[ The far-right mob that took over the Capitol never would have
gotten in if the federal police hadn’t allowed them to storm in. The
simple fact is that left-wing protesters get treated with brutality,
while right-wing protesters get coddled.] [[link removed]]

THE POLICE ENABLED THE FAR-RIGHT MOB THAT VIOLENTLY STORMED THE
CAPITOL BUILDING  
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Peter Gowan
January 6, 2021
Jacobin
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_ The far-right mob that took over the Capitol never would have
gotten in if the federal police hadn’t allowed them to storm in. The
simple fact is that left-wing protesters get treated with brutality,
while right-wing protesters get coddled. _

A pro-Trump mob tries to force a police barrier in Washington.,
Photograph: John Minchillo/AP

 

Let’s get one thing out of the way: if the federal police did not
want far-right protesters to be inside the Capitol, they would not be
inside the Capitol. Last summer the police and National Guard attacked
peaceful Black Lives Matter demonstrators who dared get too close to
federal buildings. Countless people, including myself, were injured.

Today’s violence, which was incited by President Trump and has seen
shots fired and rioters posing at the rostrum in the House of
Representatives for cameras, would never have made it past the front
door without the acquiescence of federal police. Authorities offered
minimal resistance to the mob sent by the president to prevent the
counting of electoral votes. With few exceptions, the response has
simply been to let the far-right mob pass, to wait and see rather than
to prevent the violence and seizure of federal property that is
occurring. The state capitol of Kansas has also been ransacked by
Trump loyalists
[[link removed]].

Today’s maelstrom has left the character of the US state in naked
relief. We do not live in a true democracy, and the repressive
apparatus of that state does not simply take different approaches to
left-wing and right-wing protesters by coincidence. It brutally cracks
down on those who threaten the ruling class, and coddles those who
don’t.

If the newly confirmed Democratic majority wanted to, they could make
this a watershed moment in US politics — a moment where liberals
realize that their passivity will only be met with further escalation,
and that now is the time to curb the threat of right-wing violence by,
among other things, purging the security state of far-right
sympathizers, expelling
[[link removed]] the
Republican members of Congress that incited this violence, and working
to democratize the economic and political life of the country.

We cannot, however rely, on the very security state that allowed this
debacle to resolve it. We should firmly resist efforts to increase
police budgets and powers in the name of counter-extremism, given that
the police are on the side of the right-wing extremists even posing
for selfies with them
[[link removed]].

The Senate will eventually reconvene, Joe Biden will be confirmed as
the president, and the ransacked Capitol building will eventually be
cleared out. But what will remain is the knowledge among elected
representatives that they are not safe from right-wing violence, and
that a sufficiently motivated crowd of agitated right-wing rioters may
be permitted to threaten their safety with minimal resistance from the
security state. And without drastic action, that doesn’t bode well
for any of us.

_Peter Gowan is a member of the steering committee of Metro DC
Democratic Socialists of America and the DSA Housing Justice
Commission._

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