Connect the Dots 101

Senator Ron Johnson (R—WI) claims not to have been afraid of the White mob that assaulted and vandalized the Capitol during the January 6th insurrection. 

Some people were. 

“I knew those are people that love this country, that truly respect law enforcement, would never do anything to break the law, so I wasn’t concerned,” he told a radio interviewer. 

That would not seem to have been the consensus among his colleagues—who were ripping off their Congressional lapel pins and cowering in their offices while the Secret Service hustled Vice President Pence off to an undisclosed secure location—or among the 140 law enforcement officers who were beaten, abused and, in the case of Officer Brian Sicknick, killed, in their attempt to protect the Capitol. 

Senator Johnson nevertheless felt that he “might have been a little concerned” had the protesters been Black Lives Matter or antifa supporters.

Data compiled by the Princeton-affiliated Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project show that over 93% of the over 10, 300 BLM demonstrations following the killing of George Floyd were non-violent. Of the remaining 7%, video evidence documents the participation of such White actors as the so-called Umbrella Man, the Aryan Cowboy who initiated the arson and looting in Minneapolis.

 Sen. Johnson, incidentally, was awarded three “Pinochios” last week by the Washington Post for misconstruing the ACLED data.

The leadership of the decentralized Black Lives Matter movement has never been held responsible for instigating any acts of violence. 

Though pilloried in the press by many for the implications of his comments (“racist trash” declared Greater Springfield (MA) NAACP president Talbert Swan) left unremarked upon was the glaring impeachment of his hypothetical concern. Thousands of Black Lives Matter supporters (Black, White, AAPI…Americans of all stripes) actually did assemble in Washington, D.C. in August for the “Get Your Knee Off Our Necks 2020 Commitment March on Washington.” (https://connect-the-dots-101.blog/2020/09/04/get-your-knee-off-our-necks-the-2020-commitment-march-on-washington/ ) The demonstration was a massive civics teach-in which left in its wake no injuries, no arrests, no property destruction. 

If not BLM, whom should we fear?

According to the report released last week by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence: the “enduring motivations [of domestic violent extremists] pertaining to biases against minority populations and perceived government overreach will almost certainly continue to drive…radicalization and mobilization to violence.”

“[N]arratives of fraud in the recent general election, the emboldening impact of the violent breach ofthe US Capitol, conditions related to the COVID -19 pandemic, and conspiracy theories promoting violence,” it added, “will almost certainly spur some DVEs to try to engage in violence this year.”

In other words, the source of the biggest threat to the domestic Tranquility the Constitution was established to insure is the same bigotry and resistance to facts and fairness that characterizes today’s Republican Party—the party of Trump and Senator Johnson.