If you think state and federal government COVID-19 policies are too restrictive, you haven’t been to a college campus lately. Schools across the country have imposed extreme, micromanaging rules on 19-22 year olds—a demographic more likely to die from the seasonal flu and pneumonia than COVID.
Paying top dollar at already overpriced institutions for vastly inferior remote learning, university students remain unnecessarily isolated and barred from using the services and facilities they and their families are paying for.
Many schools, like Southern Methodist University, forbid students from having guests in their dorm rooms. Others have even installed security cameras in the hallways aimed at residents’ doors to monitor adherence.
Most institutions have isolation dorms or, as some students call them, “isolation prisons,” where students who test positive for COVID are forced to live alone for two weeks (sound familiar?).
Many students must wear masks at all times, including outdoors and in gyms. This is an ironic twist for institutions that train scientists and house overwhelmingly leftist professors and students who chastise anyone for questioning the ever-changing government COVID guidelines and screech at all of us to “follow the science” as though science is a religion with no growth, questioning, or margin of error.
COVID data strongly suggests that being fit and healthy is essential to protecting yourself from the virus and that those with comorbidities, such as obesity and diabetes, which are often related to lifestyle, are far more likely to be hospitalized or die from the Wuhan virus. Yet “pro-science” universities have made working out as difficult as possible. Many school gyms are closed. At schools with open gyms, many require students to sign up in advance to use them and can only stay for short periods at a time, usually less than an hour.
At the University of Wisconsin–Madison, students are forced to take COVID tests every four days. If they don’t, they lose access to university buildings. Their testing catalogue is counted on the Safer Badgers App, which students are required to download and many believe is an invasion of privacy.
“They are tracking our movements,” said Connor Hess, a junior at UW-Madison studying chemical engineering. Hess explained that while the University claims to not be tracking them, the app constantly asks students to turn on “optional” location services. The app uses Bluetooth to monitor if clusters of students are congregating together, and who the students are. “They say they just have location services so that you can now see where the testing sites are,” said Hess skeptically, “but I don’t know if I fully believe that.”
If you miss required COVID tests at UW-Madison, the University has implemented a “progressive approach” to their “administrative consequences.” Punishments include being unable to use campus Wi-Fi, barred from accessing your transcripts, and prohibited from adding or dropping classes.
Students may also be put on “disciplinary probation,” which will be noted on their transcript and affect their ability to study abroad. In the end, consequences for not strictly following university COVID regulations lead to suspension. Similar disciplinary systems have been implemented at universities across the country.
Like many other colleges, the University of Chicago, has created a “snitch list,” where students can anonymously turn in classmates for having a small gathering or not wearing a mask properly.
Students turned in to the university authorities across the country for having friends have had their class registration put on hold, been kicked out of university housing, and even been suspended. This Soviet software is divisive and disturbing and is often applied unfairly and sometimes used by students to target peers they don’t like or seek to take revenge on.
A group of freshmen at the University of Chicago were reported to the snitch list after taking a photo in front of one of the university buildings. After the photo was posted on social media, the group was reported for not standing six feet apart, even though the students were outside and every student in the photo was wearing a mask. The majority of the freshmen pictured were members of the Chicago Thinker.
Such is the fear of being socially shamed or harassed on campus over COVID violations that when I asked students featured in the reported photo if I could share it for this article, every one said no and asked that I not use their name in this article. The few who agreed to talk to me said they are afraid of drawing more attention to themselves and the controversy. Most importantly, students are afraid of being discriminated against by future employers.
Students explained that the stakes are high. After one additional infraction, like the reported photo, they could be kicked out of the dorms. One freshman said he is worried if he is identified he will be “relentlessly mocked on social media” and “provoke leftists to maliciously report me out of spite.” (The singular male pronoun is used here for sentence clarity, but the anonymous students in this article may instead be females.)
One of the students pictured agreed, saying that he does not know who reported them, but he has noticed that punishment is not equally applied to leftist students on campus who are generally not afraid of being turned in to the snitch list and have engaged in Black Lives Matter rioting on campus with no consequences.
“It reeks of targeting when you know leftist students have no fear of repercussions when they post videos of themselves burning things on private property while mask-less and conservative students have to be afraid of taking a masked picture outside in which they are only 5.9 feet apart,” said the student.
“The hysteria around COVID restrictions has bred an environment of such extreme judgment and fear that we cannot even function as normal human beings without being on edge,” said the first student. “It’s unsettling that people are keeping tabs on you and filing reports just for taking a picture with friends, which of course, everyone on campus does.”
One of the conservative freshmen was so fearful of being mentioned that he sent me this frantic email after a cordial phone conversation where I promised not to post the group photo:
Welcome to the new world order, where Americans live under a social credit system like the Communist Party in China uses to control their people. With every Snapchat and retweet, social scores are updated and altered.
If you adhere to left-wing orthodoxy, you will be okay. If you deviate from the norm, you will be punished socially and professionally. Young people today are acutely aware of this. They comply, rather than rebel—even conservative and libertarian students. It’s our new reality.
While today’s generation is compliant and submissive in the face of university overreach into their personal lives, feminists from the 1960s rebelled against onerous and intrusive rules. Before the feminist movement of the 1960s, women in colleges were subject to excessive and sexist university decrees. They had to adhere to strict dress codes and curfews. The parents of female students had to fill out a form articulating specific permission for their daughter to leave campus during the school year and they had to include how she may travel and with whom she may stay with. These rules contributed to a cultural revolution.
Renowned American feminist academic, professor, and cultural critic Camille Paglia was in college during these repressive times and was on the front lines of the 1960s feminist movement. She joined other women of her time in fighting paternalistic rules over the lives of adult college students—especially women.
Over the years, she has been a vocal critic of how modern feminism has changed and embraced the coddling, surveillance, and intrusion of college administrators in the lives and interpersonal relationships on college campuses, specifically in response to hysterical “rape culture” propaganda.
Paglia, a professor at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania since 1984, explains how 1960s activism, contrary to modern leftism, “challenged, rebuked, and curtailed authority in the pursuit of freedom and equality.” Students wanted “less surveillance and paternalism, not more.” Modern leftists and feminists, on the other hand, actively undermine intellectual freedom and diversity at American universities and have walked back important advancements made during the 1960s.
While freedom-loving students like Paglia forced the overbearing administration out of the personal lives of adult students, today’s leftists have invited them back in, with creepy surveillance tools to boot.
The truth is, the oppressive COVID rules, many of which violate civil liberties, are an extension of the stifling speech codes and safe spaces so popular on college campuses. Free speech was once the “primary weapon” of the left, according to Paglia. Today’s leftist students beg for more regulation and turn in their non-compliant classmates. Feeling helpless and outnumbered by the loud voices of SJWs on campus, most college students are terrified into submission and silence.
This year, the University of Chicago forced me to sign a nearly 2,000-word “UChicago Acknowledgement and Attestation Regarding COVID-19” or have my student ID card deactivated. If you need any more proof that college administrators are infantilizing adult college students, here is an excerpt from the COVID-19 agreement I had to sign:
“I agree that the University may disclose violations of this attestation and other COVID-19-related protocols or guidance established by the University and public health authorities to my parent(s), legal guardians(s) and other third parties as permitted by the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act.”
This is what happens when universities have more administrators and lawyers than professors. For years, Paglia has warned that “swollen campus bureaucracy, empowered by intrusive federal regulation,” is the powerful fist crushing freedom at universities.
The societal effects of the university COVID power grab will be felt when students leave college and enter the workforce. Recent college grads will add to the growing number of young people terrorizing executives and co-workers with social justice threats and extortions. The rest of Americans will be helpless in the face of leftist intimidation, having been desensitized at college to oppressive rules and regulations encroaching on their personal lives and individual freedom.
*The views expressed in this article solely represent the views of the author, not the views of the Chicago Thinker.
Thank you so much for bravely writing this eye-opening and truly terrifying article about schools’ overreach of power, in the name of Covid. This, along with global warming, seems to have become part of the Left’s new (Godless) religion. I agree with you that these extreme, Soviet-like regulations, surveillance systems, and snitch lists do not bode well for the future of these students – or the future of this country. We need more people like you to stand up and shine the light on what is truly the slaughter of our individual freedoms and rights. We can not simply become hapless lemmings on the trail of a tyrannical piper. I wish you all the very best! Stay strong and know that others are thankful for your strength and your voice!
thanks mom
Hey Shelly I hope you are staying warm during this brutal Chicago Feb. Have you noticed that the same old, same old Lib Leftist globalists don’t call it “Global Warming” anymore, because it’s F#*$&@($ cold. No, instead they made the spin, it’s ….
Climate Change
Yeah, we have climate change in Chicago, it’s called….
Seasons.
Brutal Cold winters,
Long wet and raw Springs – March is the worst month
Summers that get hot and nasty
And then Autumn when it’s nice.
Global warming NOPE.
And yet are stupid City government leaves the tennis nets up all Winter. How F*$*#*$* is that?
Okay first of all, how is that even relevant? Second, the seasons are considered part of the climate. Third, the reason it’s called climate change now instead of global warming is to more accurately reflect the fact that, while the Earth’s average air temperature is indeed increasing, it doesn’t affect the entire world evenly. For example, the Gulf Stream, a stream of warm water that flows from the Gulf of Mexico to Europe, is responsible for Europe largely being warmer than the US at the same latitude. However, increasing global temperatures are predicted to actually weaken the Gulf Stream, which would actually make Europe colder.
Thank you so much for bravely writing this eye-opening and truly terrifying article about schools’ overreach of power, in the name of Covid. This, along with global warming, seems to have become part of the Left’s new (Godless) religion. I agree with you that these extreme, Soviet-like regulations, surveillance systems, and snitch lists do not bode well for the future of these students – or the future of this country. We need more people like you to stand up and shine the light on what is truly the slaughter of our individual freedoms and rights. We can not simply become hapless lemmings on the trail of a tyrannical piper. I wish you all the very best! Stay strong and know that others are thankful for your strength and your voice!
thanks mom
Hey Shelly I hope you are staying warm during this brutal Chicago Feb. Have you noticed that the same old, same old Lib Leftist globalists don’t call it “Global Warming” anymore, because it’s F#*$&@($ cold. No, instead they made the spin, it’s ….
Climate Change
Yeah, we have climate change in Chicago, it’s called….
Seasons.
Brutal Cold winters,
Long wet and raw Springs – March is the worst month
Summers that get hot and nasty
And then Autumn when it’s nice.
Global warming NOPE.
And yet are stupid City government leaves the tennis nets up all Winter. How F*$*#*$* is that?
Okay first of all, how is that even relevant? Second, the seasons are considered part of the climate. Third, the reason it’s called climate change now instead of global warming is to more accurately reflect the fact that, while the Earth’s average air temperature is indeed increasing, it doesn’t affect the entire world evenly. For example, the Gulf Stream, a stream of warm water that flows from the Gulf of Mexico to Europe, is responsible for Europe largely being warmer than the US at the same latitude. However, increasing global temperatures are predicted to actually weaken the Gulf Stream, which would actually make Europe colder.
The “Chicago Thinker” may have just become the new enlightenment lighthouse on America’s campuses. Congratulations. You demonstrate not only an independent mind, but the tradition of the “Chicago School” which seeks inconvenient facts and data. As for the “contract” you signed, it is not enforceable, and is “deprived of the status of law as it contradicts constitutional prohibition.” The next question for all students is, when is enough enough? When do you say “No?” When next pressured with “vaccine” protocols, what is the new calculus? With Regards, ’96, Booth M.B.A.
For shame, Chicago Thinker! I would have thought that a free-market-supporting powerhouse publication such as yourself would be all in favor of non-governmental organizations such as UChicago doing whatever the fuck they wanted in response to the demands of the market. I truly am sorry that you can’t do whatever it was you were planning on doing — going to the Capitol, maybe?
The reason I love articles like this is because they all go to ridiculous lengths to avoid describing something as “McCarthyist” — a word that represents the decades of baseless red-scare blacklisting wrought by the American Right. As far as I’m concerned, what you’re *afraid* is going to happen is getting your just desserts. What’s *actually* happening is that the university is responding to the demands of parents who want to keep their children safe. You want to go to parties that badly? Do it. It’s your right. Freedom of speech/action doesn’t mean freedom of consequences.
The mob,
You have my sincerest admiration for putting out a serious response so quickly. I’ll need at least a few days, and more than a few shots of whiskey just to be able to read this article without without becoming so demoralized that I slam my head against the fridge. It’s not even all the fallacies getting me down, it’s just how utterly bizarre it is. Of course that one kid didn’t want to have their like this show up in the thinker, they’ve probably read some of the articles. Some advice for the conservatives that should sound familiar: if you don’t want to get in trouble just don’t break the rules and if you don’t like the rules then don’t spend your money here.
The only good thing I can take out of this article is that I might not actually need to be all that worried about conservatives walking around without masks ok. Surely having their heads stuck so far up their asses will create just as much benefit for the rest of us.
LF
Their likeness*
clearly the whiskey is already hitting
———————————————————-
Now that the Left occupies the media, corporate, academic and other ramparts belonging to what used to be called “the private sector,” it calls you a hypocrite because you complain when they cancel you for your views. If you were really in favor of private enterprise, they say, you’d acknowledge they have the right to treat you any way they deem fit. But thanks to double standards, the Left doesn’t favor private enterprise and has no problem treating “the private sector” as a political weapon and you have no right to complain.
The “Chicago Thinker” may have just become the new enlightenment lighthouse on America’s campuses. Congratulations. You demonstrate not only an independent mind, but the tradition of the “Chicago School” which seeks inconvenient facts and data. As for the “contract” you signed, it is not enforceable, and is “deprived of the status of law as it contradicts constitutional prohibition.” The next question for all students is, when is enough enough? When do you say “No?” When next pressured with “vaccine” protocols, what is the new calculus? With Regards, ’96, Booth M.B.A.
my comment for this article is that Evita claims online school to be “inferior” but she has never turned her camera on or contributed to our lively class discussions! it is undoubtedly inferior if you refuse to engage <3
I second this! How can you participate in the lauded marketplace of ideas if you literally never speak in class? Have you preemptively cancelled yourself?
Lmao i cannot wait for the “liberals are cancelling me for cancelling myself” take. If she (or anyone) doesn’t wanna participate/turn on camera, that should be cool. These are objectively pretty rough times and we’re just trying to make it through. But it certainly does take quite a bit of the punch out of an “I can’t speak because of the liberal mob” article when it’s just self imposed exile
The Chicago Thinker
The Chicago Thinker
The Chicago Thinker
For shame, Chicago Thinker! I would have thought that a free-market-supporting powerhouse publication such as yourself would be all in favor of non-governmental organizations such as UChicago doing whatever the fuck they wanted in response to the demands of the market. I truly am sorry that you can’t do whatever it was you were planning on doing — going to the Capitol, maybe?
The reason I love articles like this is because they all go to ridiculous lengths to avoid describing something as “McCarthyist” — a word that represents the decades of baseless red-scare blacklisting wrought by the American Right. As far as I’m concerned, what you’re *afraid* is going to happen is getting your just desserts. What’s *actually* happening is that the university is responding to the demands of parents who want to keep their children safe. You want to go to parties that badly? Do it. It’s your right. Freedom of speech/action doesn’t mean freedom of consequences.
The mob,
You have my sincerest admiration for putting out a serious response so quickly. I’ll need at least a few days, and more than a few shots of whiskey just to be able to read this article without without becoming so demoralized that I slam my head against the fridge. It’s not even all the fallacies getting me down, it’s just how utterly bizarre it is. Of course that one kid didn’t want to have their like this show up in the thinker, they’ve probably read some of the articles. Some advice for the conservatives that should sound familiar: if you don’t want to get in trouble just don’t break the rules and if you don’t like the rules then don’t spend your money here.
The only good thing I can take out of this article is that I might not actually need to be all that worried about conservatives walking around without masks ok. Surely having their heads stuck so far up their asses will create just as much benefit for the rest of us.
LF
Their likeness*
clearly the whiskey is already hitting
———————————————————-
Now that the Left occupies the media, corporate, academic and other ramparts belonging to what used to be called “the private sector,” it calls you a hypocrite because you complain when they cancel you for your views. If you were really in favor of private enterprise, they say, you’d acknowledge they have the right to treat you any way they deem fit. But thanks to double standards, the Left doesn’t favor private enterprise and has no problem treating “the private sector” as a political weapon and you have no right to complain.
my comment for this article is that Evita claims online school to be “inferior” but she has never turned her camera on or contributed to our lively class discussions! it is undoubtedly inferior if you refuse to engage <3
I second this! How can you participate in the lauded marketplace of ideas if you literally never speak in class? Have you preemptively cancelled yourself?
Lmao i cannot wait for the “liberals are cancelling me for cancelling myself” take. If she (or anyone) doesn’t wanna participate/turn on camera, that should be cool. These are objectively pretty rough times and we’re just trying to make it through. But it certainly does take quite a bit of the punch out of an “I can’t speak because of the liberal mob” article when it’s just self imposed exile
The Chicago Thinker
The Chicago Thinker
The Chicago Thinker
sorry fellow patriots, but wouldn’t less administrative bureaucracy mean that neo-marxist leftist sjw “professors” would have free range to distribute their soviet propaganda?
Hey Evita – thanks for this great article about Leftist universities trying to make the college experience like being in a political prison camp.
Are you familiar with this Dissident Right provocateur Katlin Bennet? Here she dresses up as a typical Lib Leftist Feminist at UCLA and gets students to sign her petition to make Conservatives go in to re education concentration camps.
https://fb.watch/3zUtnagVmk/
Would you like to do some similar vides here at the U Chicago?
Isn’t she the one that shit her pants?
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Yeah she’s also a literal monarchist who thinks Trump should be king (but somehow still calls herself a libertarian). She’s nothing more than an idiot who became famous for her idiocy.
sorry fellow patriots, but wouldn’t less administrative bureaucracy mean that neo-marxist leftist sjw “professors” would have free range to distribute their soviet propaganda?
Hey Evita – thanks for this great article about Leftist universities trying to make the college experience like being in a political prison camp.
Are you familiar with this Dissident Right provocateur Katlin Bennet? Here she dresses up as a typical Lib Leftist Feminist at UCLA and gets students to sign her petition to make Conservatives go in to re education concentration camps.
https://fb.watch/3zUtnagVmk/
Would you like to do some similar vides here at the U Chicago?
Isn’t she the one that shit her pants?
————————————————-
————————————————
Yeah she’s also a literal monarchist who thinks Trump should be king (but somehow still calls herself a libertarian). She’s nothing more than an idiot who became famous for her idiocy.
for being the daughter of two very high profile reporters, you sure are a raging dumbass. how you made it into this university is beyond me. why are you writing anyway; don’t you have a POC to harass at starbucks for simply being there??
She’s not a dumbass, she’s a provocateur who argues in bad faith, which makes sense considering who her family is. I’m almost certain she wouldn’t personally harass POCs considering she is one, but the language and argumentative style she uses isn’t helping either.
for being the daughter of two very high profile reporters, you sure are a raging dumbass. how you made it into this university is beyond me. why are you writing anyway; don’t you have a POC to harass at starbucks for simply being there??
She’s not a dumbass, she’s a provocateur who argues in bad faith, which makes sense considering who her family is. I’m almost certain she wouldn’t personally harass POCs considering she is one, but the language and argumentative style she uses isn’t helping either.
I sincerely hope that you never face the sexual violence that would demonstrate how incorrect Camille Paglias characterization of college rape cases is. Rape has nothing to do with covid, and the equivalency you make is unnecessary and a bit cruel.
I sincerely hope that you never face the sexual violence that would demonstrate how incorrect Camille Paglias characterization of college rape cases is. Rape has nothing to do with covid, and the equivalency you make is unnecessary and a bit cruel.
Good article. While I suspect market forces and the desire not to have to shutter campuses is the main driver of these administrative overreaches, I was shocked to learn about the details of how schools are coping (video cameras, etc.). The commenters here who claim that a conservative viewpoint would necessarily endorse any private-entity action are attacking straw men. There is a difference between what is legally permissible and what is morally, pedagogically, or institutionally healthy.
Good article. While I suspect market forces and the desire not to have to shutter campuses is the main driver of these administrative overreaches, I was shocked to learn about the details of how schools are coping (video cameras, etc.). The commenters here who claim that a conservative viewpoint would necessarily endorse any private-entity action are attacking straw men. There is a difference between what is legally permissible and what is morally, pedagogically, or institutionally healthy.
I am happy to see that there is at least one brave person that writes from an informed point of view that upsets the growing non-thinking masses. It is a badge of honor for the University of Chicago that there is someone like Evita brave enough to uphold the principles of the University with so many others willing to tear down the great reputation of such a distinguished institution.
So thankful you and your critical thinking skills are around UChicago! I pray you reach more young minds. What a shame to throw away freedom that others have fought and died for. I pray more eyes are opened with The Chicago Thinker. God Bless!
I am happy to see that there is at least one brave person that writes from an informed point of view that upsets the growing non-thinking masses. It is a badge of honor for the University of Chicago that there is someone like Evita brave enough to uphold the principles of the University with so many others willing to tear down the great reputation of such a distinguished institution.
So thankful you and your critical thinking skills are around UChicago! I pray you reach more young minds. What a shame to throw away freedom that others have fought and died for. I pray more eyes are opened with The Chicago Thinker. God Bless!
Why this fear that today’s oppressed students will become tomorrow’s oppressors? I find the opposite to be true. I was a teenager during the Vietnam War. Every day I came home to the news that another dozen GI’s were killed. After the war, I didn’t grow up to be a war-monger — quite the opposite. These days I find that Zoomers are far too trusting of government. But that makes sense. They were still in diapers during 9/11 and the Iraq War. COVID-19 is their Vietnam. Zoomers will turn on their oppressors, and the pendulum will swing back to equilibrium again, just as it always does.
Why this fear that today’s oppressed students will become tomorrow’s oppressors? I find the opposite to be true. I was a teenager during the Vietnam War. Every day I came home to the news that another dozen GI’s were killed. After the war, I didn’t grow up to be a war-monger — quite the opposite. These days I find that Zoomers are far too trusting of government. But that makes sense. They were still in diapers during 9/11 and the Iraq War. COVID-19 is their Vietnam. Zoomers will turn on their oppressors, and the pendulum will swing back to equilibrium again, just as it always does.
“They say they just have location services so that you can now see where the testing sites are,” said Hess skeptically, “but I don’t know if I fully believe that.”
Conspiracy theorist!
Maybe a little “mugging” like this is good training for life after all.
To The Chicago Thinkers… you may even find some common ground. Good luck to you in your efforts.
I hope you are successful in your efforts to encourage open conversations in college classrooms. However I caution the stance that one side is right and the other side is wrong. Each side has facts, as well as generalities to throw around. If the sides just get in their corners to throw jibes about the other sides hypocrisies you will get no where. If a defensive posture is always taken you will get no where. Be respectful and not overly critical of each other and you may just make this work! I sense you are quite angry about the situation. If you want to have meaningful conversations I suggest you have all sides calm down, respect each other, and
You make a lot of strong points in here, but you repeat the lie that the BLM protests last summer were equivalent to riots, and that politicians on the left did not criticize the violence. It is true that violence erupted after some of those protests. In some places, like Portland, violence occurred consistently for extended periods of time. But the vast majority of those protests stayed peaceful, and the few that spilled into violence were roundly condemned by politicians on the left.
One of my favorite things about UChicago was the free exchange of ideas, and I am glad that you all are committed to that. But you have to be clear on the difference between opinions and facts. We have to be able to agree on facts in order to determine where our opinions diverge. Don’t promulgate misinformation.
Love your initiative and definitely need everyone’s voice be heard and have healthy civil and fact based debates. But don’t let fearmongering division cloud the real reasons why you wrote this article. Nobody wants to wear a mask and everyone want to get back to normal. But because of the Orange Clown’s unpreparedness for a pandemic (pandemic plan was provided by the Obama administration carried over from the Bush admin), to his complete denial of coivd 19 (“It’ll disappear like a miracle”) while privately telling Woodward “This is serious stuff” (but didn’t want to panic the American people… more like the OC didn’t want the economy shut down on his watch), to the OC whining by May for every state to open their economies which completely contradicted his own administrations guidance of a 4 phase plan to reopen, to the OC actually making fun of “weak” people who wear masks, to his Operation Warp Speed, which was a great accomplishment yet the OCs complete debacle of a distribution plan. Since August, the Orange Clown lone focus was screaming about election fraud (to set the table for where we are at now with complete bogus and embarrassing election cries of fraud). If the OC would have actually cared about eradicating covid (which is the key to opening the economy) and actually supported his own administrations policies, he would still be President. Instead, we get to see more embarrassment from the OC as he screams at CPAC this weekend of how the election was stolen from him. Maybe he can incite another riot on Capital.