And Just Like That, Joe Biden and the Democrats Stopped Liking Riots

For the better part of the past three months, neighborhoods of Portland, Oregon, Minnesota, Seattle, Atlanta, Chicago, Kenosha and other cities and states – all run by Democrats – have been on fire.

The police killing of George Floyd started the fire, but, as an old Japanese saying goes, “Fire always makes room for itself.”

The “fire” is spreading like a metastic cancer. It is intentionally set in places where it is allowed to flourish and spread. It runs wild and unabated under the Democrats who oversee those towns and cities.

Riots Are Like Out-of-Control Flames

Seattle’s Jenny Durkan, Minneapolis’s Jacob Frey, Portland’s Ted Wheeler, Oregon’s Governor Kate Brown, Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers, Lori Lightfoot of Chicago fan the flames. They make excuses for murder in St. Louis and the constant assault of local and federal officers in Portland. They hate the president so much they won’t take help from him as a point of pride, salving their own egos while their cities are looted “for reparations,” pillaged for “social justice” and set on fire to leave a sick mark of “accomplishment.”

Is AOC’s ‘Squad’ Running the Rioters? One Just Called for MORE ‘Unrest In the Streets’

Massachusetts Democratic Congresswoman Ayanna Presley called for more “unrest” (hint).

I’m looking to the public. You know, this is as much about public outcry and organizing and mobilizing and applying pressure […] You know there needs to be unrest in the streets for as long as there is unrest in our lives.

Democrats, fearing they’ll be hurt politically or physically, encourage the lawlessness. They allow it. They call them “peaceful protesters.” These “leaders” don’t stop the fire when it’s small. They wait till the fire is big and dangerous before trying to douse it. Like fire fighters trying to contain a huge blaze, police are allowed only to surround and stop the riots from spreading. The next day, the arrested fire starters are back out, bailed out, if there is bail at all, by people like vice presidential candidate Kamala Harris and Black Lives Matter, Incorporated™ and antifa who cheer them on.

Rioters Like Antifa Are Imaginary

House Judiciary Chair Jerry Nadler thinks antifa is imaginary and that the Portland riots aren’t that big of a deal. He’s said it at least twice. He accused the president and Attorney General Bill Barr of blowing the riots out of proportion.

A poll in late July showed that voters are OK with protests. USA Today mocked the Trump administration for sounding the alarm – again – about rioting.

The support for the protests comes as the White House and Attorney General William Barr try to paint the protesters as “violent rioters.” [Emphasis added]

But some sounded a warning. The National Journal at one point ran a piece entitled, “Democrats risk backlash if they don’t condemn rioting.” Nobody listened. The riots, looting, and protests were just too good a political point for the Democrats. It was a winning issue for them. Joe Biden was winning in the polls!

Yup. Video That Spawned Wisc. Riots Didn’t Show Man ‘Brawling’ With Cops Before Shooting. See What Really Happened

The rioting wasn’t mentioned at all at the Democratic National Convention. There were only references to “chaos,” which they promised would go away the second Joe Biden was elected president.

POOF! The Summer Of Love Is Over

But – poof – just like that, Democrats now conclude that the “Summer of Love” is over.

CNN’s Don Lemon has delivered them a news flash and a piece of advice. The unabated riots that both he and CNN Chris Cuomo are aiding and abetting are upsetting voters. And it’s showing up in the polls. Lemon told Cuomo:

[Biden’s] got to come out and tell people that’s he’s going to deal with the issue of police reform and that what’s happening now is happening under Donald’s Trump watch.

But guess what? The rioting has to stop. Chris, as you know and I know, it’s showing up in the polling. It’s showing up in focus groups. It is the only thing — it is the only thing right now that is sticking [by the Republicans].

Portland ‘Back the Blue’ Rally Turns Into Riot When Antifa Shows Up and Starts Assaulting People Who Like Cops

And before you could say “you know, the thing,” Lemon’s words are coming out of Biden’s mouth.

Joe Biden Finds His Special Purpose

Biden, who heretofore failed to denounce a single thing about the violent rioters and looters, all of a sudden is having a change of heart. He’s a changed man. It’s all so clear to him now. Like Navin Johnson, Joe Biden found his special purpose. The scales fell from Joe’s eyes and all of a sudden he understood that rioting, looting, and setting fire to other people’s property are bad.

Quick! Tell the media I’m somebody! And he got in touch with The New York Times to tell them all about his newly found special purpose.

As I said after George Floyd’s murder, protesting brutality is a right and absolutely necessary. Burning down communities is not protest, it’s needless violence. Violence that endangers lives. Violence that guts businesses, and shutters businesses, that serve the community. That’s wrong.

The Times report says voters in Wisconsin are not happy with his pro-riot ways.

Priscella Gazda, a waitress at a pizza restaurant in Kenosha, was having the opposite reaction. She said she had voted only once in her life — for Mr. Obama in 2008. Her son has Type 1 diabetes and was hoping for health insurance.

“I’m not the one who would ever vote,” she said.

But after the chaos in her town, this year is different.“I am going to vote for Trump,” she said.

“He seems to be more about the American people and what we need.”

Committed Republicans are also upset with the local leadership that allows the Kenosha riots.

Don Biehn, 62, owner of a flooring company, was standing in line at a gun store on Tuesday afternoon. He said that he had never bought a pistol before, but that he had a business to protect. A former county board supervisor, Mr. Biehn said he had been calling county and state officials for days, trying to explain how grave the situation was.

He added: “It’s chaos — everybody is afraid.”

Mr. Trump, he said, “was not my man,” but now he is grateful he is president.

Apparently the opinions of these citizens made their way into the close-to-the-vest public opinion polls or Joe Biden’s internal polling because Don Lemon and Chris Cuomo can’t be the only ones who know.

Cuomo: I think [riots] probably represents the biggest threat to the Democratic cause.

Lemon: Kenosha is a Rorschach test for the entire country, and I think this is a blind spot for Democrats. I think Democrats are ignoring this problem or hoping that it will go away, and it’s not going to go away. It’s showing up in the polling. It’s showing up in focus groups.

Hillary Clinton didn’t visit Wisconsin in 2016, which she and many others attribute her loss to, but maybe Joe can get out there. Joe can trip the light fantastic at The Good Taste Ice Cream Shoppe, which was gutted by arsonists with Black Lives Matter and antifa groups. He can’t miss it, it’s right next door to the Mexican grocery that’s been reduced to cinder by torch-wielding social justice warriors.

Riot Data Analyst Is Fired for Telling the Truth

In May, a “progressive data analyst” looked at the poll numbers in the 1968 election season, when the anti-war movement was in full dudgeon and there were protests, riots, Weather Underground bombings and … stop me if you’ve heard this one before, Nixon won.

His platform included a push for law and order on America’s campuses and chaotic and riotous streets and promised to end the Vietnam War. Ever since, his detractors interpreted Nixon’s comeback and his law-and-order stance as a racist dog whistle. They claimed it was the supposedly racist and murky “Southern Strategy.”

But, whoops, the data analyst came up with a different interpretation.

The New York Times reported that the data analyst found that protests help Democrats but riots work against them.

Shor is a progressive data analyst who has spent his career trying “to help elect Democrats while moving the party leftward,” as Jonathan Chait of New York magazine put it. In May, Shor tweeted a summary of a new academic paper about the 1968 election by Omar Wasow of Princeton. The paper found that nonviolent protests tended to increase the Democratic vote share in surrounding areas that year, while riots tended to decrease it.

His employer — Civis Analytics, a liberal research firm — quickly fired him.

Just spitballing here, but the “progressive data analyst” just blew up the “Southern Strategy.” Do you suppose that’s why he was fired?

It sounds as if Don Lemon has seen similar polling in the 2020 race.

Which brings us back to Joe and his sudden change of heart about riots.

Joe changed his mind about riots, not for reasons of right or wrong. Not out of a desire to lead people away from the fire that immolates innocents. But because riots won’t win him votes.

Biden took another piece of Don Lemon’s advice. After President Trump’s nominating convention speech, Joe sent this tweet, saying:

Remember: every example of violence Donald Trump decries has happened on his watch. Under his leadership. During his presidency.

Remember: every example of violence Donald Trump decries has happened on his watch. Under his leadership. During his presidency.

— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) August 28, 2020