Bacon's Rebellion

Democracy Thrives in Sunlight

Who Owns the Streets?

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by

James A. Bacon
in ,

How the culture wars are waged these days: Passenger in a Trump Train car records a protester running through the street on Monument after after snatching a yellow insignia from one of the cars.

by James A. Bacon

A rag-tag assortment of leftists, anarchists and Black Lives Matter protesters have occupied Lee Circle on Richmond’s Monument Avenue for months now. Mayor Levar Stoney has given them de facto control over the small but prominent piece of real estate, and police have refrained from responding to any but the most urgent of calls by neighbors complaining about graffiti, firecrackers and gunshots at night, or people defecating in their yards. Now a new question arises: Who controls Monument Avenue itself?

Michael Dickinson, a candidate for Richmond City Council, put that question to the test yesterday. He organized a “Trump Train,” a caravan of of cars honking horns and waving Trump regalia similar to other pro-Trump manifestations around the country. He promoted the event on social media, and the opposition found out about it. When Dickinson’ Trump Train approached Lee Circle in the late afternoon, Leftists poured into the street, forced the cars to slow to a crawl, and snatched insignia from the cars.

Claims vary crazily about how many cars were in the train — from 15 to 350, according to the Richmond Times-Dispatch. Whatever the precise number, lefties accused the Trumpsters of using pepper spray and trying to run people down. Trumpsters accused Lefties of beating on the cars, throwing a liquor bottle and in one case breaking a window. One gunshot reportedly was fired and a unoccupied vehicle struck by a bullet, but no one was injured.

Individuals from both camps were filming the other with the aim of collecting incriminating footage to score propaganda points against the other.

Clearly, Dickinson relished the confrontation. As he posted on Facebook:

WE WILL NEVER STOP FIGHTING FOR RICHMOND AND AMERICA.
We love this great city and country.
We will come down Monument Avenue doing whatever we want (legally) any DAMN time we feel like it! BLM AND ANTIFA ARE LOSER CRIMINALS. They dont run anything. The TAXPAYING WORKING citizens do.
I am NOT AFRAID of the blm antifa mob. We are not afraid.
The Trump Train was provocative. It was designed to elicit the response that it did and get Dickinson attention in his bid for Richmond City Council. But that doesn’t make Dickenson wrong.
Monument Avenue is a public thoroughfare. No self-appointed group of citizens has the right to block it. The Trump Train’s transit past Lee Circle should have been a non-event. Dickinson was entirely justified in bringing attention to the lawlessness that Mayor Stoney has allowed to prevail.

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26 responses to “Who Owns the Streets?”

  1. CrazyJD Avatar
    CrazyJD

    I wonder what Larry will say about this event. Were the Dickinson people “baiting” the left? Of course they were, and they had a right to do so. I haven’t seen the photos or videos, but it doesn’t take much imagination to figure what they will reveal.

  2. Acbar Avatar
    Acbar

    Sounds remarkably like an exact reverse of the situation in Graham NC on Saturday. BLM in the streets without a permit, boogaloo around the confederate statue, police hyperengaged not absent.

    1. djrippert Avatar
      djrippert

      This is the video I saw …

      https://www.newsobserver.com/news/local/article246862187.html

      Not exactly vicious dogs and fire hoses. If the police declare an unlawful assembly and order the streets to be cleared or the courthouse grounds to be cleared and people don’t obey the order – what is the remedy?

  3. djrippert Avatar
    djrippert

    This is the world under Democrats. A profane sign on the door of a UVa dorm room is protected political speech. The state employees known as UVa’s administration send out “ambassadors” to make sure that nobody attempts to take the profane sign down. When a group of cars drives down Monument Avenue with signs expressing political speech those signs may be removed against the will of the signs’ owners with no governmental interference.

    You see, in the minds of today’s liberals, free political speech is only protected if that political speech is the kind of political speech the left endorses.

  4. djrippert Avatar
    djrippert

    Lots of unrest in Richmond lately. In this case the “mostly peaceful protesters” started throwing things at patrons in a restaurant in order to protest the police killing of a man in Philadelphia. Hard to understand the link between the patrons of a Richmond restaurant and the Philadelphia Police Force.

    https://richmond.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/four-people-charged-following-tuesday-nights-unrest-in-richmond/article_d2b75191-0b91-5420-a566-26ca884b38f2.html#tracking-source=article-related-bottom

  5. James Wyatt Whitehead V Avatar
    James Wyatt Whitehead V

    Will residents of Monument Avenue board up as some of our downtown urban areas have done ahead of elections? With Marse Robert still standing it would be a logical flashpoint for an angry crowd. Maybe Americans will do what has been done for generations; vote and go to work or home.

  6. Nancy_Naive Avatar
    Nancy_Naive

    Assembly.

    Apparently pickup trucks with flags own the street.

  7. CrazyJD Avatar
    CrazyJD

    I wonder what Larry will say about this event. Were the Dickinson people “baiting” the left? Of course they were, and they had a right to do so. I haven’t seen the photos or videos, but it doesn’t take much imagination to figure what they will reveal.

  8. Acbar Avatar
    Acbar

    Sounds remarkably like an exact reverse of the situation in Graham NC on Saturday. BLM in the streets without a permit, boogaloo around the confederate statue, police hyperengaged not absent.

    1. djrippert Avatar
      djrippert

      This is the video I saw …

      https://www.newsobserver.com/news/local/article246862187.html

      Not exactly vicious dogs and fire hoses. If the police declare an unlawful assembly and order the streets to be cleared or the courthouse grounds to be cleared and people don’t obey the order – what is the remedy?

  9. djrippert Avatar
    djrippert

    This is the world under Democrats. A profane sign on the door of a UVa dorm room is protected political speech. The state employees known as UVa’s administration send out “ambassadors” to make sure that nobody attempts to take the profane sign down. When a group of cars drives down Monument Avenue with signs expressing political speech those signs may be removed against the will of the signs’ owners with no governmental interference.

    You see, in the minds of today’s liberals, free political speech is only protected if that political speech is the kind of political speech the left endorses.

  10. djrippert Avatar
    djrippert

    Lots of unrest in Richmond lately. In this case the “mostly peaceful protesters” started throwing things at patrons in a restaurant in order to protest the police killing of a man in Philadelphia. Hard to understand the link between the patrons of a Richmond restaurant and the Philadelphia Police Force.

    https://richmond.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/four-people-charged-following-tuesday-nights-unrest-in-richmond/article_d2b75191-0b91-5420-a566-26ca884b38f2.html#tracking-source=article-related-bottom

  11. James Wyatt Whitehead V Avatar
    James Wyatt Whitehead V

    Will residents of Monument Avenue board up as some of our downtown urban areas have done ahead of elections? With Marse Robert still standing it would be a logical flashpoint for an angry crowd. Maybe Americans will do what has been done for generations; vote and go to work or home.

  12. LarrytheG Avatar
    LarrytheG

    I think when one group shows up to confront another group – it sets the stage for some bad outcomes. And if you then add some weapons and vehicles – it can turn into another Cville or Portland or Kenosha.

    See, we KNOW this is the potential because we’ve already seen it happen and yet we WILLINGLY want to engage in it some more!

    This is really tantamount to insurrection and riot . You don’t show up to confront another group with your own group with flags and weapons without seriously knowing how easy it is to get out of hand, people hurt and ultimately some folks arrested and sent to jail.

    People with even minimal common sense can see the potential for this to happen.

    I have to wonder what kind of people actually do this? It’s not going to be the Dad with a decent job and family at home… right?

    This kind of behavior is basically thuggery and chances are if you continue it – that you’re gonna end up with a record, possibly as a felon if you used a weapon… and for what purpose? What will you “prove”.

    This is not the stuff of reasonable folks. This is the stuff of hot heads and fools.

    1. James Wyatt Whitehead V Avatar
      James Wyatt Whitehead V

      Herbert Asbury comes to Richmond. Who will win? The Bowery Boys, the Ugly Puglies, or the Dead Rabbits?

    2. novalad Avatar
      novalad

      I can say from secondhand exp.: a lot of dads with decent jobs and families are feeling pretty impotent after spending nine months cooped up in the home office with Excel on one screen and Breitbart on the other. The same can be said for prog grad students burning out their synapses on Twitter all day, or chronically unemployed servers who can’t shut out existential angst at bars or house parties. Each in their own way is told this moment could be the most pivotal of their life, and there’s no real-life feedback to tell them “no, friend, just stop and smell the roses.” So why wouldn’t they rig their 1500 with Trump banners or take downtown PDX by storm?

      The American system was pretty good at quelling unrest insofar as basic goods, services, and entertainment were easily accessible pre-2020. You had two nations living side-by-side in their own political fantasy worlds for decades with little in the way of political violence. Constrict lived social experience to *just* those online political fantasy worlds, however, and you get one nation of lone wolves. Toss in some major economic dislocation for good measure, too.

      It’s not like any of us know what will happen today, or who will step up on Inauguration Day. We’re all equally lost. If these are hotheads running Mad Max caravans down Monument Ave., or fools smashing windows and Thermiting ATMs, then I can at least empathize with them — who doesn’t want to act out on perverse incentives now and again?

      1. LarrytheG Avatar
        LarrytheG

        The pandemic and it’s impacts are worldwide but we’re not seeing people in other countries do this kind of stuff for the most part.

        So, that’s just an excuse.

        People who show up “ready to rumble” while claiming to support “law and order” are really engaging in vigilantism and do risk getting involved in violence and subsequent arrest and in doing so can screw up their own lives – even if currently unemployed – a “record” for using weapons in an insurrection will “follow” you just like it did with the guys in Cville.

        It may take a while for investigations and camera footage , etc but eventually if you engaged in illegal behavior you risk arrest.

        No matter what any of us “thinks” about what is right or wrong with how “law and order” is being carried out, stepping over the law to “help” is just plain old vigilantism and militia foolishness that will bring those that do it to grief.

        ” A 17-year-old in Illinois accused of killing two protesters days after Jacob Blake was shot by police in Kenosha, Wisconsin, is fighting his return to Wisconsin to face homicide charges that could put him in prison for life.”

        From now on for months, and maybe years, his whole life will be consumed by the legal process and will follow him later when he tried to get a job even if he is acquitted. Sure, he’s a “hero” to some but he is also marked for life for what he did and ironically could lose his right to vote as a citizen or to be considered for the military or law enforcement, etc.

        The impacts of what he did, no matter the idea that he was “patriotic” will be lifelong and negative.

        1. novalad Avatar
          novalad

          I don’t think we disagree on your first point — America is a fundamentally weird place where healthy impulses toward hooliganism are sublimated into strangely performative political violence. When you take New England moralism, the petty violence of the Ulster Scots, reflexively Situationist online media, and ask “will it blend?” — the answer is yes, but it ain’t a superfood smoothie you’re making.

          Where we disagree, I think, is on the effectiveness of calling out this weirdness as “vigilantism” or “shortsighted.” Ours is not a society brimming with stout yeoman-scholars, thrifty small town businesspeople, or otherwise people Wordsworth would eulogize with a tear in his eye. Rather, we are grifters, rent-seekers, and neurotics, all leveraged to the eyeballs and blowing endorphins on (at best) YouTube protest vids. Appeals to law and order/republican virtues are not going to convince the people who need convincing.

          I’m not excusing these people by the standards we’d like to hold them to — I’m saying there’s not much hope of ever effectively holding them to such standards in the current environment. We can cry out “For shame!” in the BR comments section for the next decade, or we can try to figure out how to live virtuously in a fallen world.

          Edit: “performative political violence” is a bit of a tautology, but I hope my meaning is clear.

          1. idiocracy Avatar
            idiocracy

            ” Ours is not a society brimming with stout yeoman-scholars, thrifty small town businesspeople, or otherwise people Wordsworth would eulogize with a tear in his eye. Rather, we are grifters, rent-seekers, and neurotics, all leveraged to the eyeballs and blowing endorphins on (at best) YouTube protest vids.”

            This is by far the best description of Northern Virginia I have ever seen.

  13. LarrytheG Avatar
    LarrytheG

    I think when one group shows up to confront another group – it sets the stage for some bad outcomes. And if you then add some weapons and vehicles – it can turn into another Cville or Portland or Kenosha.

    See, we KNOW this is the potential because we’ve already seen it happen and yet we WILLINGLY want to engage in it some more!

    This is really tantamount to insurrection and riot . You don’t show up to confront another group with your own group with flags and weapons without seriously knowing how easy it is to get out of hand, people hurt and ultimately some folks arrested and sent to jail.

    People with even minimal common sense can see the potential for this to happen.

    I have to wonder what kind of people actually do this? It’s not going to be the Dad with a decent job and family at home… right?

    This kind of behavior is basically thuggery and chances are if you continue it – that you’re gonna end up with a record, possibly as a felon if you used a weapon… and for what purpose? What will you “prove”.

    This is not the stuff of reasonable folks. This is the stuff of hot heads and fools.

    1. James Wyatt Whitehead V Avatar
      James Wyatt Whitehead V

      Herbert Asbury comes to Richmond. Who will win? The Bowery Boys, the Ugly Puglies, or the Dead Rabbits?

    2. novalad Avatar
      novalad

      I can say from secondhand exp.: a lot of dads with decent jobs and families are feeling pretty impotent after spending nine months cooped up in the home office with Excel on one screen and Breitbart on the other. The same can be said for prog grad students burning out their synapses on Twitter all day, or chronically unemployed servers who can’t shut out existential angst at bars or house parties. Each in their own way is told this moment could be the most pivotal of their life, and there’s no real-life feedback to tell them “no, friend, just stop and smell the roses.” So why wouldn’t they rig their 1500 with Trump banners or take downtown PDX by storm?

      The American system was pretty good at quelling unrest insofar as basic goods, services, and entertainment were easily accessible pre-2020. You had two nations living side-by-side in their own political fantasy worlds for decades with little in the way of political violence. Constrict lived social experience to *just* those online political fantasy worlds, however, and you get one nation of lone wolves. Toss in some major economic dislocation for good measure, too.

      It’s not like any of us know what will happen today, or who will step up on Inauguration Day. We’re all equally lost. If these are hotheads running Mad Max caravans down Monument Ave., or fools smashing windows and Thermiting ATMs, then I can at least empathize with them — who doesn’t want to act out on perverse incentives now and again?

  14. Nancy_Naive Avatar
    Nancy_Naive

    Assembly.

    Apparently pickup trucks with flags own the street.

    1. Matt Adams Avatar
      Matt Adams

      If you’re not going to enforce laws regarding protest it becomes a free or all.

      That lack of enforcement was and is a political decision, deal with the consequences and drive on.

  15. Baconator with extra cheese Avatar
    Baconator with extra cheese

    If the major cities want to spend eternity boarded up and welcoming looting then let them. They can have the mayhem and the brain drain and flight that come with them. On top of that the only kids getting educated in major cities are those who already have super parents or parents paying for private education. Then add in the new work from home economy…. if you have real estate in a city it would be wise to unload it. In my opinion these types of skirmishes are only the beginning.
    It started with mainstream rhetoric of “punching nazis”… now certain violense seems to be excused… when no violence should ever be excused.
    Now it’s moved on to police on the sidelines watching vandalism (it’s celebrated art), windows smashed, looting, fires, and stopping vehicles on roadways… it will escalate in ugly ways for all Americans. It doesn’t matter who wins tonight…. Azzhats will find an excuse to act out… and our society is excusing it. It is only a matter of time before mass casualty events start to take place.
    It’s disgusting no matter who is involed.

    1. LarrytheG Avatar
      LarrytheG

      Most cities are fairly large places and the protests are limited in size and scope. As bad as it has become, the damage is not city-wide by any stretch of the imagination and the police do work to keep it contained and not become city-wide unrest.

      And actually ANYONE who shows up from out of town, carrying weapons and driving vehicles with flags should be well recognized as different from the folks who live in the area and are on foot without gun weapons.

      We’ve got some folks on both sides who actually want to see violence and mayhem and I have no problem hauling them all off to jail.

      The police in Richmond have blocked Monument avenue from vehicles and put up signs saying that guns are not permitted in the area of the protests. Good for them. They’re trying to tamp down violence and protect the people who live there.

      In my mind, that’s not an unreasonable thing to do and it ought to fair warning to those who want to show up armed and ready to rumble in the name of “law and order” and “patriotism”.

      Some of these”patriotic” folks are actually organizing and communicating on social media…. Surely they realize the police have access to those accounts , have set up license-plate readers and cameras and know every owner of every flag-carrying vehicle?

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