The first person I saw to go there this time? Was Donald Trump.
What changed that, I think, was the continuation & spread of the riots.
I've seen a fervent Donald Trump supporter -- not a MagaBoomer, but a smart populist Republican who backs Trump for reasons of policy -- calling Trump out as weak.
Early on, liberals and Hard Lefties were on the same page. They were either lauding the disorder as heroic or tolerating it as necessary.
That changed after last night.
Liberals want the system to be better (for liberals' idea of better).
Hard Lefties want to smash the system & install a new one.
That's why this morning, liberals and journos -- but I repeat myself -- who spent previous days merrily tweeting the donation link to the Minnesota Freedom Fund, suddenly started talking about white nationalist infiltrators at the riots.
Their local chapters are typically two to eight people.
They have to do a lot of planning and coordinating to field a large crowd, which means about 125 people.
And they can't keep their fucking mouths shut.
He livestreamed and Telegrammed his whole way down there, and was geolocated, btfo'd, and doxed by antifascists.
They are also constitutionally incapable of being subtle.
They saw the protestors as heroes. They didn't like what the protests turned into. But they don't want to think badly of the protestors.
So someone ELSE must be responsible.
The next step (already starting) is liberals blaming the Hard Lefties... *white* Hard Lefties.
This is also cognitive dissonance. They don't want to think of any black protestors as unheroic.
absolutely all of us are going through the same thing as our attitudes evolve in response to events and life bumps up against our preconceptions
we're just gonna show it in different ways
Team Hard Lefty is thinking "WAIT THIS MEANS ACTUAL REVOLUTION IS POSSIBLE"
I saw one gal followed by a major DSA committee fantasizing about infrastructure sabotage as a precursor to revolution.
ALSO ME. "Forget it, she's rolling"
Somehow I don't think we'll see any of the policing changes that might have saved his life coming out of this.
RIP.