A video trending on Twitter shows a far-left crowd at the historic St. John’s Church in Washington, D.C. rallying outside the place of worship while chanting, “burn it down.”
St. John’s is the same church that was set on fire by a Black Lives Matter mob this past June.
The video, released by Phillip Nieto of The Daily Caller, shows the radical group of leftists on Thursday night saying into a loudspeaker “If we don’t get [justice]…” before a crowd hypnotically responding “…Burn it down.”
Protesters in front of St Johns Church chanting if “we don’t get it (justice) burn it down!” pic.twitter.com/KDq73c0Knj
— Phillip Nieto (@nieto_phillip) August 28, 2020
Townhall reporter Julio Rosas filmed the event from a different angle:
On the ground in front of the White House for @townhallcom. A large number of protesters are out here as Trump is getting ready to accept the nomination for the presidency.
They’re chanting, “Fuck 12!” pic.twitter.com/a9xeGy3rKf
— Julio Rosas (@Julio_Rosas11) August 28, 2020
The D.C. gathering was in response to President Donald Trump’s speech on the final night of the Republican National Convention held on the South Lawn of the White House steps away from the church. The black-clad masked demonstrators marched in the streets and rang out chants of “Fuck Trump” as the president prepared to give an address on the virtues of the country that he hopes re-elects him in November.
As protestors wailed in the streets, the crowd gathered on the South Lawn listened as Trump said “opponents believe that America is a depraved nation.”
“We want our sons and daughters to know the truth: America is the greatest and most exceptional nation in the history of the world,” he said. “Our country wasn’t built by cancel culture, speech codes, and soul-crushing conformity. We are not a nation of timid spirits. We are a nation of fierce, proud, and independent American patriots.”
Christian figures and institutions have been a target of the Antifa mob during the last three months of protest. Journalist Sean King recommended statues, paintings and other depictions of “white Jesus” be forcefully ripped from churches at the time waves of crowds tore down statues of American historical figures.
Last week rioters chanted “fuck your Jesus” while humiliating and assaulting a preacher in Charlotte, N.C.. The chant reportedly started with “cops killed Jesus” before the rage-mob quickly shifted focus to insulting Christians outright, according to the Gateway Pundit.
Journalists like editor-in-chief of Eidolon, Donna Zuckerberg, attempted to explain the sentiment behind “burning it down,” writing in an article from April 2019 that the phrase is the same as “get rid of it” or “overhaul it,” as News Break cited in a justification of Thursday’s incident.
“‘Burn it all down’ isn’t always a genuine recommendation,” Zuckerberg wrote. “Sometimes it’s just an expression of extreme frustration, recognition that something is so deeply flawed that gradual incremental change within existing infrastructure won’t cut it.”
“It’s a provocation and a challenge to imagine how, if you had a blank slate, you’d go about solving big problems in creative, radical ways,” she added. “It’s also a kind of self-care, an anti-gaslighting technique that allows space to acknowledge how bad and hurtful something is before we begin the long, hard, painful work of making it better.”
The context of the “burn it down” chant in this case was an angry crowd standing in front of a church that was a target of arson just weeks ago, at a time where social justice demonstrations across the country routinely set fire to buildings to illustrate a political point. D.C. rioters tried to set St. John’s ablaze during a violent Black Lives Matter gathering, leaving the church partially damaged.
The church was constructed in 1816 and each president since James Madison has paid it a visit during their time in the White House.
The outside of St. John’s was also vandalized during the June attack and the parish house, used mostly for gatherings, was also a target of the mob.
After the church was set on fire Kayleigh McEnany, the White House press secretary, highlighted St. John’s place in history during the civil rights movement.