Rioters clad in paramilitary gear and chanting “balance the federal budget!” swarmed the streets of Seattle last week smashing store windows and bludgeoning innocent citizens walking down the street.
Former Vice President Mike Pence issued a fundraising plea to collect bail money for rioters who stormed the Capitol to get them out of jail in time for the next assault on American democracy.
Anti-abortion forces attacked a federal building and firebombed police cars before setting up an “autonomous zone” where all abortions are illegal.
An “armed gunman” shoots and kills a man in Portland for wearing a hat in support of President Joseph R. Biden.
Now, of course, all of these reports are completely false. At least … in terms of who it was that committed the listed atrocities.
Conservative budget hawks are not bludgeoning innocent citizens. Republicans did not raise bail money for lawless rioters. Pro-lifers did not firebomb police cars last summer. Nor did they set up an “autonomous zone” to flout local and federal laws.
But while each of these reports is false, they can be made entirely true — if you simply swap out the bad actor in each example and replace it with a Democrat or the increasingly unhinged rhetoric we hear from Democrats in Washington these days.
Armed protesters really did swarm the streets of Seattle last week chanting demands that Immigrations and Customs Enforcement be abolished — a fanatical political position embraced by an alarming number of Democrats in Washington.
Sitting Vice President Kamala Harris — heralded as the first woman elected to nationwide office — is also the first vice president to have raised bail money to get violent thugs out of jail in time for their next violent riot. She actually did that just last summer.
Armed left-wing zealots peddling Democratic lies and conspiracy theories really did set up “autonomous zones” where anti-American protesters lived out their anti-government fantasies — and people died.
And, of course, it was a supporter of former President Trump who was actually murdered on the street in Portland for wearing a MAGA hat.
The only good thing about the Jan. 6 invasion of the U.S. Capitol is the it finally — finally! — shook sense into Democrats who had spent the past eight months justifying violence and minimizing riots across the country. All, they argued, because it was being done in the name of a supposedly good cause.
Even that “good cause,” we now know, was a blatant lie.
Republicans and conservatives spent that entire time-twisting themselves into pretzels trying to defend the rights of peaceful protesters with justifiable complaints so as not to conflate them with the lawless, violent, rioting mob.
Democrats and crazy leftists (by which we mean “the media”) spent that entire time smearing all law enforcement officers with bad behavior of a few bad apples — even after courts ruled in several cases that the “bad behavior” was perfectly justified.
It really is astonishing to consider the depth of Democrats’ disregard for the lives and livelihoods of regular citizens of this country — especially in American cities that are mostly represented by Democrats.
Your house gets mobbed, you get robbed and your business gets firebombed? “Defund the police,” scream Democrats.
But the first sign of trouble in Democrats’ place of employment, the U.S. Capitol? Call in the National Guard! Suddenly they are all about “Backing the Blue!”
It was a stunning sight these last few weeks in Washington to watch the militarization of our nation’s capital during this (mostly) peaceful transfer of power.
Humvees, tanks and MRAP troop carriers were posted at every intersection. Thousands of soldiers stood guard on every street corner with slung rifles at the ready. Surveillance helicopters hovered above.
Just six months ago, Democrats curdled with rage over the use of federal troops to restore order outside the White House after violent rioters burned the church across from Lafayette Square and a rope mob vandalized the statue of Andrew Jackson and tried pulling it down.
All those concerns, of course, went right out the window just as soon as it was their own fannies on the griddle. But when it was your house under assault? Your business torched? Your life ransacked?
“Defund the police!”
• Charles Hurt is opinion editor of The Washington Times. He can be reached at churt@washingtontimes.com.