People can be on either side of the riot vs. protest debate, within a certain level of reasonable understanding. I can even understand (to a degree) the folks who are perfectly fine using pro-active force to clear streets because there have been days of riots and at some level the rubber meets the road. That isn't personally my belief, but I can see where others might believe that. Lots of governors and mayors have set bad curfew times, and haven't been perfectly clear in responsible ways to communicate to the protesters what is going to happen and when. Fine.
But this shit yesterday is indefensible and beyond the pale, and people like Icono are just willful wrongheaded fascists reveling in shows of power and strength because they're sick people (his words, not mine). The protesters were peaceful. They were asked to move, despite it being nowhere near curfew, despite being peaceful, and when they didn't disperse they were gassed and peppered with concussion grenades. That's bullshit, it's a breach of the constitution. But what is really indefensible, and what even Icono and like minded folks can't gloss over, much less address with their "but but it was violent yesterday" prattling bullshit is that all of this was done so the President could could walk across the street for a photo op. And an insincere one at that. THE REASONS AND CHOICES THAT LED TO THIS EVENT MATTER. It wasn't dispersing a violent crowd. It wasn't to get to a trapped person in need of help. It was for a fucking picture. The motivation for the incident is 50x more heinous than the action itself, and the action is pretty fucking deplorable.
I don't care what side of the political spectrum you tilt towards, the man gassed and forcibly removed demonstrators for a completely unnecessary photo op. That was his choice. He chose to do that to US citizens to sate whatever need he felt he had to walk across the street and take a picture at a church. He could have waited a day, and given more notice. He didn't even call the people at the church. If it was prayer he could have chosen a different venue. If it was some display, as president, there are thousands of other photo ops he could have constructed and executed on that didn't involve terrorizing his own citizens who are flexing their constitutional rights. So many other choices or opportunities, and he chose to attack his own citizens. That isn't leadership. And honestly, thats not what America needs. It needs common ground and respect and healing, and compromise, and that is the epitome of non compromise. That is brute force to get what you want. It's against everything that a democratic republic is supposed to be, and it just galvanizes folks on both sides into a negative collision course. This isn't how we should treat people, period, and the leader of our country providing an example of choosing to embrace violence as opposed to try and de-escalate is just keeping people in their own foxholes and helps fix nothing in this country.
If two cars were blocking a street would you ram them with your car, because they're in your way, or would you find another route? If you rammed them, do you reasonably think you wouldn't be the one arrested? Would you treat your neighbor this way? I assume the answer is no, but if the answer is Yes, then I hope you never have a neighbor like you. We need to do better as people. We have to. And we need to look to ourselves to be the example because none of our political leaders are clearly setting one themselves. Just be nice to each other.