Manhattan, to the riots after Martin Luther King's assassination, to the recent riots over police shootings, riots have been key events at every stage of American history. Some of those riots have been more or less spontaneous, while others have been carefully orchestrated by leaders.
Riots spring from many sources, but maybe in the US they are part of our belief in rule by the people. To many populists the whole apparatus of government has seemed like a needless barrier to the people truly ruling themselves. If we are the people, and the people rule, rioters tell themselves, then let's do some ruling. Racial conflict has led to many riots, because the rioters feel that their sort of people are not being represented any other way.
I fully expect there to be more riots in the coming years, because Americans are divided in ways that will be hard for our political system to contain. Frustrations will build, and sometimes they will boil over. But I also expect that the Republic will endure.
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I fully expect there to be more riots in the coming years, because Americans are divided in ways that will be hard for our political system to contain.
It wouldn't be all that hard. Tax the rich, use that money to help the poor. Hold people accountable when they peddle lies and profit off fear and ignorance. Don't tolerate injustice the way we do, even when easy or politically convenient.
Corporations don't riot. Millionaires don't riot. People who feel like they are losing out and not being heard are the ones who riot. People who are lied to and cynically manipulated are the ones who riot. People who feel backed into a corner, who are easy to radicalize, are the ones who riot.
You want to let police across the country literally get away with murder because their victims have the wrong skin color? That's going to produce riots. You want to tolerate Neo-Nazis and their ilk having literally any place in our popular discourse? That's going to produce riots. You want to continue an insane tradition of allowing sitting presidents to be above the law? That's going to produce riots.
Riots are the symptom of self-inflicted wounds. We created these riots by ignoring the issues that led people to riot. We can instead choose otherwise. We just don't.
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