MSNBC Anchor: Minneapolis Facing “Protests”, Not Riots

Here’s some of the responses he immediately received to his oblivious statement:

Things have gotten so bad in Minneapolis that Fox News reports the Governor of Minnesota had to enact a curfew:

Curfews will go into effect starting at 8 p.m. on Friday in both Minneapolis and St. Paul after orders put in place by Governor Tim Walz and the mayors for both cities.

Under the governor's order, no one will be allowed on the streets of the Twin Cities from 8 p.m. until 6 a.m. except for first responders, members of the media, and people going to and from work.

Those who violate the order will face arrest, Governor Walz says. The order mostly conforms will similar orders made by Mayor Jacob Frey in Minneapolis and Mayor Melvin Carter in St. Paul. The Minneapolis order, however, will last through the entire weekend, Mayor Frey said. Mayor Carter also warned his order may be extended if unrest continues.The orders follow riots, fires, and looting in the aftermath of protests on the death of George Floyd, a black man who died in police custody. The curfews also comes hours after one of the officers involved in Floyd's death was taken into custody and arrested for murder.

Gov. Tim Walz said Friday the state has taken the lead in responding to the protests over Floyd’s death, which have devolved into rioting and looting in both cities and surrounding communities. 

The Minneapolis Police Department abandoned the Third Precinct Thursday night after rioters gained access to the building and set it on fire. Numerous businesses throughout Minneapolis and St. Paul were vandalized and burned, with many still smoldering on Friday morning.

Take a look at the “protesters” as MSNBC would refer to them completely burn down the police department’s building:

Does this look like a protest to you?

Absolutely not!

Protests are like the ones we witnessed in Michigan, where hundreds of hairdressers and barbers peacefully assembled outside the state Capitol Building and gave out free haircuts.

No one was harmed. No buildings were burned. No businesses were destroyed.

But that doesn’t fit the media’s narrative.

Read some of the reactionary tweets:

While the media would have us believe what is occurring in Minneapolis is the best way to address problems, the National Review points out how riots only create further division:

Sometimes a responsibility falls to you that you never anticipated. Sometimes history just demands that someone should say it: Riots are bad. Riots are never a coherent or moral response to injustice, they just multiply injustices and the rioters themselves often suffer more in the long run.

Unfortunately it must be said, because absolute morons who would call the cops without hesitation if there were an unruly loudspeaker or birdwatcher in their nice neighborhoods are cheering on and excusing rioting — rioting that is destroying businesses, livelihoods, and even a community center for Native American youth. The apologists for rioting and arson accuse people who are appalled by these acts of not caring about injustices. It cannot be said emphatically enough: This is the precise opposite of the truth.

People who apologize for rioters say that rioting challenges the system. But of course it doesn’t. Robbing and shooting at Korean immigrants in Los Angeles, or nearly killing a random white truck driver, did not get anyone a tenth of an inch closer to justice for Rodney King or reform of the LAPD; these were just other barbarous crimes.

Indistinct blathering about “the system” is an attempt to smuggle away the reputation of revolutionaries and bequeath it to rioters. But revolutionaries join targeted violence to a political rationale. If the rioters are revolutionaries, they should tell us their grievances, describe their dreamed-of settlement, and show us they are burning down the right buildings and happy to shoot the right people. They haven’t done so, of course. But if revolution is unattractive in the absence of such a rationale, or inadvisable because it is futile, certainly a campaign of disorganized violence at whatever targets seem juicy in the moment is just mayhem for its own sake.

We must distinguish rioting and looting from protesting. People do not loot seeking justice for George Floyd, they loot for the loot. People don’t commit arson to make a political statement. What does burning an AutoZone even communicate if it could be translated into politics? People don’t assault those citizens standing in the way of looting and arson as a cry for help or to draw attention to social problems, they do so because looting and arson offer satisfactions to a reprobate will.

We’ve been told by people who live in safety or are perfectly able to retreat to it: “Riots are, at their core, a choice made by those in power, not people who participate in them.” But is this true? Misgovernance does have a price with regard to civil cohesion. But if riots are not a choice, then the people participating in them have no agency and can’t be said to be making a political statement. It would follow that there is no difference between a citizen destroying his neighborhood and another defending it.

Others belittle objections to riots as disingenuous demands for “civility” used to distract from injustice. This is projection: as if the plea not to commit robbery or set fire to your neighbor’s place of business was an attempt to make those angry doff their caps.

If you’re so morally insensate or well-educated that you can’t make a moral judgment without referencing a study or chart, look at the long-term studies done on rioting. Riots harm their communities. They don’t reform them. They often initiate a general spike in violent crime. Baltimore saw this spike in the past half-decade. Riots dissuade individuals, families, and businesses from staying in or joining a community. Who wants to raise their kids in the neighborhood where the police station had to be evacuated before it was set ablaze?