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Scorched: Leftists made a tactical error in Kenosha

Scorched: Leftists made a tactical error in Kenosha

Riots and looting in Seattle, Portland, and Chicago are one thing, but we’re not used to watching such events in the Kenoshas of the world, which are much smaller cities not known for leftism.

https://twitter.com/RitaPanahi/status/1297818080865738752

When Kenosha erupted in flames, it wasn’t that the actions of the rioters were so different than in other cities across America. Unfortunately, it’s become the new business-as-usual, because we’ve grown accustomed to seeing much the same things happen in deep blue (i.e. leftist) cities such as Seattle, Portland, and Chicago.

But we’re not used to watching such events in the Kenoshas of the world, which are much smaller cities not known for leftism.

The left would have us think Kenosha’s turmoil was a spontaneous demonstration by the people of Kenosha, upset at the Jacob Blake shooting. But to me, that never seemed especially likely. It seemed more plausible that although some of the demonstrators would be from Kenosha, a great many of the ones looting and burning would fall into the category of “outside agitators.”

And that indeed seems to have been the case, according to the Kenosha Police:

•As of 12:30 p.m. August 30, 2020 a total of 175 people have been arrested
•Of the people processed during this week, 102 listed addresses from outside of Kenosha

Although Kenosha no doubt has its own unique characteristics, it also seems like Everytown USA. That’s what probably was especially frightening about the violence there, to many people. If the mayhem had remained confined to a small number of blue cities far far away, it would certainly be upsetting but was less likely to strike as many people as personally dangerous.

We now have evidence that Kenosha changed that perception:

“In June approval of protests was widespread, with 61 percent approving of the protests and 36 percent disapproving,” the poll found. “Approval declined in August with 48 percent approving and 48 percent disapproving.”

The biggest change was among suburbanites who were, it seems, largely unaware of protests (and ensuing riots) when they were affecting major urban areas but began to pay attention when Kenosha, a more suburban, more residential area of Wisconsin, started seeing major damage.

Approval of BLM “declined in each of five urban-suburban categories including cities, suburbs, exurbs, small towns, and rural areas,” the study’s authors note. “In August more respondents approved than disapproved in cities. Suburban areas, which were substantially net positive in June, became net negative on approval in August, though not as negative as exurban, small towns or rural areas.”

And Democrats are also souring on the situation, Marquette says: “Net approval also declined across all three categories of party identification, with the largest declines among Republicans.”

The perception that the rioters have overplayed their hand, and that it will have political repercussions, is apparently one of the main reasons that the Biden camp has started to condemn the riots. Naturally, though, they’re trying to pin them on the right. But I think that particular dog won’t hunt.

[Neo is a writer with degrees in law and family therapy, who blogs at the new neo.]

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Comments

Antifundamentalist | September 3, 2020 at 5:13 pm

So who are these “outside agitators” really? I sincerely doubt that they are Right Wing Agitators intent on damaging the BLM movement as some on the Left are beginning to claim. Though I would not be surprised to learn that many of them are not actually part of the BLM movement. Antifa, perhaps. Or some other Secret Squirrel Brigade with its own agenda.

They’re coming from all over as individuals and in small groups. In Portland, one gal arrested is from Utah and two guys from Reno. There are many others, particularly from Eugene, Seattle and California.

A busload in Kenosha came from Seattle.

Not ‘Kenosias of the world’ – just of America. It must be ‘fun’ to live in a country where anyone’s hometown, no matter how humble & safe, can become a Kenoshia or Portland in the blink of an eye. The US, a free-fire zone now. Mind-boggling.

    It is one thing for it to happen in a city of millions and quite another in Kenosha, with 100,000. A lot of people live in places of 25,000 to 250,000, for which Kenosha suddenly becomes relevant.

    Note that Biden shook hands with someone coming off the plane in Kenosha today. Could he be any more out of touch?

      notamemberofanyorganizedpolicital in reply to jb4. | September 3, 2020 at 10:39 pm

      Think that was the Anti-Semitic father of the fake victim…..

      kenoshamarge in reply to jb4. | September 4, 2020 at 2:11 pm

      Biden’s visit, coming after Trump’s successful one was anti-climatic and not particularly well received. In fact it hardly made a ripple on our lives.

      Even my Dem neighbor has had enough of BLM and ANTIFA.

      A car lot 1 block from my house went up in flames and the stench was on the air for days.

      After the idiot Governor got out of Trump’s way the violence stopped.

      What they did here in my home town may well have given Wisconsin to Trump.

The looters are more likely locals, but the only reason they’re looting is because the Antifa thugs are breaking down all the storefronts.

The other mistake Antifa is making is the rioting in the suburbs. It’s freaking out those squishy Dems in the burbs who sympathized with the racial grievances. It’s sadly ironic – these folks are fine with the riots and constant killing in the inner city – but the minute it moves into their neighborhood they’ll panic. Some might even vote for Trump, if Antifa keeps it up.

We live in a country where everybody came from somewhere else. If they happen to be Americans who came from a few miles away, they say “outside agitators.” If they are illegal aliens from Mexico (who are committing a crime) they say, “Kanosha man” or “Springfield man” or Portland man” or the name of the town where the crime was committed, but it is never said of illegals, they are from “outside” because that’s not kosher.

If black lives really mattered then black on black crime would not exist, at least not at the level it does today. The sad state of affairs is that to many people, no lives matter.

In case anyone was unclear: this is what’s coming for you, too, unless we stop it.

The normalization of looting and rioting and a constitutionally-protected right to protest. And protecting your property and person his being criminalized.

At some point, the outright idiocy of what we are tolerating for now force us to risk everything, including our lives, if we want to stop this.

I’ve gotten into the habit of asking people if they wondered what it would be like to live in a communist country. Then I ask “How do you like it so far?”

Kenosha might be a tactical mistake but really, overall, even the big blue riots have been a huge strategic mistake. The democrats had one job, act half-way sane, but TDS got ’em.

Had approval for BLM fropped from 60+% to barely double digits, I’d feel a lot more comfortable. But, 48% vs. 48% is a recipe for disaster.

@Pasadena Phil: If we lived in a Communist country and someone tried to pull the stuns Antifa and BLM are pulling, the streets would be cleared in two days, and police would go around assuring friends and family of executed people that “it’s all for the good of a progressive social order, and they should not go around spreading upsetting ruomors”–while collecting the cost of the bullets used in the executions.

    I agree with your first point but I don’t understand the point you directed to me. What we are witnessing is a state-sponsored insurrection in the streets protected by a perversion of the 1st Amendment right to protest by normalizing the most extreme violence.

    The communist takeover was supposed to be a fait-accompli with the 2016 election of Hillary. The communist takeover of the various institutions and government bureaucracy and media have already occurred. The 2016 elections were rigged to officially declare the takeover was complete. Only they lost.

    They almost succeeded in a

I try to follow the polling but you know the silent trump vote is either +4 or +5 so Trump is actually leading in the swing states.

Here is something from yesterday, Trump cookies in Minnesota are outselling Biden massively – “never seen anything like it”

https://minnesota.cbslocal.com/2020/09/03/ive-never-seen-it-like-this-trump-well-ahead-of-biden-in-red-wing-bakerys-presidential-cookie-poll/

Trump didn’t even win Minnesota last time!

Every time I authorize cookies for LI, things goes haywire. Something black flashes on my screen and I lose control as I get booted out of my comment with it posting sometimes. Usually I just lose it. I really don’t think approving cookies here is safe. Anyway…

I agree with your first point but I don’t understand the point you directed to me. What we are witnessing is a state-sponsored insurrection in the streets protected by a perversion of the 1st Amendment right to protest by normalizing the most extreme violence.

The communist takeover was supposed to be a fait-accompli with the 2016 election of Hillary. The communist takeover of the various institutions and government bureaucracy and media have already occurred. The 2016 elections were rigged to officially declare the takeover was complete. Only they lost.

They almost succeeded with their silent soft coup. Now they clearly don’t have the votes to win thanks to Trump. So this is the violent takeover attempt and fools like Wheeler and his ilk don’t realize that they have NO value to these communists and will be thrown to the wolves without a second thought.

There are at least 3, maybe 5 sub-groups: propaganda apparatcheks, useful idiots, and thug teams.

Useful idiots are fodder n cover for the other 2 – instagraming idiot videos cover the arranged n staged propaganda video; looters n wildings cover the organized assault teams.

You can spot them from their consistent behavior. It’s coordinated, not “natural”, and ubiquitous. Absent guidance, people don’t this. Absent training, people forget n go random under stress.

– Fire-extinguisher-guy was drawn out by assault on his store, baited into isolation using expendable “useful idiots.

– Then, the attack pattern sets up. 4-7 similarly geared form up out of the gaggle into a spread circle at 2 paces. This is intention n training.

– They maintain their distance n spacing as events n the target move – this is intention n training. If something breaks their circle, like a barrier or intercessor, the circle dissolves. This is intention n training.

– They feint and jeer like jackals worrying at cornered prey – exactly like; same tactic. Maintain the dance til one gets a clean, unobserved shot from behind. You can see them pull back their sucker punches if spotted coming in. This is intention n training.

– They forgoe all other decisive contact for one of them get that one clean, lunging, unobserved blow to head from behind, usually with a weapon. This is intention n training.

– When the target drops, the circle breaks n fades back into the cover of the others, individually in different directions. This is intention n training.

– Meanwhile it’s vidioed from about 3x the distance, starting when someone becomes a candidate target by engaging the taunting mass.

These teams are trained. It’s too organized, too consistent, too ubiquitous, n too unnatural. The propaganda ops create situations where this sub-engagement might develop.

Occupying Portland has its own payoffs. It also creates oppy to catch on film “spontaneously” braining Andy Ngo – “pours engourage les autres”, because we don’t like him.

Maybe read Eric Hoffer’s The True Believer.

Having lived through WW-II, working to understand “How the hell did that happen?” he ended up mapping the bones n processes of mass movements.

These current jackholes are tracking, from opportunistic “leaders” intent on getting out front of whatever seems to be advancing – Hi, Kamala – to adrenaline addicts, to defective personalities feeding their need to control the world they hate – Hi Soros, Micro-Bill, Felonia Milhaus Von Pantsuit, Chuck-y … too many to name – to the weak, disaffected, n lost: fodder to become “True Believers” fueling the others’ other agenda.

“Barr & DOJ have not applied RICO or some other Federal laws to the organizers and money behind this?”

RICOH is hard to prove, and I think I want to keep it that way.

Barr discussed the other week ~1,000 federal arrests of insurrectionists, appartcheks, n enforcers via an operation, AIR “Legend” named for an 8 year-old gunned down in one of the “Goblins are in charge, now” zones.

I scanned an inteview w/ some CNN-bot this AM — I chose poorly, I know — wherein Ignoranti De Reportage flat out ignored everything Barr had said in a press conference a week prior on exactly what Hacky McHackington was speechifying — er, asking — about.

So, nobody’s heard much about the Federal “wind up the networks” op. We’re deafened in a chanting crowd of hacks.

How far, how, n how much to roll up networks of political activity is very fraught. I’d like the crushing power of the Federal apparatus to move deliberately, and transparently.

I think the gleeful, dirty street fight is political. I’m not a fan of Doxxing. I do wonder if anonomyzed contact, influence, n material flow maps would be interesting. Or, otherwise call their bluff: “You wanna peaceful protest? Great. We’ve blockaded the city, n we’re searching everybody on the way in. Come on in and cheer all you want. Cement Gatorade, maybe not so much. Think of it like a ball game.”

(Shutting down arena sports has the interesting additional impact of removing an example of large groups doing non-violent advocacy. I woder, is that deliberate, or just a happy side effect for the Ban All the Things people?)

/About the Operation I Didn’t Name

Name an operation for one victim in particular makes sense a couple ways for the people running the operation.

For myself, the one problem is we have spontaneously forming Goblin-zones that take out kids. Another problem is we have policing going sideways, summarily getting people killed. I’ll add to the list police getting killed in the course of their jobs, and people in general getting killed from though that’s frowned upon, and illegai.

Not all, kids, arrestees, cops, or folks. Not most. Not even many, for any of these problems. But too many of all of them. And *The Problem* isn’t one particular victim, it’s that we have victims of this kind. Worse, these are really just measures. *The Problem* behind all four measures is how we choose to do policing. And it sure looks like there’s solution where everyone we’.d like to live long and prosper always gets to

As Citizens of a Republic, seeking To Govern Ourselves to Our Own Advantage, the useful questions are: “How do we do policing for out advantage: all of us?” and “Can we do policing better, somehow?”

Now, I’m not gonna chant the name of that particular victim. That’s presumptious, counter-produtive, n self-indulgent. It’s a drug offered for cheap political advantage, that shuts down actually making anything better. Appartcheks would rather have the issue than an answer — so things go on.

People enjoy getting all wee-wee’d up about any one event, or any one problem:

— First because they enjoy getting all wee-wee’d up.

— Second, the drama lets them pretend to engage without engaging with the actual problem, which is hard, with only trade-offs.

— Third they get to nominate a scapegoat group, to pin it all on, which is fun, and feel superior to, which is also fun.

Some people are so cynical, they’ll do that on purpose, hijacking people’s energy to ensure nothing good happens. They’d rather have the issue than any progress. That’s crap. I’m not playing.

Myself, I think friends n family get to mourn the victims they knew by name. The rest of us, our job is to look at the situation that led to their loss, n see if there’s something we can do about that. I’m appalled, myself, that voicing that reasoned ressponsibility is so often left to the people writhing in their grief.

“We” suck. I can try to not suck quite so much.

I’d never leave my Business UN-guarded under such circumstances.
I fail to understand this.

    ConradCA in reply to snowshooze. | September 5, 2020 at 12:10 pm

    What happens when they set your building on fire?

    You should use an AR with 10 30 round loaded mags and a Glock with 10 33 round loaded mags.