Re: “Inslee will support bill to make lying by elected officials, candidates about election results punishable by law” [Jan. 6, Local News]:
Senate Minority Leader John Braun is quoted as saying, “Political violence, regardless of the motivation, is wrong.” He goes on to lump the 2020 Seattle protests with the D.C. attack on the U.S. Capitol.
The implication is that the Seattle protests and the attack on the U.S. Capitol are examples of comparable and wrong political violence, despite the Seattle protests being about the legitimate right to protest George Floyd’s killing and the disproportionate mistreatment of Black people by police.
The act of intentional destruction of property, as happened in Seattle, is illegal and controversial, but it is absolutely not comparable to the Jan. 6 D.C. violence at the hands of the participants who intended harm to people and subsequently carried out their intentions inside the U.S. Capitol.
Jane Howard, Seattle