Over the past five days violent mobs have wreaked havoc on numerous American cities, seemingly at will, after an embarrassing display of weakness by Democrat elected officials across the country. These officials, who repeatedly inferred they’d institute martial law if normal people attempted any “illegal gathering” just seven short days ago, rolled out the welcome mat to “protesters,” practically begging them to exercise their First Amendment rights in speeches punctuated by the obligatory politically correct buzzwords, apologies, and promises that law enforcement won’t really enforce the law.

Predictably, people and groups with nefarious intentions took that as an invitation as well.

Democrat officials have continued their social-justice-buzzword-filled and apologetic public remarks, adding untrue accusations that “white nationalist” groups are behind the rioting and looting while all Black Lives Matter participants are “peaceful protesters.” Sadly, one Republican has joined with Democrats. Sen. Marco Rubio posted a video to Twitter alleging that there are “domestic terror groups” on the far right “instigating and committing acts of violence and looting” during the current rash of protests/riots.

Various domestic terror groups on BOTH far left & right are instigating & committing acts of violence & looting.

They are stealing the focus away from the murder of Mr. Floyd & the legitimate problems it revealed. pic.twitter.com/IQ8v7sMsU6

— Marco Rubio (@marcorubio) May 31, 2020

After Rubio explained to everyone why the true protesters are angry (as if the reasoning is unknown) and claimed that they’re mostly peaceful, he makes the correct observation that the atmosphere of the “protests” shifts when the sun goes down then veers off into “blame the right as much as the left” territory (around the :47 mark):

But something happens at these protests right around sundown. Suddenly, they start to turn violent. And they start to turn violent because some people show up. And they show up with backpacks, and in them they have batons and incendiary devices. We’ve heard reports of people showing up in trucks to begin to take things out. And that’s when the looting starts. That’s when the violence starts.

Who are these people? Because the real protesters on the ground will tell you they don’t know who they are. They’ve never seen them before.

Marco, who are the “real protesters” and how have you verified that they are, in fact, “real protesters”? You asked them? You saw a news reporter ask them? That’s cute. Anyway…

These people are violent domestic extremists, and they range from Antifa groups who are radical to the left, to some other groups radical to the right. In fact, groups that I would argue don’t even belong on the political spectrum as we know it.

And their goal, while they are ideologically opposed to each other and, in fact, have gotten into fights against each other at some of these protests, they share a common goal. They share some common objectives….They want this country to fall apart… some of them openly call for a second civil war.

Yes, Antifa and some groups on the right or far-right have gotten into fights with each other at some protests in the past, but that is not happening in any way during the current riots and mayhem. For Rubio to even give oxygen to the completely spurious allegation that right-wing extremist groups are involved is disgusting. But he wasn’t done.

Referring to these “violent domestic extremists” on the left and the right, Rubio said:

They are…unfairly defaming these protesters who have nothing to do with the violence and the looting that they’re encouraging carrying out, and they are taking away from an important discussion about social injustice that this nation must have once and for all.

Once and for all? All we’ve talked about for at least the past decade is race and social injustice. Every single thing we do is examined through the lens of race and social injustice, to the point that it’s meaningless and, frankly, offensive to the great number of people in our country who do not look at their fellow Americans simply through the lens of race. We’re at the point where planned “discussions” about race in America cannot have any sort of effect because the scripts are already laid out by the social justice warriors before the conversations are had.

That’s not to say that racism isn’t a problem in this country or that we don’t have a lot of work to do on the relationship between law enforcement officers and minorities. The discussions Rubio, et al, want to have, full of forced apologies and buzzwords and devoid of true connection between the participants, will do nothing to address those problems.

(READ: RedState Editor at Large Kira Davis with a useful list of “10 Things You Can Do to Fight Racism Right Now“)

Sen. Rubio’s video was, as Fox News contributor Lisa Boothe tweeted, a cowardly response to what’s happening in the country.

What groups on the right? With all due respect, this is a cowardly response.

— Lisa Boothe (@LisaMarieBoothe) May 31, 2020

It’s as if he knew that someone, somewhere, in some liberal think tank was keeping score of which politicians came out with the “correct” response in hopes that he moved down the list of Republicans to be Canceled, as Tammy Bruce tweeted.

Has he answered yet? What groups ‘on the right’ ? Or was it just a word salad so he could cover all his bases?

— Tammy Bruce (@HeyTammyBruce) June 1, 2020

Rubio responded to Boothe with a pathetic clapback attempt…

With all due respect @LisaMarieBoothe what would be cowardly is condemning what Antifa is doing in the street but ignore what certain extremist groups on the far right are encouraging followers to do on telegram & facebook. I am against ANY group that undermines law & order https://t.co/c4Ak0e6SdM

— Marco Rubio (@marcorubio) June 1, 2020

…laced with virtue signaling. Spineless. Sad.