6 ms·

This is probably an unpopular opinion but I would like politicians on the left to speak up about the rioting and burning of stuff at the current protests and al

This is probably an unpopular opinion but I would like politicians on the left to speak up about the rioting and burning of stuff at the current protests and also the Tesla and George Floyd protests. It doesn’t help the cause if we allow some assholes to destroy stuff. Basically they are giving people like Trump an excuse to deploy force and a lot of people will agree. I can’t see what is achieved by burning cars and stores.

hobs 1y ago
[flagged]
hackernoops 1y ago
[flagged]
- protocolture 1y ago
  Whats respectable?
ekidd 1y ago
> This is probably an unpopular opinion but I would like politicians on the left to speak up about the rioting and burning of stuff at the current protests and also the Tesla and George Floyd protests. I mean, Gavin Newsom just did a long interview from a "crisis center" where he did exactly that, today. And plenty of Democratic politicians also speak against violent protests whenever they occur. But unless you actually pay pretty close attention to what Democratic politicians actually say, you won't hear these statements. Fox doesn't cover Democratic politicians speaking against violence. And frankly, if there's a 99.9% peaceful protest with one burning car, the media will devote 80% of their coverage to the burning car, and maybe a few sentences to politicians saying the burning car is bad. The media is unfortunately interested in spectacle and entertainment. I pay more attention than average to what politicians of both parties say, and it's kind of hilarious how often I hear "Why didn't so-and-so say X?" (uh, they do every week or two), or "I never believed so-and-so would do Y" (uh, they literally promised Y on the campaign trail). I don't know how to fix this.
- speakfreely 1y ago
  The Democratic politicians have painted themselves into a corner by trying to maintain far left support. Compare the messaging: Trump: We must have law and order. Immigration laws must be enforced. We will not tolerate riots or destruction. Protesters: The government shouldn't detain people who are in the country illegally. We should ignore federal laws we don't agree with. If we disagree with federal agents who are enforcing existing laws, we should impede them, attack them, and destroy property to lash out. This is not an endorsement of Trump, as he's clearly milking this situation to squeeze Newsom. This is a deliberate strategy to put Newsom in an untenable position and paint him as an irredeemable liberal to everyone outside California. Until the left takes a logically defensible position on illegal immigration, they will continue to be vulnerable to Trump's theater on this and he will continue to bludgeon them with it in elections.
  - NalNezumi 1y ago
    >The Democratic politicians have painted themselves into a corner by trying to maintain far left support >This is a deliberate strategy to put Newsom in an untenable position and paint him as an irredeemable liberal What's fascinating with current US politics and media is how these two sentences can be constructed in same sentence in an attempt to come off as "see I'm smart and media literate, I can see the full picture!" while literally the first sentence of your comment shows that that's not the case. The media repeating "Democrats are far left" long enough and it have penetrated your head. There's probably pandering to far left in democratic party I assume, but it have been magnified to a reality altering level by media so that's now believed as the core, while same thing happening on the far-right & Republican party. Both side must be truly be thinking like you, I assume. "I see the full picture, I'm smart" while parroting a distortion only required to be repeated for years. If everyone could put their phone down, touch some grass, take a road trip to the opposite political isle maybe this distortion could've been avoided.
    - LightHugger 1y ago
      First of all, chill out, for someone tooting their own horn, your own perspective is very one dimensional. What's really interesting about the democratic party's position is how they've utterly failed to embrace the popular parts of "left" policy (universal healthcare and etc, basically look at bernie sanders for what policy is actually widely popular on the left). And yet, they embrace incredibly unpopular parts of "extreme left". Being pro-illegal immigration is incredibly stupid and unpopular. DEI discrimination on the basis of race is also incredibly stupid and unpopular. I suppose i could also mention transitions for children. Need i mention free speech? It's a travesty that republicans have become the free speech party, but it's something the left has ceded. So we're in a situation where the democratic party is utterly failing to actually implement any of the good or popular left policies that would help the masses, even the pretty moderate ones, but is pushing incredibly unpopular extreme left policies that don't actually help the citizenry. In that context it's honestly a very reasonable thing for someone on the right to point to the dems call the party far left. And yet for those of us that want these policies for the people, the dems appear right-leaning. Very odd how this has worked out, but both are true in a way. I think the reason behind this is mainly due to them being controlled by their corporate donors who dictate focusing on the unpopular policies which are cheaper for the corporations to contend with. Universal healthcare would be a huge blow to corporate control in this country, as right now healthcare is tied to employment and that gives large corporate employers incredibly excessive power.
octo888 1y ago
It makes you wonder about agents provocateurs
FireBeyond 1y ago
The best quote I heard about the BLM / Floyd protests: "Too many people are saying, "It's terrible that innocent black men died, but this property destruction has to stop!" when they should be saying, "It's terrible that there is property destruction, but the death of innocent black men has to stop!"."
- HamsterDan 1y ago
  [flagged]
  - FireBeyond 1y ago
    > George Floyd was not innocent. Remind us all what crime he was convicted of. A $20 bill was alleged by a shop clerk to be counterfeit. There is no evidence either that it was, or that it was known to be counterfeit. > He then resisted a lawful arrest. His death was entirely self inflicted. Hard to self-inflict murder. "It wasn't murder!" - if his death was due solely to his alleged actions, and not due to excessive and inappropriate force by the police involved, then an officer would not have been charged with and convicted of second-degree murder. Nor would prosecutors not only charge the police involved, but move to increase charges and sentencing requests due to the "unnecessary and particularly excessive cruelty being inflicted upon [Floyd] by the officers". Weird.
  - const_cast 1y ago
    A reminder to everyone for all time so we can stop seeing these stupid ass comments and we can all move on with our lives: The punishment for no crime in the US is state-sanctioned public execution.
  - goatlover 1y ago
    Why was kneeling on his neck for nine and a half minutes necessary? There were four officers there. We all watched the video. I'm not aware that your other claims have been proven true.
- Slava_Propanei 1y ago
  [dead]
protocolture 1y ago
Spreads out police resources for one. Protesters outnumber police. Every cop pulled away from the protest to respond to a fire, looting incident, or whatever can translate directly to lives saved / protesters not arrested etc. Also makes certain goals more achievable. I read a crimethinc article about the george floyd protests and it suggested that the looting drew the cops away from the barricade at the police station, allowing them to destroy it. Seems a lot more practical than pearl clutching.
- unsnap_biceps 1y ago
  > protesters not arrested We should be clear, protesting is not illegal. It's protected first amendment speech. There is activity at protests that is illegal, and should be punished, but that's not protesting and lumping them together puts a chilling effect on.
  - protocolture 1y ago
    >protesting is not illegal. Everyone says this but no one means it. Governments just declare an area offlimits, or they declare a curfew or one of hundreds of ways they use to make protesters illegal. Ultimately, protests are only legal inside a small cube where no one can see, and thus the protesters have no effect. Protesting is illegal. People should protest anyway because it is stupid that protesting is illegal.
hn_throwaway_99 1y ago
I think the difficulty of this is how much Trump absolutely wants to escalate things, because it fits right into his narrative. I've seen lots of pictures of protestors waving Mexican flags, and of the burning Waymos, etc. My guess is these are a very small percentage of protestors, but it makes for great TV, and Trump gets to say that he's "protecting America against violent foreign invaders". And I can imagine many people watching this and agreeing with him - I mean, I consider myself quite liberal, but waving a Mexican flag at these events just makes me think you can fuck right off with that bullshit. It's a great example IMO of how Trump deliberately sows division and escalates whenever possible in order to use people's fear to consolidate power. It's basically Autocracy 101.
- thecrash 1y ago
  > I consider myself quite liberal, but waving a Mexican flag at these events just makes me think you can fuck right off with that bullshit. I'm confused, you consider yourself quite liberal but you think it's bullshit for Mexicans in the US to celebrate their heritage?
  - hn_throwaway_99 1y ago
    Puhleese. Yeah, the guy in this video is simply "celebrating his heritage", https://nypost.com/2025/06/08/us-news/mexican-flag-waving-masked-protester-becomes-the-symbol-of-la-anti-ice-riots/ https://nypost.com/2025/06/08/us-news/mexican-flag-waving-ma....
  - dazilcher 1y ago
    [flagged]
    - justinrubek 1y ago
      If you think the first amendment shouldn't apply, you are indeed quite confused
      - roomba 1y ago
anigbrowl 1y ago
They do, to say otherwise is uninformed or dishonest.
- erezsh 1y ago
  Can you provide some examples?
  - anigbrowl 1y ago
    No, I am not your valet. You can easily search for something like 'democrats condemn violence' if you actually want to know instead of wasting my time.
conartist6 1y ago
You would do well to remember that the protesters likely feel it would be accomplishing their political goals to provoke a larger violent confrontation with the police. The best case for the protesters looking to undermine Trump is if they convince the US Marines to open fire and slaughter lots of innocents on live TV. That could make these protests 10x - 100x larger than they are currently. Think Boston Massacre and you'll get the idea.
- aaronbaugher 1y ago
  I doubt the rioters want to be slaughtered to undermine the president. But the people egging them on and providing them with riot masks seem to like the idea.

hobs 1y ago

[flagged]

hackernoops 1y ago

[flagged]

protocolture 1y ago
Whats respectable?

ekidd 1y ago

> This is probably an unpopular opinion but I would like politicians on the left to speak up about the rioting and burning of stuff at the current protests and also the Tesla and George Floyd protests. I mean, Gavin Newsom just did a long interview from a "crisis center" where he did exactly that, today. And plenty of Democratic politicians also speak against violent protests whenever they occur. But unless you actually pay pretty close attention to what Democratic politicians actually say, you won't hear these statements. Fox doesn't cover Democratic politicians speaking against violence. And frankly, if there's a 99.9% peaceful protest with one burning car, the media will devote 80% of their coverage to the burning car, and maybe a few sentences to politicians saying the burning car is bad. The media is unfortunately interested in spectacle and entertainment. I pay more attention than average to what politicians of both parties say, and it's kind of hilarious how often I hear "Why didn't so-and-so say X?" (uh, they do every week or two), or "I never believed so-and-so would do Y" (uh, they literally promised Y on the campaign trail). I don't know how to fix this.

speakfreely 1y ago
The Democratic politicians have painted themselves into a corner by trying to maintain far left support. Compare the messaging: Trump: We must have law and order. Immigration laws must be enforced. We will not tolerate riots or destruction. Protesters: The government shouldn't detain people who are in the country illegally. We should ignore federal laws we don't agree with. If we disagree with federal agents who are enforcing existing laws, we should impede them, attack them, and destroy property to lash out. This is not an endorsement of Trump, as he's clearly milking this situation to squeeze Newsom. This is a deliberate strategy to put Newsom in an untenable position and paint him as an irredeemable liberal to everyone outside California. Until the left takes a logically defensible position on illegal immigration, they will continue to be vulnerable to Trump's theater on this and he will continue to bludgeon them with it in elections.
- NalNezumi 1y ago
  >The Democratic politicians have painted themselves into a corner by trying to maintain far left support >This is a deliberate strategy to put Newsom in an untenable position and paint him as an irredeemable liberal What's fascinating with current US politics and media is how these two sentences can be constructed in same sentence in an attempt to come off as "see I'm smart and media literate, I can see the full picture!" while literally the first sentence of your comment shows that that's not the case. The media repeating "Democrats are far left" long enough and it have penetrated your head. There's probably pandering to far left in democratic party I assume, but it have been magnified to a reality altering level by media so that's now believed as the core, while same thing happening on the far-right & Republican party. Both side must be truly be thinking like you, I assume. "I see the full picture, I'm smart" while parroting a distortion only required to be repeated for years. If everyone could put their phone down, touch some grass, take a road trip to the opposite political isle maybe this distortion could've been avoided.
  - LightHugger 1y ago
    First of all, chill out, for someone tooting their own horn, your own perspective is very one dimensional. What's really interesting about the democratic party's position is how they've utterly failed to embrace the popular parts of "left" policy (universal healthcare and etc, basically look at bernie sanders for what policy is actually widely popular on the left). And yet, they embrace incredibly unpopular parts of "extreme left". Being pro-illegal immigration is incredibly stupid and unpopular. DEI discrimination on the basis of race is also incredibly stupid and unpopular. I suppose i could also mention transitions for children. Need i mention free speech? It's a travesty that republicans have become the free speech party, but it's something the left has ceded. So we're in a situation where the democratic party is utterly failing to actually implement any of the good or popular left policies that would help the masses, even the pretty moderate ones, but is pushing incredibly unpopular extreme left policies that don't actually help the citizenry. In that context it's honestly a very reasonable thing for someone on the right to point to the dems call the party far left. And yet for those of us that want these policies for the people, the dems appear right-leaning. Very odd how this has worked out, but both are true in a way. I think the reason behind this is mainly due to them being controlled by their corporate donors who dictate focusing on the unpopular policies which are cheaper for the corporations to contend with. Universal healthcare would be a huge blow to corporate control in this country, as right now healthcare is tied to employment and that gives large corporate employers incredibly excessive power.

octo888 1y ago

It makes you wonder about agents provocateurs

FireBeyond 1y ago

The best quote I heard about the BLM / Floyd protests: "Too many people are saying, "It's terrible that innocent black men died, but this property destruction has to stop!" when they should be saying, "It's terrible that there is property destruction, but the death of innocent black men has to stop!"."

HamsterDan 1y ago
[flagged]
- FireBeyond 1y ago
  > George Floyd was not innocent. Remind us all what crime he was convicted of. A $20 bill was alleged by a shop clerk to be counterfeit. There is no evidence either that it was, or that it was known to be counterfeit. > He then resisted a lawful arrest. His death was entirely self inflicted. Hard to self-inflict murder. "It wasn't murder!" - if his death was due solely to his alleged actions, and not due to excessive and inappropriate force by the police involved, then an officer would not have been charged with and convicted of second-degree murder. Nor would prosecutors not only charge the police involved, but move to increase charges and sentencing requests due to the "unnecessary and particularly excessive cruelty being inflicted upon [Floyd] by the officers". Weird.
- const_cast 1y ago
  A reminder to everyone for all time so we can stop seeing these stupid ass comments and we can all move on with our lives: The punishment for no crime in the US is state-sanctioned public execution.
- goatlover 1y ago
  Why was kneeling on his neck for nine and a half minutes necessary? There were four officers there. We all watched the video. I'm not aware that your other claims have been proven true.
Slava_Propanei 1y ago
[dead]

protocolture 1y ago

Spreads out police resources for one. Protesters outnumber police. Every cop pulled away from the protest to respond to a fire, looting incident, or whatever can translate directly to lives saved / protesters not arrested etc. Also makes certain goals more achievable. I read a crimethinc article about the george floyd protests and it suggested that the looting drew the cops away from the barricade at the police station, allowing them to destroy it. Seems a lot more practical than pearl clutching.

unsnap_biceps 1y ago
> protesters not arrested We should be clear, protesting is not illegal. It's protected first amendment speech. There is activity at protests that is illegal, and should be punished, but that's not protesting and lumping them together puts a chilling effect on.
- protocolture 1y ago
  >protesting is not illegal. Everyone says this but no one means it. Governments just declare an area offlimits, or they declare a curfew or one of hundreds of ways they use to make protesters illegal. Ultimately, protests are only legal inside a small cube where no one can see, and thus the protesters have no effect. Protesting is illegal. People should protest anyway because it is stupid that protesting is illegal.

hn_throwaway_99 1y ago

I think the difficulty of this is how much Trump absolutely wants to escalate things, because it fits right into his narrative. I've seen lots of pictures of protestors waving Mexican flags, and of the burning Waymos, etc. My guess is these are a very small percentage of protestors, but it makes for great TV, and Trump gets to say that he's "protecting America against violent foreign invaders". And I can imagine many people watching this and agreeing with him - I mean, I consider myself quite liberal, but waving a Mexican flag at these events just makes me think you can fuck right off with that bullshit. It's a great example IMO of how Trump deliberately sows division and escalates whenever possible in order to use people's fear to consolidate power. It's basically Autocracy 101.

thecrash 1y ago
> I consider myself quite liberal, but waving a Mexican flag at these events just makes me think you can fuck right off with that bullshit. I'm confused, you consider yourself quite liberal but you think it's bullshit for Mexicans in the US to celebrate their heritage?
- hn_throwaway_99 1y ago
  Puhleese. Yeah, the guy in this video is simply "celebrating his heritage", https://nypost.com/2025/06/08/us-news/mexican-flag-waving-masked-protester-becomes-the-symbol-of-la-anti-ice-riots/ https://nypost.com/2025/06/08/us-news/mexican-flag-waving-ma....
- dazilcher 1y ago
  [flagged]
  - justinrubek 1y ago
    If you think the first amendment shouldn't apply, you are indeed quite confused
    - roomba 1y ago

anigbrowl 1y ago

They do, to say otherwise is uninformed or dishonest.

erezsh 1y ago
Can you provide some examples?
- anigbrowl 1y ago
  No, I am not your valet. You can easily search for something like 'democrats condemn violence' if you actually want to know instead of wasting my time.

conartist6 1y ago

You would do well to remember that the protesters likely feel it would be accomplishing their political goals to provoke a larger violent confrontation with the police. The best case for the protesters looking to undermine Trump is if they convince the US Marines to open fire and slaughter lots of innocents on live TV. That could make these protests 10x - 100x larger than they are currently. Think Boston Massacre and you'll get the idea.

aaronbaugher 1y ago
I doubt the rioters want to be slaughtered to undermine the president. But the people egging them on and providing them with riot masks seem to like the idea.