The Left’s Lost Moral Authority: How Double Standards on Violence Undermined Credibility - (why Jan 6th wasn’t the “deal breaker” the Democrats wanted it to be)

Richard Graves, October 25th, 2025

“January 6 was not born in a vacuum — it was born in a culture that had already learned to excuse rage when it served its side.”

When the political left allowed, encouraged, equivocated upon, or cosigned the burning of police-department buildings and the looting and destruction of businesses under the banner of “social justice frustration,” it relinquished the moral high ground. Having done so, it lacks credibility to act shocked or outraged when the public did not view the January 6, 2021, United States Capitol attack as a deal-breaker. Millions of Americans voted not only for Donald Trump but against the mandate of the Democratic Party as it has been pushed by the radical fringes of the left.

When the political left allowed, encouraged, equivocated, and even cosigned on the destruction of police stations and small businesses during the riots of 2020, they forfeited the moral high ground. These acts were not isolated expressions of outrage but part of a broader ideological shift that rationalized chaos as catharsis and disorder as justice. When city blocks burned and police precincts were abandoned by orders of politicians to cowardly to defend them, political leaders and media allies called it “the language of the unheard.” They categorized lawlessness as “social justice frustration,” turning destruction into a form of activism. In doing so, the left taught America that political violence, if dressed in moral rhetoric, could be tolerated.

Following the death of George Floyd, the 3rd Precinct police station in Minneapolis was overrun and set ablaze by rioters, with more than 250 businesses destroyed across the city (CBS News, 2020). Protesters in multiple cities sought “wide-ranging reforms including the defunding of police and reallocating money for law enforcement to mental health, social services, and other resources” (The Washington Post, 2021). Yet despite the violence and loss, political figures such as Rep. Ayanna Pressley, Vice President Kamala Harris, and others spoke publicly in defense of the “righteous rage” of demonstrators. These responses created a moral paradox—where outrage justified arson, and destruction was reframed as discourse.

Columnist Kimberley Strassel noted this double stating bluntly that “politics has no place for violence, regardless of motive” (Wall Street Journal, 2021). The article warned that any side that excuses violent tactics when convenient erodes the public’s trust in the democratic process itself. When the same political class that tolerated violent uprisings in 2020 later portrayed January 6, 2021, as an unparalleled assault on democracy, millions of Americans simply did not buy it. For them, the outrage seemed performative, a selective moral awakening rooted not in principle but in politics.

In the months following the Capitol riot, polling data reflected this sentiment. A Wall Street Journal survey found Americans “divided over how serious [the attack] was, who is to blame, and the punishments” (Wall Street Journal, 2021). In other words, the event was not the moral watershed the Democratic establishment hoped for. Instead, it revealed that for much of the electorate, January 6 was one more example of political violence—condemned by those who had winked at it when it served their side. The hypocrisy was glaring.

Columnist Philip Bump noted in a 2021 for the Washington Post that while conservatives were accused of insurrection, many progressives had conveniently rewritten their own violent episodes. He described it as a “convenient new fiction” that ignored assaults on the White House perimeter in 2020, when rioters injured dozens of Secret Service agents. The selective memory reinforced what many Americans already sensed—that the left’s outrage was not about violence itself, but about who committed it.

This inconsistency is one of the things that has cost the Democratic Party its moral credibility with a large portion of the electorate. Voters did not interpret January 6 as a referendum on democracy but as part of a larger cultural battle over fairness, hypocrisy, and ideological excess. For many, the vote for Donald Trump in 2020—and continued support through 2024—was not an endorsement of his flaws but a rejection of what they viewed as a two-tiered moral system. When leftist radicals burned precincts and looted neighborhoods, it was called “justice.” When right-wing protesters breached the Capitol, it was called “treason.”

“If we justify destruction as discourse, we will inherit a nation where every grievance comes with fire.”

The fact is the unrest of the summer of 2020 caused more than $1 billion in damage nationwide, making it the most expensive period of civil disorder in U.S. history (Insurance Information Institute via New York Times, 2020). Yet unlike January 6, there were no congressional hearings, no endless prime-time specials, and no broad moral reckoning. The media’s uneven outrage revealed not commitment to peace, but allegiance to ideology.

The result is predictable. When one side excuses its own violence while condemning that of others, the public grows cynical, resentful, and distrustful of authority. If “fiery but mostly peaceful” protests are celebrated on one network while others are condemned as existential threats, moral consistency ceases to exist. And without moral consistency, there is no moral authority.

This contrast becomes even clearer when examining right-leaning demonstrations that remained largely peaceful but were still treated by some in the media as inherently threatening. For example, the Free Speech Rally held in Boston in August 2017, organized by conservative and libertarian groups, drew thousands of counter-protesters but ended “in a largely peaceful showing that did not lead to the violence seen one week earlier in Charlottesville” (PBS NewsHour, 2017). Likewise, the Proud Boys Rally in Portland in September 2020, which had been widely predicted to erupt into violence, concluded “largely peacefully, with little if any lawlessness reported” (The Guardian, 2020).

These examples of right-wing protests that did not devolve into chaos; yet, they were often covered through a lens of suspicion and hostility. The disparity reinforces the perception of selective morality: violence tolerated or minimized when it advances progressive causes but condemned absolutely when associated with the political right.

America cannot afford selective morality. Violence is violence, whether it takes place in Minneapolis or at the Capitol. The difference is not in the flames but in the framing. Until both political camps agree that violence in pursuit of political aims is indefensible, the moral divide will continue to widen—and trust in institutions will continue to erode. The left’s equivocation on its own riots ensured that when the right crossed its own line, half the nation shrugged. Not because they approved, but because they remembered.

Rejecting Political Violence: The Case for Consistency

It is important to clarify that this is not an attempt to justify any form of political violence. Rather, the point is to underscore a fundamental truth: consistency is essential when condemning violence, regardless of the political context. You cannot condemn violence on one side while excusing or rationalizing it on the other. If moral standards shift depending on whose cause is at stake, then claims of moral authority become hollow. The reality is, we cannot have it both ways

References

Bump, P. (2021, March 3). A convenient new fiction: There was no “attack on the White House” last year. The Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/03/03/convenient-new-fiction-there-was-no-attack-white-house-last-year/

CBS News. (2020, May 30). Minneapolis police precinct burned, hundreds of businesses destroyed during unrest. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/minneapolis-longfellow-neighborhood-lake-street-business-community-property-damage/

The Guardian. (2020, September 26). Proud Boys rally in Portland largely peaceful despite fears of violence. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/sep/26/proud-boys-rally-portland-oregon-kate-brown-ted-wheeler-trump

Insurance Information Institute. (2020, September 16). 2020 riots caused most expensive civil disorder in U.S. history. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/16/us/riots-cost-damages.html

PBS NewsHour. (2017, August 19). Thousands counter-protest “free speech” rally in Boston. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/thousands-counter-protest-free-speech-rally-boston

The Wall Street Journal. (2021, January 6). Politics has no place for violence. https://www.wsj.com/opinion/politics-has-no-place-for-violence-11610494338

The Wall Street Journal. (2021, December 30). Americans diverge on perils and lessons of the Jan. 6 Capitol attack. https://www.wsj.com/politics/policy/americans-diverge-on-perils-and-lessons-of-the-jan-6-capitol-attack-11640860205

The Washington Post. (2021, June 17). The impact of George Floyd and Black Lives Matter protests. https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/interactive/2021/george-floyd-protests-blm-impact/