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Culture War Roundup for the week of July 15, 2024

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Are you talking about BLM protests?

Because I don’t think that’s a reasonable description of the scenario at all.

Yes, I'm talking about the BLM riots.

The government arms nominally tasked with quelling them refused to do so; by definition, the government lost control of those areas. The faction responsible for the riots then proceeded to win the election in 2020.

Thus I don't believe it unreasonable to assume the continuity of that faction's governance also includes the summer of 2020 (and the actions of the bureaucracy that specifically enabled them by exempting them from public health orders). The same would not have been true had that faction lost. What supporters of a particular faction do matters to the general public's perception of who's in charge.