I recall a pretty long period of fiery but mostly peaceful protests that were simply allowed to happen. the police would stand down, and even social distancing

I recall a pretty long period of fiery but mostly peaceful protests that were simply allowed to happen. the police would stand down, and even social distancing / self-isolation / masking / etc did not apply - I vividly remember something among the lines of "stay at home (unless you're out there to protest)" being said unironically. for some reason, the same media, politicians and twitter checkmarks who giddily encouraged those ones are very upset about these ones. it's a mystery.