edit: I'm framing this around the cop who got killed
like will police be less willing to let nazis and maga freaks do whatever they want because the police know they're targets now too, or will the police let them get away with everything now because they don't want to get beat to death with a fire extinguisher for getting in their way?
i know police have been cooperating with patriot prayer in Portland and proud boys in dc and in every other city where those groups show up. but if i was a cop and learned that a group I've helped and is full of cops killed another pig, or tried to crush one in a door, I'd probably be a lot more distrustful of them. i know a lot of cops get killed by "friendly fire" (which is hilarious) but this just looks and feels different to me. idk it's just something I've been thinking about
the alliance between pigs and less official fascist gangs is always predicated on the pigs having some level of control over the gangs' activities. guarantee the LEO read on this is that friendly fire incidents can be prevented by closer collaboration.
i hadn't really thought about this angle but it makes a lot of sense. idk if it's come out yet who it was that killed that cop but i wonder if some of the police already know who it was and have talked with them about it so it doesn't happen again
You're assuming that there's a clear line between police and nazis/maga freaks. There isn't one. There's enough overlap between these two groups, and there are enough shared goals, that any friction can easily be swept under the rug.
i mean i know there's a huge overlap, it's just confusing to me why on-duty cops would cooperate with off-duty cops and their friends after a cop got beat to death at the capitol, OR if now they're just going to be even more hands-off now so they don't get killed too. but:
there are enough shared goals, that any friction can easily be swept under the rug.
this is kinda the rationale that I was looking for. like i know cops get shot by other pigs when they tackle someone or die in a car crash when they get in the way of another cop, so it makes sense that as long as they can keep furthering their goals they don't care if a few cops get killed in the process. thank you
they’re just going to be even more hands-off now so they don’t get killed too
This is a good point, too.
i mean yeah that makes sense I'd bet that a lot of small town cops belong to a lot of those groups. and i know a lot of portland police live in the same part of washington that patriot prayer is from so they probably have a lot of cooperation and trust. i guess I'm thinking more about police in bigger cities where those out of town groups go to fight blm or whoever. like if pp go down to Salem, Oregon or up to Seattle will the police there trust them the same way? if the proud boys all go to nyc again will nypd let them run around with swords and attack people? if blm beat a cop to death they'd come down hard on them.
and i think i remember some boogaloos killing a few cops over the summer, so like how many cops have to get killed before they stop cooperating?
and i think i remember some boogaloos killing a few cops over the summer, so like how many cops have to get killed before they stop cooperating?
The rationalization here has been refined for a decade or two now: right-wing violence is done by loners with mental health issues, while left-wing violence is part of a dedicated, well-funded, explicitly-ideological project. Stuff like this allows cops (and other reactionaries) to write off whatever negative consequences flow from reactionary violence.
i want to say that i really appreciate your analysis throughout this post and you've really helped me grasp the situation better. but isn't the whole boog movement about bringing about a second civil war and being anti-government? it just seems like willful ignorance for police (acting on behalf of the government) to brush off that shit as just a "mentally ill loner". like is it similar to poc joining white nationalist groups and thinking they won't get killed when they've outlived their usefulness?
but then i remember that cops are dumb as shit and friendly fire happens all the time and they spin it as "dying in the line of duty" or whatever, so maybe they really can just brush it off and think it'll never happen to them as they continue to collaborate with those groups.
it's just really hard to understand that mind set. like there's "leftists" today who don't trust "tankies" because of stuff that happened last century but cops now don't care about the anti-cop violence committed by their "allies" because they're all on the same side. idk I'm just kinda thinking out loud now
i want to say that i really appreciate your analysis throughout this post and you’ve really helped me grasp the situation better.
:fidel-salute:
isn’t the whole boog movement about bringing about a second civil war and being anti-government?
There's a definition of conservatism that applies to anti-government conservatism as well: "There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect." I'd bet that the vast majority of "anti-government" types really just want the government to do less things that bind them, and are either indifferent towards or supportive of government actions that bind others. You can see this in libertarian spaces, which are some of most well-established "anti-government" places out there. Most libertarians don't want to eradicate all government. They mostly want to cut out the parts that might at some point tell them what to do, and otherwise they subscribe to either a "minarchist/night watchmen" approach to government or a "stripped down but not to the point where any of the benefits I enjoy are cut" approach. There are also plenty in this crowd who view local governments as at least semi-legitimate, but who view the federal government as largely illegitimate. Is all of this unworkable and full of contradictions? You bet your ass it is, but it's what they believe.
So against this background of a fundamentally incoherent worldview, you can get police who harbor anti-government viewpoints (despite working for the government), and you can get anti-government conservatives who'll fly a "don't tread on me" flag right beside a "blue lives matter" flag. It's not any sort of principled philosophical stance; it's just treating different groups differently based on whatever set of prejudices they harbor.
there’s “leftists” today who don’t trust “tankies” because of stuff that happened last century but cops now don’t care about the anti-cop violence committed by their “allies” because they’re all on the same side
I think this can be understood by (1) recognizing that propaganda works and (2) considering the propaganda that gives rise to each of these opinions. Left anticommunism ("leftists" not trusting "tankies") has been a significant part of U.S. anticommunist propaganda for most of a century now. On the other side, there's tons of propaganda portraying right-wing violence as "mentally ill loners" because multiple powerful interests simultaneously want to cater to the militia crowd but distance themselves from the inevitable, lethal results of that (think Republican politicians, gun manufacturers who want to sell more than just hunting rifles, the military wanting to glorify militarism, right-wing media ghouls who make careers being as incendiary as possible, etc.).
White supremacists are already a plurality of all cop killers and have been for a long time, but cops still pal around with neo-nazi militants all the same.
The Feds might get a bit more aggressive with fascist militants now though, because they're functionally the dominant hegemonic power domestically and guard that status very jealously. The FBI will show up to terrorize and intimidate politicians themselves, and then turn around and hunt down fascist paramilitaries who try the same thing because that's their own racket and they don't like their pet militias overstepping their role as attack dogs. Same reason why they'll sometimes crack down on local cops: it's all about maintaining a hierarchy through violence and social class with them, and they can be just as vicious towards their own allies as they are towards the left if they feel that their system is being threatened in any way.
The police are the chuds but perhaps now we'll get some new libbylaws that make it ~20% more difficult for them to go full mask off in crowded settings.
i mean I'm not really talking about new laws or slightly less shitty cops or whatever, just if the shitty ones that already exist will be less likely to help out their fellow off-duty cops & friends now they know they can get killed too, or if they'll stay out of their way even more so they don't get their heads bashed in
Unless the police involved with the coup are punished in some way. I predict that nothing will change.
so the police will continue to let the other chuds do whatever they want, even kill cops, as long as none of the officers get in trouble for it? i was just wondering if cops getting killed would make them think twice, but you're probably right lol. as long they don't get punished and they don't get killed they won't care
yeah there's another commenter who said something similar. i was just wondering if that one dead cop would be enough to make them think differently, but they'll probably be more hands-on behind the scenes and hands-off during actual "protests"
I'd imagine that the police will be more likely to "find somewhere else to be" next time.
Likely staying far enough away to be outside of selfie range and doughnut sharing and such. But otherwise not act in a more hostile way.
Now if for some reason the Q folks or the more militant fashy types start to organize and specifically target cops... that will be an interesting thing to watch.
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/emmanuelfelton/black-capitol-police-racism-mob
The higher ups will collaborate still but maybe the regular ass beat cops who are put in the line of fire will end up beating chud’s asses after continually being put in dangerous situations.
Temporarily there will be. It's just politics at this point. The fascists were incredibly unable to do their coup despite having everything just given to them for it, so now the structure of the powers at be HAS to clap back or the whole fascade stops working.
At least in cities, small towns are different stories and have their own internal things going on.
But don't worry leftists and minorities will feel it much worse.
Yeah I think this is the good bet. Inauguration day will almost certainly be locked the fuck down, state of the union too, but as the police get more and more license to be draconian as a reaction to the Capitol riots, this will shift back to even more brutal suppression of leftist and BIPOC movements, while giving fascist movements more free reign in general.
