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Is it wrong that I think the American public would side with the police even if they started openly gunning down protestors? (hexbear.net)

submitted 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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"What do you mean 'started'?"

Now that we've gotten that out of the way, I want to clarify that I'm talking about open mass-killings in the vein of Sharpeville or Bloody Sunday.

Reading and seeing the public's reactions to things like the gassings and beatings at pro-Palestine encampments, BLM protestors getting run over, Kyle Rittenhouse's victims, etc. it seems like the American people take an open and ghoulish delight in protestors getting brutalized, maimed, and killed. Go to any video or article about these things happening, and the comments section is an endless parade of the worst people imaginable cheering and hollering for it with extremely little or no pushback. It's depressingly consistent.

It just gives me this horrible feeling that one day the police are going to unload into a crowd of protestors and leave a mass of bodies in their wake, the American people will hoot and clap and cheer about how the victims got what they deserved, and that'll become the new MO. The only reason they aren't already doing this is fear it might make them look bad, and if it doesn't end up making them look bad in the eyes of the public, then there isn't a single thing stopping them.

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[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I think that shit already happened with the National Guard shootings at Kent State and Jackson State, didn't it? A lot of people approved of those actions, maybe even the majority if I recall correctly.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

https://lemmygrad.ml/comment/6085176

To add to this: after the Kent State shooting, 58% of those who were polled placed the blame on the students, 11% blamed the national guard, and 31% ~~just wanted to grill~~expressed no opinion.

There was a poll done 50 years after the shooting, 16% blamed the students, 29% blamed the national guard, 27% expressing no opinion, and the rest blaming Nixon or governor Rhodes.