As a week of protests surrounding the death of George Floyd spun into shocking displays of violence and mayhem as the weekend approached, in cities across the country beyond Minneapolis, it’s natural that Americans are left wrestling with questions about the images bombarding their TV and computer screens.

Earlier on Friday, my RedState colleagues Nick Arama and Sister Toldjah, sought to bring context to some of those images — to help all of us make sense of what can seem like random chaos out of thin air. Their words form a solid foundation to understanding the mixed motives behind the protests, and should begin to answer what sound bites and political rhetoric cannot.

In his piece on rioters’ vandalism of the CNN headquarters in Atlanta, Arama pointed something that even CNN won’t broadcast about the event: “These are hard core leftists working for the revolution” and reminded us of the complicit nature of the mainstream media: “Remember how the leftist media demonized the peaceful lockdown protests?” Then he ended by asking an important question about the motivation behind the violence and looting that have overtaken the peaceful protests about Floyd: “How much is Floyd, how much is being locked up for months with the pandemic, how much is the instigation of hard core leftists?” Indeed.

It’s something that’s on people’s minds, for sure. One Twitter user even sarcastically thanked the radical leftists for their “leadership” during the Wuhan coronavirus — by not wearing face masks in public:

https://twitter.com/GayPatriotTM/status/1266537185735585795

Sister Toldjah’s piece brings up another important part of what’s happening in the protests: how the Democratic Party itself is having a hard time keeping a lid on its inherent racism. She shared part of a CNN segment which aired Friday, with Van Jones. ST wrote, “…..[O]ne thing he did that surprised a lot of people was in how he ‘pulled the curtain back’ on the racism that infects the Democratic party.” The quote from Jones is worth reading and watching in full.

But the pièce de résistance in commentary about the protests in several Minnesota cities and town, New York City, Chicago, and Los Angeles, comes through a thread of tweets by former radical Leftist and conservative author, David Horowitz. Starting in the mid-50s, Horowitz spent decades as a New Left writer and activist, until he switched over to the conservative side, giving him important insights into what makes the Left tick.

On Friday night, commenting on a new Slate interview with presumptive Democrat presidential nominee Joe Biden:

"Root out systemic racism" is the catch phrase of today's racists. They see white racism (and only white racism) everywhere, and talk about fundamentally changing the American system, which has created the most tolerant and least racist polity anywhere. https://t.co/cFnTT2LeI1

— David Horowitz (@horowitz39) May 29, 2020

He wrote:

“Root out systemic racism” is the catch phrase of today’s racists. They see white racism (and only white racism) everywhere, and talk about fundamentally changing the American system, which has created the most tolerant and least racist polity anywhere.

police chief and a black racist attorney general (Ellison). Converting this incident into a general indictment of white America is behind the terrible destruction being wreaked on Minneapolis. These are not protests they are attacks on Americans black and white.

— David Horowitz (@horowitz39) May 29, 2020

He continued:

There is no country in the world where blacks for example are more free, more privileged, have more opportunities and power – both political and cultural than in this country. We have no idea why this bad cop committed this heinous crime or why he was kept on the force by a black police chief and a black racist attorney general (Ellison). Converting this incident into a general indictment of white America is behind the terrible destruction being wreaked on Minneapolis. These are not protests they are attacks on Americans black and white.

When someone commented that no riots would have happened, if the “proper charges of 1st degree murder….had been brought at the proper time,” Horowitz laid out in two, final tweets what really happened in Minneapolis and Minnesota as a whole, reminding us of the lies perpetrated in Ferguson, MO, that are still being used today:

But the riots would have taken place anyway. Antifa and Black Lives Matter are Lynch mobs. They destroyed Ferguson when every black witness the Grand Jury called testified that Michael Brown was attacking the cop when he was shot.

— David Horowitz (@horowitz39) May 29, 2020

He wrote:

The city is corrupt, a corruption that it encouraged by the fact that it is a one-party state. They were forced to eventually arrest this scumbag because the whole country black and white from the president on down was horrified by what had taken place. But the riots would have taken place anyway. Antifa and Black Lives Matter are Lynch mobs. They destroyed Ferguson when every black witness the Grand Jury called testified that Michael Brown was attacking the cop when he was shot.

Horowitz’s latest book, Blitz: Trump Will Smash the Left and Win, hits bookstores on June 2, and is available for pre-order wherever books are sold.

Do what you can to sift through the information through the weekend and in the coming weeks and months. Holding tight to the truth is the best weapon we have to keep our civilization intact.