Insurrection: ‘Outside agitators’ is an old ploy

The recent charges by many GOP politicians and Make America Great Again adherents that the Jan. 6 violent insurrection at the U.S. Capitol was the handiwork of antifa plants in what was otherwise a “peaceful” demonstration by Trump supporters reminds me of the charges Southern politicians and police chiefs always directed at the civil rights demonstrators in the 1960s.

These officials would routinely declare that the demonstrations and disruptions were stirred up by “outside agitators” (i.e., non-Southern) whose aim was to disturb the otherwise harmonious relationship between white and Black Southerners.

It’s an old ploy that, sadly, far too many gullible and uninformed people in this country fall for.

James B. Paden, Blaine