Understanding the Mind of a Rioter

“This tendency to equate nuanced thinking and nonviolence with a lack of political conviction is typical of radicals.”

We often hear about peaceful protests erupting into violence, the implication being that rioters act on impulse or in response to unforeseen circumstances. Sometimes police are accused of provoking riots. The fact of the matter, however, is that violent riots are an intrinsic part of far-left protest culture. Indeed, there is a logic to rioting in keeping with what radical activists refer to as “diversity of tactics.”

In its underground bestseller Days of War, Nights of Love: Crimethink for Beginners, first published in 2000, the anarchist CrimethInc. Collective speaks of “a perfect integration of the methods and desires of all who were present at the demonstrations [in Seattle and Washington, November/December 1999 and April 2000, respectively], from well-behaved sign-holders to black-masked corporate-window-display-smashing anarchists.” However, “[s]ome ‘peaceful’ protesters misunderstood how much more seriously their demands were taken thanks to the threat implied by the direct actions of the more radical participants.” Rioting, in other words, is an intimidation tactic.

Self-righteous and narcissistic, rioters not only feel morally justified in their actions, a feeling reinforced by apologists in politics and the media; they tend to see themselves as the vanguard of a large-scale social revolution, a radical transformation of society in the image of their ideology. In their mind, rioting catalyzes this transformation. Inverting the so-called Broken Windows Theory, the anarchist authors of Contradictionary: A Bestiary of Words in Revolt put it like this: “if only a few windows can be broken, revolutionary struggle is bound to break out.” Thus, moderate left-wingers who condemn political violence are often disparaged as counterrevolutionaries and reactionaries. Hence the infamous slogan, Liberals get the bullet too.