| HN Mirror

Here are a few searches of HN comments.

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

I agree in that there's hypocrisy on either side. You'll also find commenters on this site who cite the FBI claiming, "White supremacists are the number one terror threat". Meanwhile, mass media pundits sought to paint all of their political opponents as racists. Comments echoing that talking point were also prevalent on HN. Thankfully, that narrative has mostly moved out of popular imagination.

From my perspective the pendulum swings between targeted groups. Each respective group has their turn to run the gauntlets of media demonization and security service targeting. Many of the same people who were cheering the expanses of the security state during the heights of the War on Terror clutch peals when the pendulum swings back upon their demographic. Each tribe has their chance to shout down the 'others'. We shouldn't be surprised if similar tactics are used to pursue the formerly favored BLM activists in the coming years. The only constant is the expansion of the security state. Classic divide and conquer.

The FBI has been running this playbook since at least the 50s. Other commenters on HN have rightly compared it to Soviet internal security policies. There's nothing truly new under the sun. Human nature is tribal and there will always be those who seek to exploit it to gain power. The judgement of whether this is deliberate or the result of natural incentives such as career advancement and political necessity is an exercise for the reader.