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Study Shows Riots (Still) Make Americans More Conservative

Study Shows Riots (Still) Make Americans More Conservative

That’s a good thing

We’ve recently seen riots in Ferguson and Baltimore, and there are growing concerns that Cleveland will be the next city to become embroiled in riots.  As we learn about (relatively well-) paid protesters and watch the usual parade of race grievance mongers, one thing has become quite clear:  the left has decided that violent riots are a viable tool for change.

According to Jonathan Chait in New York Magazine:

The recent spate of protests against police brutality have changed the way the left thinks about rioting. The old liberal idea, which distinguished between peaceful protests (good) and rioting (bad), has given way to a more radical analysis. “Riots work,” insists George Ciccariello-Maher in Salon. “But despite the obviousness of the point, an entire chorus of media, police, and self-appointed community leaders continue to try to convince us otherwise, hammering into our heads a narrative of a nonviolence that has never worked on its own, based on a mythical understanding of the Civil Rights Movement.” Vox’s German Lopez, while acknowledging the downside of random violence, argues, “Riots can lead to real, substantial change.” In Rolling Stone, Jesse Myerson asserts, “the historical pedigree of property destruction as a tactic of resistance is long and frequently effective.” Darlena Cunha, writing in Time, asks, “Is rioting so wrong?” and proceeds to answer her own question in the negative.

The shift from peaceful protesting to rioting is a reflection of the sort of thinking that was prevalent among 1960’s radicals (such as Bill Ayers).  However, the majority of Americans in the ’60s were turned off by—even horrified by—the Weather Underground’s terrorism and the violent rioting in our cities.

Despite the enthusiastic embrace of rioting by the radical left today, Americans still reject rioting.  According to Chait,

It is surely the case that some positive social reforms have emerged in response to rioting. Lopez highlights the Kerner Commission and diversity efforts in the Los Angeles Police Department. But the question is not whether rioting ever yields a productive response, but whether it does so in general. Omar Wasow, an assistant professor at the department of politics at Princeton, has published a timely new paper studying this very question. And his answer is clear: Riots on the whole provoke a hostile right-wing response. They generate attention, all right, but the wrong kind.

The “hostile right-wing response” to which he refers is the simple fact that riots make Americans more conservative.

That’s a good thing.

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Comments

Not only does the Left look bad on camera, their deepening mental illness looks worse in print. Let them go at it. Go ahead, Lefty, bring your mobs of paid “Rent a Reds” and such. You will show yourselves for the fools you have always been.

    Not A Member of Any Organized Political in reply to Whitewall. | May 26, 2015 at 4:37 pm

    The Leftists’ riots, whining, nuttiness, and extreme selfishness makes conservatives of all races, creeds, and ages.

Shouldn’t those who pay others to protest when those protests become violent with people hurt and property destroyed be held responsible? After all without the funded protesters present, then the demonstration would likely not have become violent. Perhaps it is time to take some people to court.

    Subotai Bahadur in reply to Cleetus. | May 26, 2015 at 2:16 pm

    If we lived under the rule of law, you would be right. However, no Leftist can be held to account for their actions in the America-that-is, and the government will go to war with anyone who tries.

    stevewhitemd in reply to Cleetus. | May 26, 2015 at 3:46 pm

    Interesting point though yes, finding a Leftist to be criminally liable these days is rather hard.

    No reason not to sue the bastards, however. If I were a shopkeeper who got burned out in a riot that was organized and agitated by professionals, I’d go after the people funding those professionals. Even if I couldn’t win a suit I’d bring their activities to the light of day.

When riots are destroying the things and the way of life people have worked hard to acquire, you damn right it makes us “hostile” in our “response”.

This attitude from the Left that riots, mayhem, violence and destruction of property represent legitimate expressions of alleged/perceived grievance is a continuation of the Left’s paternalistic “bigotry of low expectations,” as memorably phrased by Rod Paige. This attitude is basically tantamount to explicitly stating, “We can’t reasonably expect these infant-serf-savages to comport their behavior in accordance with societal and legal norms, therefore, let them vent their anger in the only way that they know how.”

Further, if this agitation represents, as some Leftist writers have claimed a valid expression of “disenfranchisement” in the black community and a lack of civic “engagement” by politicians, why is this embitterment and rage not properly directed at where it squarely belongs, to wit, A) the neo-communist-politicians who have been running most of America’s cities for decades, and, whose corrupt/incompetent management and failed socioeconomic policies have created a slew of urban ghettos rife with crime, poverty, blight and despair, protecting teachers’ unions and failed schools while driving away businesses and productive residents, and, B) the black community itself, for continuing to vote for and empower the aforementioned corrupt/incompetent neo-communist-Democrats, disregarding their record of abject failure?

    veseng in reply to guyjones. | May 26, 2015 at 10:22 am

    Nothing very complicated. It is just the old leftist “the end justifies the means.” The rest is just rationalization and projection.

    And remember the left controls most of the MSM and the schools so the propaganda they spew just tells the black community that it is the Republicans and whites that are oppressing them.

    On your first paragraph: I believe it was Jeff Snyder who said (from memory; may not be 100% accurate), “Society does not control crime, ever, by forcing the law-abiding to accommodate themselves to the expected behavior of criminals. Society controls crime by forcing criminals to conduct themselves to the expected behavior of the law-abiding.” Giving them “room to destroy” just guarantees that they will destroy much more than their “allowed” area, and it’s the law-abiding community that will bear the costs of rebuilding.

    On your second paragraph: Remember that those “leftist writers” control the media. They are the media. Their message is the only message the “disenfranchised” black community sees, and their message is that the new-Messiah-Democrats are on the black communities’ side with “a hand up, not a handout,” and the neo-Nazi-Republicans are racist bigoted fat-cats who want to end welfare, reinstitute slavery, and keep the little people under the thumb of the rich and powerful.

    The message is a lie, but it doesn’t matter. It’s the only message the communities in question will hear, so of course they’ll believe it, and they’ll keep voting for the new-Messiah neo-communist-Democrats because of it.

Insufficiently Sensitive | May 26, 2015 at 10:42 am

And remember the left controls most of the MSM and the schools

And the MSM largely glorifies rioters as ‘protesters’ (and applies the ‘non-violent’ phrase a bit liberally). Which rioters know – their street productions are specifically tailored to attract the max media exposure.

If lucky, they’ll even get footage of some police nightstick applications as support for the lefty commentators (and DOJ) attacks on local police. Battlespace preparation for next year’s riots, aiming for even less pesky police opposition.

Yeeeeeup. Like I predicted here not so long ago…

there will be a law-and-order backlash in the U.S. for 2016.

Americans don’t like crazy people doing crazy things over mythology.

Just with the riots of the late 1960s, 1968 in particular i.e. the Chicago DemocRAT convention riots — the straw that broke the camel’s back — the American people looked to Richard Nixon to provide that law and order for the United States. He even ran on the slogan of law and order.

The Chicago riots are what cost the DemocRATs the Presidency in 1968. People got tired of seeing the agitators and police do the same thing every night. Then the photo of Mayor Daley sitting on his so-called throne inside the convention hall while the police battled with the anarchists, really sealed the deal.

Phillep Harding | May 26, 2015 at 3:03 pm

We are probably okay so long as we have a free internet.

But, there are moves to censor the net, starting with Drudge. LI might be down the list, but it’s on the list. Don’t get off guard.

People like the Mayor of Baltimore, the Ferguson Police Chief, and assorted other losers pandering to the criminals ought to make the exploited minority community wake up and see the light.

One definition of a conservative: A liberal who’s been mugged.

Henry Hawkins | May 26, 2015 at 7:33 pm

We haven’t seen anything yet. If it’s a hot summer – and it will be somewhere because every summer is hot in the south – and there’s a triggering event – which the media will be happy to supply, pre-spun! – then American cities are going to burn. They’ve primed the pump for exactly that.

Riots tend to move any area into the socialist camp.

Businessmen, developers, and investors look at things like petty crime when deciding where to expand their operations. Are phone booths vandalized, are there any working cash machines, etc.; these are useful indicators. Obviously, a propensity toward rioting and looting are indicators as well.

If business decides that an area is too big a risk, the local economic base dries up. Soon only paycheck cashing outfits and pawn shops are left; and even the paycheck outfits leave when the jobs do.

Eventually, the only source of revenue is government handouts.

    Riots turn the area into a socialist hell-hole, but the good people – the business owners who got burned out, the residents who stayed home and hugged their kids instead of “protesting” – become more conservative overall.

    Those people may not stay in the area, but they’ll vote more conservative after seeing first-hand what leftist policies lead to and allow/promote.