Below is my column in USA Today on the rising support for political violence, particularly among young voters. Citizens are being desensitized to violence, even murder, when committed for a good cause.
Here is the column:
Across the country, a chilling shift is occurring. Political violence has become a twisted form of virtue signaling. Mahatma Gandhi is out and Luigi Mangione is in. For an increasing number of young people, nothing signals your values like a willingness to kill others for them.
For decades, being nonviolent has been the touchstone for many on the left. Something is changing. On my campus and others around the country, students are rationalizing violence and even idolizing assassins.
A recent Emerson College poll shows that 4 out of 10 voters between the ages of 18-29 (39%) view Mangione’s role in the fatal shooting of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson as “acceptable” or “somewhat acceptable.” Other polls show a troubling number of liberal voters consider political violence justified, including polls showing 40% of young people embracing political violence in some circumstances.
For college students, the rationalization of the killing of a Charlie Kirk or a Brian Thompson is now a litmus test of your movement bona fides. I have heard exchanges where students identify with accused assassin Tyler Robinson, who wrote, “I had the opportunity to take out Charlie Kirk, and I took it.”
This week, UC Irvine instructor Matt Goldman came under fire for a posting showing the picture of conservative Nick Shirley with the menacing observation “Someone can do the funniest thing just before the Kirkiversary.” There was a time when political assassination was viewed as anathema, particularly among academics.
To put it simply, violence is in vogue.
Hollywood isn’t helping our political violence problem
Hollywood is commoditizing political violence. Many conservatives were critical of the movie “One Battle After Another,” with Leonardo DiCaprio, as glorifying domestic terrorism and fueling liberal paranoia.
Other actors seem eager to make their films part of a political rage fest. “Spider-Man” actor Andrew Garfield actually said that he hoped that his new movie, “The Uprising,” would make billionaires scared, declaring that “I hope that if any billionaires watch it, they’re scared s—less.”
Garfield wanted to take this film as his own bona fides with the mob, demonizing the rich. He apparently forgot Spider-Man’s motto, “With great power comes great responsibility.”
Others are more direct. Lexi Alexander, director of the 2008 Marvel film “Punisher: War Zone,” triggered a firestorm Sept. 1 with an X post featuring Mangione’s face superimposed on Batman’s bat signal. The posting featured a new article’s headline: “Bank of America vice president killed in Times Square stabbing.” The vice president, Erin Piacenti, 32, left a 5-month-old daughter who will now grow up without a mother.
When people noted the obvious that Alexander, who bills herself as a “Palestinian filmmaker,” was seemingly celebrating the death of bank officer Piacenti, who was just back from maternity leave, Alexander accused them of being Israeli propagandists, or “Hasbara bots.”
In a now-deleted post, Alexander dismissed criticism that she knew about the executive being a new mother and said it was enough at the time that she was an executive because “it sounded like another Luigi situation.”
For years, politicians, pundits and professors have fueled political rage by claiming that those with opposing views are seeking to end democracy, bring back the Confederacy or turn citizens into slaves of the oligarchs. Such apocalyptic claims give a sense of license to people to free themselves from all social and moral constraints, allowing them to hate completely and unreservedly.
The saddest aspect of this trend is what it says about our hold on not just our civility but our humanity. The irony is that the arc of the moral universe, famously described by Martin Luther King Jr., is being bent back in the name of perverted notions of equity and justice. By demonizing others like corporate executives, many on the left are now free to enjoy gratuitous violence, even the killing of a new mother in Times Square.
In “Rage and the Republic,” I write about the fear of the founders that democracies historically devolved into what Benjamin Rush called “mobocracies.” John Adams put that history in its starkest terms: “there never was a democracy yet, that did not commit suicide.”
The founders watched as the French Revolution, occurring shortly after our own, unleashed a blood-soaked “Terror” as a population engaged in a spasm of violence against aristocrats, clergy and then themselves.
Maximilien Robespierre would legitimize the slaughter by telling citizens that violence was noble and mercy was weakness. He explained that “Terror is only justice: prompt, severe and inflexible; it is then an emanation of virtue.”
Past movements from the French Revolution to the Cultural Revolution to recent genocidal campaigns in Europe and Africa show that a dark element rests deep within us that can be released when we are sufficiently angry or afraid.
In my book, I call it the “Saturn Gene.” During the French Revolution, journalist Jacques Mallet du Pan observed that “like Saturn, the Revolution devours its children.” It is an inexorable pattern where movements release long-suppressed rage only to destroy those who led the mob to collective acts of murder and mayhem.
With influential figures and even political leaders fueling the rage, we can no longer ignore the growing appeal and acceptance of political violence. This country has never allowed the Saturn gene to become dominant in our body politic. However, as the citizens are increasingly conditioned to accept political violence, we are dangerously resembling not our Revolution 250 years ago, but that of France.
If we are to proceed down that road, citizens would be wise to consider the words of Abbé Emmanuel Joseph Sieyès, one of the most important voices of the French Revolution. When he was asked what he had done during the Revolution, the old abbot pondered the question and answered: “J’ai vécu” (“I survived”).
Jonathan Turley is a law professor and the best-selling author of “Rage and the Republic: The Unfinished Story of the American Revolution.”
Probably the only way to get the Straight of Hormuz open again will be to surrender to trump and his kleptocrat family to the Iranians as a necessary precursor for any legit negotiations.
Can’t we all just get along?
-Rodney King
Please, it’s Motorist Rodney King. Don’t you read the Style Manual?
AI Overview
On the night of March 3, 1991, Rodney King led police on an eight-mile high-speed chase where his speeds reached up to 115 to 117 mph on the Interstate 210 freeway. When he exited the freeway into residential neighborhoods, he continued to drive dangerously at speeds ranging between 55 and 80 mph.
Motorist Rodney indeed!
The Doomsday tech elites want us all to die so they can steal everything we have before hopping in rockets and trying to settle other planets. Meanwhile they seem enthralled with building bunkers here like trump’s various bunkers in the WH and his golf courses. We need to shut the money down for those kleptocrats. Best case for trump: we don’t let him run to Argentina like he wants to, we deport him to Venezuela, give him fifty bucks, and let him navigate the streets of of the capitol on his own. No orange makeup for sunscreen.
Immigration laws are passed by Congress. Biden’s decision not to enforce them enabled tens of thousands of murderers and rapists to victimize innocent Americans, and empowered drug trafficking cartels and sex trafficking cartel to inflict enormous damage upon America. You are a member of a child sex trafficking gang whose profits have gone down due to Trump’s very correct and righteous decision to start enforcing the laws on the books, so naturally you are angry about your decrease in profits. Therefore you tell lies like your comment above. Maybe your yacht will be a little smaller but innocent victims will be saved.
Trump liked to slap 13 year olds after he raped them.
Because you yourself are a child rapist, that’s something you only *wish* had happened so you could fantasize about it, creeper.
Biden did enforce them. People could come and go through the appropriate channels. Trump rejected that legal process.
How do you even write that crap?
You really need some psychiatric help.
This is the karmic load destined for the right. The left had to witness people getting shot in the street by ICE and CBP this past winter. They had to weather the Kennedy’s and MLK and Malcolm X and myriad other civil rights workers in the 60’s and 70’s. Fairness would only put a round of rightist cultural leaders in the scope so to speak. It would be hoped we’ve evolved past that, but the right has made that impossible as they seek to steal from and kill the left.
LAKEN RILEY
Touched a nerve didn’t I? Absurd comparison.
No, Biden’s illegal immigrant murderers and rapists touched a nerve.
Not in psychopaths
You are a sick demented animal
JT is good at describing the problem and the bleak future that may await us, but doesn’t say much about how we can prevent it. I chatted with an AI about that; here’s part of what it had to say (sorry for the length):
When top-down institutions—academia, the media, and political parties—are financially and ideologically incentivized to perpetuate polarization, change must come from counter-incentive drivers and parallel structures controlled by ordinary citizens, independent professionals, and targeted economic actors.
The people who have the power and the will to begin righting the ship are found in specific segments of society where the practical cost of ideological extremism outweighs the benefits.
## 1. The “Exhausted Majority” and Ordinary Citizens
Sociological data consistently identifies a large, politically homeless segment of the population termed the “Exhausted Majority.” While they lack centralized institutional power, they hold ultimate economic and democratic power if activated.
* How they act: By practicing strategic disengagement and defunding. When parents pull children from radicalized school districts, subscribers cancel ideologically rigid media publications, and voters refuse to donate to hyper-partisan candidates, they hit institutions at their most vulnerable point: their bottom line.
* The Power: Top-down systems collapse or adapt when their funding, viewership, and baseline compliance disappear.
## 2. Micro-Philanthropists and Alternative Institution Builders
Historically, when established institutions become too rigid to reform, the solution is not to fight them, but to build alternatives that render them obsolete.
* How they act: A growing class of independent donors, tech entrepreneurs, and heterodox intellectuals are actively funding new infrastructure. Examples include the rise of independent journalism platforms (like Substack), alternative higher education initiatives (like the University of Austin), and decentralized civil rights groups (like the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression – FIRE).
* The Power: They create safe havens for free thought, proving that viable professional and educational paths exist outside the traditional establishment.
## 3. Rank-and-File Professionals and the “Quiet Counter-Weight”
Within corporations, law firms, hospitals, and civil service, the operational realities of running a complex organization require merit, competence, and truth—not ideological purity.
* How they act: Professionals can practice institutional grit. This means refusing to sign compelled-speech statements, quietly mentoring younger colleagues who are afraid to speak up, and insisting that hiring and promotion remain strictly merit-based.
* The Power: Ideological fervor cannot keep a power grid running, clear a legal backlog, or manage a corporate supply chain. As institutional performance degrades due to ideological hiring, the pragmatic pressure to return to competence increases.
## 4. Local Civic and Religious Leaders
While national politics is highly polarized, local government and community organizations are inherently anchored to tangible reality.
* How they act: Town mayors, local school board members, pastors, rabbis, and community leaders deal with concrete problems—potholes, budgets, disaster relief, and local charity. They are uniquely positioned to host cross-partisan town halls and rebuild the social tissue that national media tears apart.
* The Power: Trust is built horizontally, face-to-face. A highly trusted local figure carries more psychological weight in a community than a distant cable news anchor or university dean.
## 5. Whistleblowers and Dissident Insiders
Every radicalized institution contains a silent contingent of moderates who comply only out of fear. It only takes a small, brave minority to break the illusion of total consensus.
* How they act: By exposing the internal mechanisms of ideological capture through leaked documents, public resignations, and open letters.
* The Power: As the psychologist Solomon Asch demonstrated in his famous conformity experiments, the power of a group to enforce a false reality drops precipitously the moment even one person publicly dissents. Dissident insiders give permission to the silent majority within those institutions to speak up.
——————————
Turning the ship does not require capturing the existing establishments overnight. Historically, shifts occur when a committed 5% to 10% of the population stops complying with flawed logic, begins building alternative pathways, and imposes a real economic or social cost on institutional decay.
Private institutions can be forced to evolve through competition with other private institutions, e.g., private colleges.
A more serious challenge are unitary, public institutions (the military, pre-k-12 education, state universities) — when these come under the spell of ideological capture and are working to crush dissent, the AI’s formulaic approach might not be enough. This calls for electing leadership who have the stomach and clarity to reshape the institution. For example, preK-12 education can only be reshaped toward excellence and divergent-creative-independent thinking and away from political indoctrination by electing a School Board majority of reformists.
“On my campus and others around the country, students are rationalizing violence and even idolizing assassins.” Perhaps the simplest answer Professor is the current generation of young adults was never taught: “DON’T POKE THE BEAR”. Then again, maybe they have but won’t realize it until ‘the bear’, um, ‘pokes back’.
JAFO is Estovir.
On his campus it’s clear that Turley is unable to dissuade them with a fire hose of better ideas. His ineffectiveness at that task suggests a major failure on the conservative side. Perhaps the flaws lie not in the stars but in themselves.
” Something is changing. On my campus and others around the country, students are rationalizing violence and even idolizing assassins. …” -JT
VIDEO GAMES Those Kids that grew up with Grand Theft Auto, San Andreas, Vice City, Call of Duty, Battlefield, and even Madden NFL etc. have graduated High School and now entered Collage where they have been given free reign to exercise their imprinted desires. Play Station, Xbox run the inter-connected world(s) of ‘competition’ that hone the skills for a deadly reality. The ‘morally correct cognoscente’ has been blurred between the virtual game and the game of reality, where there is no reasoning other than eliminate the opponent.
Poll your Student/Classes Jonathan. How many have play(ed) these Games in their youth? How many actually own a weapon now as an Adult?
You the number shouldn’t surprise you given the push for ‘home grown entertainment’ by the Video Computer Games developers, particularly since they had cultivated a captured Audience due to Covid-19.
Just another ‘Mental Health Crisis’ thanks to Dr. Anthony Fauci & Pharma Friends et.al..
DEPORTATIONS are an example of a policy playing Americans against each other. The concept is to portray non-White immigrants as an existential threat to ‘hardworking White people’.
“We’ve got to get rid of them before they replace us”, goes the rightwing propaganda commonly broadcast by Fox News.
This idea that we need to have tens of thousands of ICE agents yanking people off the street and taking them to concentration camps is obviously inciting an attitude that violence is acceptable.
The comparisons to Nazi Germany are impossible to overlook. Young people see these deportations as proof that a facist regime rules the country and only violence will topple the regime.
Well, it IS all about the “Great Replacement Theory”. They don’t like the idea of being replaced by harder working people for less money.
No one’s going to work harder than poor immigrants.
Except the immigrants who come for the welfare.
Since the immigrants cannot qualify for welfare, that would be difficult for them to use.
Along with all the other things you are ignorant of, you are ignorant of this too? Not qualifying for welfare doesn’t mean that, from Biden, you didn’t get free cell phones, free money, free transportation, free housing, etc. What type of fool are you? I guess the answer is, an ignorant one.
by jove, i think she’s got it
Laken Hope Riley studied nursing at Augusta University’s Athens campus after previously attending the University of Georgia. On the morning of February 22, 2024, she went for a run in Oconee Forest Park near Lake Herrick on the UGA campus.
She was attacked and killed by blunt force trauma and asphyxiation after fighting off an attempted assault. (he crushed her skull with a rock.
Police arrested José Antonio Ibarra, a 26-year-old undocumented immigrant from Venezuela who lived near the campus.The conviction: On November 20, 2024, a Georgia judge found Ibarra guilty on all 10 charges, including malice murder, felony murder, and kidnapping.The sentence: The court sentenced Ibarra to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
THE GALL!
JUST THINK, ICE THOUGHT THEY WERE ENTITLED TO REMOVE HIM!
Yet, ICE didn’t remove him. They are removing hotel housekeepers and roofers and day laborers – they are easy targets because they pay taxes and supply their address as part of following the naturalization legal process.
Political leaders demonize and divide Americans against one another. Real leaders try to unite Americans and bridge those divisions.
Maybe this is one of the results? Why is anyone surprised with few real leaders in government?
What will it take to convince some that these people are not well? Truly and simply *not well*. Many of us saw it when they were still children, it was never going to end well. Suicidal empathy, indeed. And this is rapidly becoming simply who the modern left are. THEY are the only ones stoking this. No one else. What will it take to wake people up to this fact?
James, Hullbobby and Cliff Jackson are ‘all’ Estovir; pretending to be 3 different commenters. These deception go on all day every day. What’s more, these puppets are brazenly righteous when complaining about the few non-puppet commenters.
OK, I’ll bite. Behind the mask, who do you believe is ‘Estovir’ really? Who is this evil conservative mastermind who controls JT’s comment section? Murdoch, the Koch Brothers, Dick Cheney, Steven Thiel, Steve Bannon, O’Reilly, Hannity, Trump, Vance, the Heritage Foundation? Come on, don’t hold back. We deserve to know !!!
Estovir’s a paid activist who covers this blog from 7 am to 7 pm EST 7 days per week.
But it doesn’t appear that Turley employs Estovir. It’s more likely that Estovir was forced on Turley by someone Turley has no control over. What’s more, Estovir is highly dependent on this job and has no intention of leaving without a bitter fight.
Estovir, in short, is..
THE THING THAT WOULDN’T LEAVE!
OK – so anyone posting after 8pm or before 6am is NOT Estovir. (why would he work for free?) Got it. Thanks!
Hey Darren or whoever is in charge, someone is using my name to write comments. I am Hullbobby, but one of the Anonymous children is copying my moniker. Please look into it.
@hullbobby @Darren
Really, agreed – this is getting stupid. Give us an option to be present here. It didn’t bother me so much in the past, but that one or two or three trolls ruin the entire conversation literally every day – enough. I wish we were not at the point where the WWW requires this, but we are, our kindly referred to as ‘nascent population’ are hardly what anyone could call ‘erudite’; and it is only going to get worse in the age of advanced algorithms. Give us an option, please. The Professor needs to accept the fact that the opposition are no longer just dissenting, but profiting and likely at the least environmentally insane. This is no longer strictly an issue of free speech. This blog is, at root, a private enterprise, and you are allowed to make rules. What is in the civility section are just suggestions.
I don’t think Darren is working for Turley any more. He’s been pretty much absent for a while. That would explain the shorter and slower number of articles the professor posts.
James
It’s a form of disruption and obfuscation from meaningful dialogue amongst the community. I would have to believe it organized. Review the comments, 90% of Anonymous comments are Trum attacks. Off topic, tasteless, crude and for the most part baseless nonsense.
I don’t know exactly how the commenting software works here, but I think you’ll see that the imposters (when posting with your handle) get the same green avatar that anonymous posters do – just like the one on this post. Other’s that have registered seem to get different avatars. If you set up and link a gravatar account it looks like you can even create your own avatar (see Cliff Jackson’s avatar a few posts down) So there is sometimes a way for people to know the difference, but it’s unlikely that many have noticed this detail.
I don’t think most of those students responding to those polls are telling how they really feel.
They are terrified of being ostracized by their fellow tough guy pretenders if their answers should become known.
I do get a kick out of watching these tough-talking lunatics who praise the current crop of jihadi Muslim terrorists, like Mamdani, Al-Sayed, Piker, AOC, Tlaib, Newscum and Talafreako.
Like all of the cowards who talk tough but run the other way as soon as their well-deserved retribution appears, they will be $hitting their little panties if it gets to the point where the real American patriots, who believe strongly in 2A, have to come out from “behind every blade of grass” to teach these loudmouth cowards what our Constitution really means.
Their parents should spank them while there’s still a chance to save them, because after the bad thing happens, there will be no going back.
Meanwhile, Democrats are constantly calling conservatives a “threat to democracy” while being happy to sacrifice our democratic Constitutional Republic (court-packing, open borders, no Voter ID, unlimited mail-in ballots) whenever they can’t get the votes to win power back lawfully.
Only idiot Democrat voters can’t see that Democrats OWN hypocrisy.
How can the students have a fear of being ostracized when the poll was antonymous. Stupid comment.
Ghandi and Robespierre were both lawyers. Both were killed. Ghandi gave us the sit in and non violence. The British Empire released its grip and surrendered India back to its people. Robespierre ended up at the head of the Terror, which ate him. Then it collapsed like a cheap card table. Johnathan has written extensively and persuasively that rage is addictive. I don’t see that nonviolence is seen as addictive. Yet it is far more effective. It may simply be the case that the science is out there and I haven’t seen it. But I’d sure like to understand better what the state of the art is on the relationship between an idea in the brain and its production of dopamine. This writer has no hesitation about the values advanced when Johnathan writes. It’s a wish for understanding better what they are up against.
Just a note that Ghandi was murdered by a Muslim Pakistani.
Another folk legend arrives. People said that Bonnie and Clyde were heroes of the little man. Throw in a little Baby Face Nelson to complete the recipe. People defended Al Capone because he gave money to Orphanages. Come and get me Coper was a favorite gangster line portrayed by James Cagney. For those looking for excuses for their failure in life any low life assassin will do. What party do you think these people vote for? Sorry, obvious answer.
I pray they are too lazy to vote.
@Anonymous
Me too. But in 2026 that doesn’t mean someone else won’t vote on their behalf. Sorry, it is what it is.
Hello 2026 calling!
The way to subvert radicalism is to make steady improvements to living that give hope and confidence about the future. The way to embolden radicalism is to slip into a reactionary, hyper-defensive crouch insisting that “everything is fine” (no improvements needed). This is the risk to the conservative movement right now.
Pres. Trump (and Secy. Bessant and Michael Dell) show proactive conservatism in creating Baby Accounts.
Pres. Trump shows hyper-defensiveness in responding to AI guardrails favored by Musk, Altman, and Dario to prevent the possibility of robo-extermination by labeling that concern as “a hoax”. Gee, predictions of things that haven’t even happened yet can also be a “hoax”?
So there are a positive exemplar on how to defang growing radicalism, and a negative exemplar of how to give it oxygen.
“The way to subvert radicalism is to make steady improvements to living that give hope and confidence about the future.”
The only interpretation of that statement that would be acceptable to the woke left is equivalent to “the way to subvert kidnappers is to pay generous ransom”. This nation has been paying that ransom to the underachievers and their leftist exploiters since FDR. Yet, here we are.
Like promising $2000 checks from tariffs or $5000 checks for voting Republican?
Trump supporters love shiny worthless promises.
Do you mean: “If you like your doctor, you will be able to keep your doctor, period. If you like your health care plan, you’ll be able to keep your health care plan, period. No one will take it away, no matter what.”
January 6th was “a desecration of our constitutional process” – p. 181 of The Indispensible Right – by Jonathan Turley. Why didn’t you quote this passage of your book in this essay, Professor?
Yes, the Jan 6th takeover of the Capitol is an example of unhinged radicalism, reminiscent of the storming the Bastille.
You just won dumbest comment on this website today.
How many weapons did the “takeover” individuals have in the capital? Why were the doors opened and many of them escorted around? I never read that in the history books on the storming of the Bastille.
Finally, only 1 person died. An unarmed female veteran. Because DCPD falls outside FOIA requests we have no idea what investigation was run, if any, on his malicious and shockingly negligent conduct.
Take a history class, or maybe just stop having 2 brain cells fighting for 3rd place.
Because as people learn more about J6 and the 2020 election arguments that J6 was some consequential evil fall apart.
Learn more? There are literally thousands of hours of video showing exactly who the J6 rioters were and what they did. They filmed themselves committing crimes and admitting to them. Crazy stuff indeed.
ATS – no it is more like 115,000 hours of J6 protestors doing absolutely nothing wrong.
As to video of j6 protestors committing crimes – absolutely the media constantly runs the same approximately 30 minutes of video – often in false color implying the capital was buring all the time. The J6 committee ran it over and over.
There was some actual violence at J6 – just as there was at the Kavanaugh protests a year earlier where left wing nuts broke into senate offices and put an axe through a senators desk. Or at the WH in May where left wing nuts burned a church threw Rocks at the Park Police, and broke down large sections of the fence at the WhiteHouse.
NO ONE was prosecuted for the Violence at the WH.
NO ONE was prosecuted for the violence at the Kavanaugh Hearings.
There is nothing that occured at J6 that came close to the violence that left wing nuts engage in all the time.
I will be perfectly happy to see those who actually INITIATED violence at J6 – which is a very small number of people,
prosecuted, when the murderers of Rose Boylan and Alishi Babbit are prosecuted, when those who throw molotov cocktails into occupied police cars get more than probation. When those who put an axe through a senators desk are prosecuted, When those who bomb a police station are prosecuted, when those who use lasers to bind police officers are prosecuted, when those who burn down police stations are prosecuted,
And most importantly when those who engaged in fraud in our elections are prosecuted,.
The likely reasont hat Turley does not mention J6 anymore is because contra the theme of his post today – there ARE circumstances in which political violence is actually justified.
Not getting your way is NOT one of those.
elections that are stolen is.
John Say, that’s a lot of hand waving to avoid reality.
Your claim that “NO ONE” was prosecuted for the violence near the White House or at other protests isn’t just an exaggeration—it is flat-out factually wrong.
In the Lafayette Square / White House Violence Federal law enforcement and the DOJ actively tracked down and indicted individuals involved in the unrest. For example, Lee Michael Cantrell, Connor Matthew Judd, Ryan Lane, and Graham Lloyd were all federally charged with the destruction of federal property for their actions in Lafayette Square. Another major agitator, Jason Charter, was arrested and federally prosecuted for leading efforts to destroy property in the square. Furthermore, the ATF and DC Arson Task Force secured multiple indictments and arrests for the arsons committed during those riots, including the damage to St. John’s Church.
“There was some actual violence at J6 – just as there was at the Kavanaugh protests a year earlier where left wing nuts broke into senate offices and put an axe through a senators desk.”
Pure BS, you believe everything you see on the internet? That never happened.
While over 200 people were arrested by Capitol Police during the Kavanaugh hearings, those charges were overwhelmingly for disorderly conduct, crowding, and obstructing public spaces as part of civil disobedience. No one hacked up a Senate desk with an axe. Why do you lie?
Trying to minimize January 6th by claiming 115,000 hours of video shows people “doing nothing wrong” is absurd. The existence of footage showing people standing around doesn’t magically erase the hours of footage showing brutal assault. Over 140 police officers were injured, and hundreds of rioters have been convicted—not by a media cabal, but by juries and federal judges (including multiple Trump-appointees) for violent crimes like assaulting police with chemical spray, bats, and stolen riot shields.
You spend a lot of energy trying to dismiss what is clearly on record. It was so bad that Republicans at the time were demanding Trump to call off the mob.
Finally, your concluding premise is the most dangerous part of your comment. Admitting that you believe political violence is “justified” when your preferred candidate loses an election doesn’t make you a defender of the Republic—it makes you the exact definition of an extremist. You don’t get to manufacture a fake reality where the other side gets away with everything just to give yourself permission to burn down democracy when an election doesn’t go your way.
Even Turley was condemning the J6 rioters in real time. Your historical revisionism is wild.
It is night in Moscow, near the end of the John Say team shift. They make errors as the vodka bottles are drained.
Pay no attention to the Anonymous poster below with the 73 IQ./ His post is so loaded with BS, that the entire message board had to leave because of the stench. The January 6th patriots didn’t beat up anybody. However, Police Officer Michael Byrd did murder patriot and good citizen Ashli Babbitt during the January 6, 2021 protest rally. Of course, since the D.C. scumbagwormmeat administration consists solely of Far-Leftist, anti-America, pro-Islamic Terrorists, they gave Bryd a promotion instead of life prision sentence.
What color is the sky in your little world of make believe, dude? Just admit that you love being ruled over by an authoritarian who had no problem pardoning cop-beaters – as long as they were beating cops on his behalf. Like, at least tell the truth. I mean – we all watched the whole thing on live TV.
The sky in my world is blue and the grass is green.
Authoritarians do not enforce the actual law and act within it.
Authoritarians are those who when in power do as trhey please regardless of the law.
Who let millions of illegal aliens into the country unvetted.
Who attempt to give away trillions of other peoples money that they stole.
Yes, YOU watched on TV the false color nonsense that he media wanted you to see.
The red sky and smoke rising from the capital viewed through the Gallows brought to hang Mike Pence.
Of course in reality – there was no smoke, no flames, no arson, very little property destruction,. no firearms,
The flimsy “Gallows” was a mile and a half away with a sign saying that said this is art, that was incapable of hanging a teddy bear.
In reality there was no violence at the Capital until the CP first tear gassed themselves and then lobbed a tear gas grenade into a peaceful and legal crowd. Tear gassing people who are legally present non-violent and pose no threat is a CRIME – it is Assualt – possibly agrevated assault.
So the very first violence on J6 was by the CP against peaceful protestors.
Posters above OMIT the fact that TWO people were killed at the Capital – the other was Rose Boylan who was beaten to death by a CP police woman while who was unconscious on the ground – and there is video of that, but you and the MSM do not show that video.
” we all watched the whole thing on live TV.”
And you saw what you were allowed to see – false color, bogus perspectives and all.
Another poster above focuses on the Murder of Alishi Babbet.
But fails to note that Alishi was part of a crowd that was at the doors to the House lobby – along with 5 CP officers with automatic weapons.
That crowd broke some glass but otherwise followed the directions of the CP officers. When the House lobby had been cleared, the CP Officers moved away from the door and allowed the protestors to move into the lobby.
That was the moment that Alishi was shot. When Ofc. Byrd fired the fatal shots there were Two CP officers immediately behind Babbit.
Byrd not only killed Babbit to prevent an unarmed person from entering an empty room, but had Byrd missed the diminutive Babbit he likely would have shot one of the two CP officers behind her.
It is 2026 today – it is not possible to prove who actually won the 2020 presidential election. But there is ample evidence that it was conducted fraudulently and lawlessly.
There are some who make credible claims of as much as 2Million illegal votes.
There is LOTS of evidence of dozens here, dozens there, hundreds of thousands that should not have been counted without atleast a court hearing to determine whether there was enough semblance of a chain of custody to know they were not just planted.
There is plenty of evidence of fraud, lawlessness and incompetence.
Does that constitute proof Trump won ? Nope, But it also casts significant doubt on claims that Biden won, and more importantly it destroys the claims that are elections are conducted worthy of our trust.
Jonn Say, why do you insist on peddling easily dunked BS?
Claiming there was no violence until Capitol Police acted is a complete and utter BS. Not a single grain of tear gas was deployed, rioters were already tearing down perimeter fencing, trampling over barricades, and physically assaulting officers on the outer plazas. The “smoke and flames” weren’t a media overlay; they were from chemical fire extinguishers and smoke bombs brought by the rioters themselves.
The gallows structure was built directly on the West Front of the Capitol grounds early that morning, not a mile and a half away. Trying to rebrand a structure carrying an orange noose—erected by a crowd actively chanting “Hang Mike Pence”—as a harmless piece of “art” is pure gaslighting.
You know it was really bad when you resort to making things up on the fly. No evidence or anything to back up your claims.
The narrative that Rosanne Boyland was “beaten to death by a police woman” has been thoroughly debunked. The Washington D.C. Chief Medical Examiner officially ruled her death an accidental acute amphetamine intoxication. She collapsed due to a drug overdose and was tragically trampled by her fellow rioters as the mob surged into the Lower West Terrace tunnel.
Why do you keep making things up?
As for your Ashli Babbitt claim, High-definition video from multiple angles explicitly refutes your version of events. The crowd at the Speaker’s Lobby doors was not “following directions”; they were a hostile mob using an improvised weapon to smash the glass panels of a barricaded door. Members of Congress were being evacuated just feet away. Babbitt was shot while actively hoisting herself through the broken window into that restricted space. The officers you claim were “behind her” were actually tactical police who had just arrived at the bottom of the stairwell and were blocked by the surging crowd—they did not “step aside to let them in.
She died because she made a poor choice. The officer did his job.
It is 2026, and after dozens of federal and state court filings, independent audits, hand-recounts, and investigations led by Republicans themselves, zero evidence of systemic fraud has ever been produced to cast doubt on the 2020 election results. Even Trump’s own senior officials testified under oath that his claims were entirely fabricated.
You are free to live in a world where the sky is blue and the grass is green, but your political reality is a completely artificial landscape built on conspiracy theories and historical revisionism. You don’t get to rewrite criminal acts and factual autopsies just because the truth makes your side look bad. Especially when it was really, really bad.
Babbitt was put down like the violent traitor she was. She is the only J6 to get proper justice. And now she and Kirk are cell mates in hell.
You’re quite a vile individual.
Read your own comments.
@eightball
Yes, they are. And they are paid to do it. There is no there, there. Like a very, very annoying ghost.
I thought leftists were the epitome of love and tolerance. So tell me are you saying that anyone with views which deviate from the standard leftist woke playbook deserve to die? Do I deserve to die since I deviate from those leftist views?
Be careful in your reply. I am Hispanic and a member of a group leftists love to suck up to. Or does that only apply to AOC type Hispanics?
antonio
“I thought leftists were the epitome of love and tolerance.”
You thought wrong. Leftists seek fairness and will fight against unfairness. They are reality based, taking a rational approach rather than falling in line behind the orange bloviation as they lust to harm the less fortunate to succor themselves for their own failings.
I don’t see how Charlie Kirk was violently trying to breach the House chamber — you put him together with illegal rioters based on what?
“Anonymous” can not hide the fact that you are one sick mother-f*cker. Please go suck on a tailpipe.
Put a bullet in your head LOL!
Wow, the GOP must be doing much better than expected in the Dems internal polling if they are paying to release all these online trolls.
Can you provide a link to this opportunity? I could have my dog post this kind of ignorant drivel and get paid for it! Seems like a win for me (he’s a free loader who really contributes nothing).
“Babbitt was put down like the violent traitor she was. She is the only J6 to get proper justice. And now she and Kirk are cell mates in hell.”
Eat dog excrement and die a prolonged, horrible death, you despicable, stupid, worthless POS. Try not to enjoy the flavor while you are munching on it.
“Babbitt was put down like the violent traitor she was. She is the only J6 to get proper justice. And now she and Kirk are cell mates in hell.”
Eat dog excrement and die a prolonged, horrible death, you despicable, vile, stupid, worthless jerk. Try not to enjoy the flavor while you are munching on it.
They’re both in heaven after having their lives cut short, anon.
^^^THIS^^^ is exactly who and what the article is all about. And this idiot is PROUD of it. Sad, and Scary.
Love how Professor Turdley conveniently never mentions how Trump acolytes stormed the Capital on J6, beat the ever-loving-crap out of a bunch of cops, threatened to hang the Vice President, and then were called heroes by the current administration. ALL violence should be condemned – that from the left and the right – but Turdley knows better than to piss off his followers – that won’t sell many books, will it?
You post is so loaded with BS, that the entire message board had to leave because of the stench. The January 6th patriots didn’t beat up anybody. However, Police Officer Michael Byrd did murder patriot and good citizen Ashli Babbitt during the January 6, 2021 protest rally. Of course, since the D.C. scumbagwormmeat administration consists solely of Far-Leftist, anti-America, pro-Islamic Terrorists, they gave Bryd a promotion instead of life prision sentence.
Your comments epitomize the moral decline of the zealot — for whom right vs. wrong becomes subordinate to tribal identity (a brazen double-standard) — and for whom common sense has left the building.
Officer Byrd’s job was to defend the House chamber from attack by a violent mob. He shot Babbitt in the collarbone, which is not a kill shot. Tragically, the bullet ricocheted towards her neck. Those who overlook such facts to prop up a narrative are deceitful infowarriors. What’s wrong with the truth?
Amazing how you know this is all the truth. The investigation has never been released and DCPD doesn’t need to release it. When attempts have been made to find out the investigation they have been stonewalled.
The video itself makes no sense. Nothing about it is standard procedure for any police force anywhere. If this were any situation other than J6 people would be screaming for information. Yet, crickets. Just like the silence on the pipe bombs and lack of interest in tracking that down.
It’s almost like the outrage is manufactured…
He shouldn’t have shot anyone.
Bull $hit as usual. He sot her through a wire glassed window, all 90#s of her.
Murder
FREE DEREK CHAUVIN
In his speech at the recent convention, RFK Jr. presented, what I thought was a comprehensive list detailing how the Democrats have changed. But Professor Turley identifies one that RFK Jr. missed: the left was historically in favor of nonviolence. The ironies are infinite. I doubt Caroline Kennedy and her relatives would even support JFK for President today, given their ideologies. Where is the most death and violence today? The Democrat-run cities. I went to University during the period of peace and love. Given recent surveys, sounds like peace, love, and willingness to have a dialogue are mostly on the right and violence instead of dialogue is now a feature of the left.
So – J6ers ransacking the Capital, beating the hell out of cops and threatening to hang the Vice President? Did that just not happen?
Oh yeah, I remember, it followed the summer of love…
This also happened.
The murder rate during what you remember as “peace and love” was much higher than it is today. Look it up.
Lashing out at what he called “woke, far-left lunatic AI-haters,” on Tuesday Donald J. Trump told reporters that artificial intelligence “is much less likely to destroy humanity than I am.”
“In the last two years, I tore down the East Wing, turned the Reflecting Pool green, put the Kennedy Center out of business, blew up the Middle East, and put Pete Hegseth in charge of the military and RFK Jr. in charge of health,” he said. “Even on its worst day, AI would never do those things.”
Comparing AI’s potential for destruction with his own, he asked, “Isn’t artificial intelligence better than none at all?”
He accused critics of AI of being “sick and evil,” alleging, “They’re just trying to take attention away from the real threat to humanity: windmills.”