‘Insurrection’ Sensationalism Suddenly Stops With Pro-Hamas Capitol Protesters
The establishment media have swooped in to defend pro-Palestinian protesters with an embarrassing double standard: Only Republicans are capable of an “insurrection.”
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Over 300 anti-Israel demonstrators were arrested last week after swarming a congressional building to demand a cease-fire between Israel and Gaza. They chanted, blew a horn, fought police officers, and generally made fools of themselves, all in response to the now-debunked claim that Israel bombed a Gaza hospital.
This activity will be quickly excused and forgotten about, just like every other leftist tantrum at the U.S. Capitol since Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearings. Yet we have been told for over two and a half years that the right-wing protest at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, was one of the darkest events in American history.
Why is that?
Newsweek is here to explain, though not in the way it means to.
“No, the pro-Palestinian Protest on Capitol Hill Was Not an ‘Insurrection,’” the outlet’s headline argued. Its article responded to “some Republicans” who used the Left’s favorite term for the Jan. 6 protest.
“The Merriam-Webster dictionary states that the legal definition of an insurrection is ‘the act or an instance of revolting especially violently against civil or political authority or against an established government,’” Newsweek lectured.
Among the hundreds of Donald Trump supporters who protested at the Capitol, only a handful violently broke in and caused the House and Senate to evacuate. Most arrived well after the disruption, and police are seen on video escorting and inviting them inside on the condition that they demonstrate peacefully. But every last selfie-taker or harmless grandma in the crowd was as evil as the rest of the “hundreds” who “broke into Congress,” according to Newsweek’s past coverage. Everything, down to alleged misdemeanors, constituted an “insurrection.”
Conservatives then labeled pro-Palestinian protesters “insurrectionists” based on the media’s loose definition. Newsweek says this is wrong because “the demonstrators did not break into the building, did not claim to want to interfere in a government proceeding, and did not destroy government property or threaten politicians.” Ironically, the outlet just explained why a great deal, if not most, of the Jan. 6 protesters were also not insurrectionists.
The Associated Press showed us the same goalpost-switching when transgender activists disrupted official proceedings at state capitols in April. When Trump supporters protested in Washington, the AP’s idea of an insurrection was as broad as possible: “an act or instance of revolting against civil authorities or an established government.” In response to the transgender mob, the AP conveniently raised the bar: The protesters were off the hook because there wasn’t “a coordinated attempt to overthrow government.”
Journalists know that words matter. That’s why they use a loaded term that makes it easier for society to demonize right-wingers as treasonous terrorists. It’s a weapon of psychological warfare. And as using it on last week’s Capitol invaders would be friendly fire, it remains noticeably absent from all mainstream coverage.
Hudson Crozier is the associate editor of Upward News, a reporter for the College Fix, and a 2023 fellow at the Washington Examiner. Follow him on X @L0neStarTrooper.
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