The storming of the Capitol building in Washington, D.C. last Wednesday and the violence and chaos that followed as Congress prepared to convene to count Electoral College votes will be a day that will live in infamy for the United States for decades to come.
Within minutes of reports hitting social media about what was taking place as a small group splintered off from a nearby pro-Trump rally and began breaking windows and forcing their way into the building, condemnations poured in from political figures on the left and right and in between.
Republicans and Democrats, as we all know, don’t often find common ground on the issues, but on this one, there was universal outrage, with the consensus being that things like this should never happen in the United States of America. After all, we’re supposed to resolve our political differences peaceably, not by way of the use of force and violence.
Four people died that day, including a woman who was shot by a Capitol Police officer. The next day, a Capitol Police officer died, reportedly due to injuries sustained during the riots.
The day after the Capitol was breached, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris — who will soon be sworn in respectively as America’s next president and vice president — gave speeches condemning the violence, inadvertently throwing gasoline on the fire with some of the comments they made in response to what happened.
Biden proclaimed that “No one can tell me that if it had been a group of Black Lives Matter protesting yesterday, they wouldn’t have been treated very, very differently than the mob of thugs that stormed the Capitol.”
Harris declared that “We witnessed two systems of justice when we saw one that let extremists storm the United States Capitol and another that released tear gas on peaceful protesters last summer.”
In reality, in most instances, the radicals in Black Lives Matter and Antifa, who conducted near-nightly riots in Democrat-run cities across America last year for months on end, were allowed to get away with their heinous actions, even being treated as heroes by the press and Democrats — some of whom, like Harris and the Biden campaign, promoted their bail funds.
Just days after the Minneapolis riots, which saw a police precinct burned to the ground and an entire city block looking like a scene out of the movie “Apocalypse Now,” Harris encouraged people to contribute to a bail fund for “protesters” who were arrested in the aftermath.
“If you’re able to, chip in now to the @MNFreedomFund to help post bail for those protesting on the ground in Minnesota,” Harris tweeted June 1, 2020.
Reuters filed a report that same week with the headline, “Biden staff donate to group that pays bail in riot-torn Minneapolis.”
Over the summer, as Antifa/BLM rioters wreaked havoc in major American cities, terrorizing neighborhoods, taking over police precincts and entire city blocks, burning buildings, and throwing incendiary devices at law enforcement officers and federal courthouses, Democrats and media figures insisted on calling the violent crowds “peaceful protesters.” In some media reports, this description was used even while reporters were standing right in front of rioting crowds and fires raging in the distance.
Democrats and the media coddled Antifa/BLM rioters at a time when taking a stand loudly against them might have made a difference. They only began condemning them once they learned that not doing so was hurting their polling numbers in a crucial election year.
On the other hand, Republicans not only repeatedly condemned last year’s looting and riots but did the same with the Capitol Hill violence that happened last week.
That’s something people need to remember next time any leader on the left or in the media tries pretending they have any moral high ground here. They don’t.
Media analyst Stacey Matthews has also written under the pseudonym Sister Toldjah and is a regular contributor to RedState and Legal Insurrection.
