It’s still early to fully assess what we’re seeing in Washington DC today but here's what I've been able to gather from commentators/journalists on Twitter:
By the standards of DC protests this is considered a fairly small protest in terms of total number of people involved.
There is voluminous documented evidence (photos, videos, news stories) showing the Capitol Police violently and heavy-handedly shutting down, arresting, and assaulting peaceful protests of all kinds that were outside of the building.
IT WAS KNOWN that there would be a large, armed crowd protesting these events today. Capitol Police and other law enforcement agencies had weeks to prepare for this.
All indications are that Capitol Police put up ZERO resistance to these and basically stood aside as they breached the building.
All current indications suggest that there was NO SIGNIFICANT law enforcement presence onsite or in the building until over 2 hours later.
Now imagine the same set of initial facts but replace MAGA fascists with Antifa and Black Lives Matter protesters - how do you think law enforcement would have been prepared and then reacted?
The only reasonable conclusion to draw is that the seat of imperial power is both sustained by and will not act in opposition to white nationalist fascism.
Agreed. I’ve never seen a more clear example of white privilege than this instance. People allowed to break in, steal and disrupt with no consequences. Had this been a BLM protest, there would have been blood everywhere. It’s disturbing. What’s worse is that this moment will not change anything for our black and brown friends. There is no equality.