Victor Davis Hanson Warns: Rioters Are Trying To Seize Power They Could Never Get Through the Ballot Box

Hundreds of police have been injured, dozens of people have been killed and we have seen billions of dollars in property and collateral damage.

Ostensibly, many of the summer demonstrations were in protest over the gruesome detention and death of George Floyd while in Minneapolis police custody on May 25.

Three months later, few of those trying to burn down a Portland police precinct - with police barricaded inside - or looting the high-end boutiques of Chicago's Magnificent Mile or indiscriminately beating up innocent pedestrians, appear to be driven by Floyd's death.

Why do city governments defund police departments at the very moment vulnerable residents are most fearful for their safety?

As with most cultural revolutions that wish to start things over at "Year zero," the violence is aimed at America's past in order to change its present and future.

There is, of course, reason to oversee the police more effectively.

The brand of the anarchist is not logic but envy-driven power: to take it, to keep it and to use it against purported enemies - which would otherwise be impossible in times of calm or through the ballot box.

https://thefederalistpapers.org/us/victor-davis-hanson-rioters-trying-seize-power-never-get-ballot-box