Not just protests, violent protests. While I think the police’ action was overblown, I have little sympathy for violent politic groups (if it turns out to be correct).
I used to feel very much the same way about no sympathy for violent groups, but then I realise that some people feel (rightly or wrongly, is up for you to decide) that the democratic process does not or even cannot accomodate the kind of change they want to see - not because they see democracy as unable to acheive emancipatory goals, but because they see democracy as having been brought under the rule of capital and media rather than by an informed and active demos.
As my favourite social critic Marcuse wrote, when the democratic process is blocked, apparently undemocratic means may be required to unblock it.
Cool. Do you feel the same about the folks in the Western US who now and then seize federal property, or elsewhere who hold menacing protests when somebody takes down a Confederate statue?
I'm not sure what events you're referring to regarding the Western US, but I was specifically referring to emancipatory (even in a symbolic way) radical politics, rather than reactionary protests that are mostly uncritical of the history they claim to represent.
