While the rest of America has rejected the far-left, anarchist group Antifa, they still remain popular in the Pacific Northwest. Their stronghold is the city of Seattle and they have just taken the city over. In a scene reminiscent of Kurt Schictler’s People’s Republic, truth has become far stranger than fiction.
Black Lives Matter and Antifa have been in a turf war with Seattle police and National Guard soldiers for years, but things came to a head earlier this week when the group blocked off six city blocks and claimed it was an autonomous zone, no longer belonging to the United States. Apparently looking for a repeat of the gutting of the Minneapolis police station, rioters attacked a Seattle Police East Precinct building with bricks, bottles, rocks and explosive devices. As some injured police required hospitalization, leftists demanded police cease their anti-riot techniques.
Instead of rolling over the rioters, city officials turned coat and ran, they abandoned the police station and surrendered the neighborhood to the anarchist groups. Said police chief Carmen Best, “This is an exercise in trust and de-escalation.”
You can’t make this shit up.
As Seattle police officers and National Guardsmen emptied the building and boarded it up, they must have felt the burning shame of betrayal. What happened next was even worse. Here’s how Christopher F. Rufo in his article “Anarchy in Seattle” describes those shameful events:
“Immediately afterward, Black Lives Matter protesters, Antifa black shirts, and armed members of the hard-Left John Brown Gun Club seized control of the neighborhood, moved the barricades into a defensive position, and declared it the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone—even putting up a cardboard sign at the barricades declaring ‘you are now leaving the USA.’”
Then there was self-appointed warlord rapper Raz Simone brandishing his AK-47 and pistol who screamed, “This is war!” He then harrangued his followers with a megaphone and instructed his armed paramilitary guards to man the barricades in shifts.
As factions struggled for dominance, one radical activist and former mayoral candidate, Nikkita Oliver, stepped forward to assume leadership. “[We need to] align ourselves with the global struggle that acknowledges [that] the United States plays a role in racialized capitalism,” she told protestors. “Racialized capitalism is built upon patriarchy, white supremacy, and classism.”
She may have been channeling Karl Marx, because her message is classic hardline communism.
So, as City officials cowered hoping for a peaceful resolution, they were at a loss in how to develop a response to the takeover of part of their city. According to one Seattle police officer insider, the city’s leadership is in absolute chaos. He said, “the mayor has made the decision to let a mob of 1,000 people dictate public safety policy for a city of 750,000.”
City councilmembers are on board with Antifa and Black Lives Matter groups. Three support a 50 percent reduction in the police budget. One councilmember used her keys to City Hall and allowed the anarchist groups to take over the building. They joyfully marched in, held a rally in which they declared they now claimed the building as theirs.
Meanwhile, President Trump, channeling the outrage and concern of normal Americans tweeted, “Radical Left Governor @JayInslee and the Mayor of Seattle are being taunted and played at a level that our great Country has never seen before. Take back your city NOW. If you don’t do it, I will. This is not a game. These ugly Anarchists must be stooped [sic] IMMEDIATELY. MOVE FAST!”
Whether those wimps in Seattle move quickly enough to avoid the tide of disgust and resentment most normal Americans will show in the next election has to be a matter of grave concern to Democrats, who have lost control of their radical left.
