As someone born in the eighties I'd mention that it has actually gotten less unthinkable that mass riots happen in the western world as I've grown up. If every

As someone born in the eighties I'd mention that it has actually gotten less unthinkable that mass riots happen in the western world as I've grown up. If everyone's reaction to January 6th surprised you it's because when most of the middle-aged working folks (including the folks in the media) were growing up this was unthinkable. The Arab Spring happened "over there" and ditto for North Africa - it's only recently that we've had substantive protests domestically. The WTO always brings a decent sized chunk of protest when it comes - but the biggest protest in my memory is Occupy Wall Street which ended up being incredibly peaceful and polite and thus absolutely ignored by the media. The largest one before that was probably the '92 LA Riots which I was born just late enough to not notice. Most of the more media grabbing protests of my life time have actually been sports related - the Red Sox winning and the Stanley Cup Riot. I don't know how true your statement really is.