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Not only that, but in a lot of people's perception nothing was done. This may be an inaccurate perception, to be fair - unlike with the Jan 6 riots, these were different events in different jurisdictions throughout the country, so it's entirely possible that some or even most locations prosecuted the rioters vigorously, and there were only limited cases where the rioters got off the hook. But certainly the perception is that the BLM riots were ignored by the justice system. That, too, increases people's wariness.
In multiple cases, they were awarded large sums of taxpayer money for even having been arrested
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I still recall driving into work and seeing advertisements from various federal agencies on how to snitch - excuse me, inform them on potential instigators and people whom may have attended the J6 protests.
Or posts on my local state reddit celebrating when people were arrested due to being tied to said J6 protest.
I don't recall anything of the sort being persecuted for the BLM riots, or the June 20 riots. This is what I have in my head when people try to claim that left-leaning/associated were treated the same as J6.
Why are people trying to claim that? There’s no real equivalent to J6.
BLM riots involved a lot more people, caused a lot more property damage, but didn’t involve the heart of the U.S. government. I don’t think it’s surprising that said government responds harder to a direct threat.
I guess the protests which defaced the Lincoln memorial would be closest. They definitely got a police response, a National Guard response, and arrests.
There were also hundreds of arrests for the LA ICE riots. No idea how many turned into charges.
Protestors took over a section of Seattle to create a literal militarised zone in the middle of a major city that seceded from the United States, in which multiple people were murdered. I can't find records of any associated prosecutions.
On the one hand there was no possible way this threatened the US government. CHAZ was dismantled by force after a month, once enough people had tied that police felt okay taking action.
On the other hand I can't see any viable way that Jan 6 threatened the government either. People broke into the government building for a while, milled around and then left. There's no chance they make it past armed security to the VIPs and even if they had, it would have sucked for the VIPs but not affected the US government one iota.
If your argument is that senior officials take threats to themselves from the outgroup much much more seriously than threats to vastly greater numbers of people arising from looting, burning and murder by the ingroup then I agree with you but it doesn't paint a pretty picture.
Tbf, one of the CHAZ murderers was prosecuted and convicted, total sentence 14 years. Most of the others don't seem to have been prosecuted or seriously investigated. Nor were the various efforts to block police and medical first responders, or to destroy evidence, punished.
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It's certainly possible that some, or even most of those people were prosecuted fairly in the court of Law. However, they weren't found guilty in the court of Mainstream Media and Democrats. Summer of 2020 rioters were heralded as social justice warriors fighting against a racist dictator, and almost any act of force against them was liable to be treated as an act of tyranny.
Cops and DAs could have arrested and prosecuted way more, but I don't think there were many large departments or DA offices chomping at the bit to be sued into oblivion. Most large city DAs are blue anyway and are all about whatever "perception" wins them their seat come next election cycle. The perception at the time was that any person who fell between Hitler himself all the way to some average Joe saying "I'm not sure people should be burning that." was racist, and the mainstream media and Democrats leaned into it.
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There were plenty of actually-literally peaceful protests, too. It's not hard to find examples to muddy the waters any way you want.
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