On Thursday, nearly 500 protesters clashed with police in Hamburg, Germany, ahead of Friday’s annual G20 summit where President Trump is set to meet face-to-face with Russian President Vladimir Putin for the first time. Riot police were forced to deploy water cannons as left-wing protesters used crude objects to destroy property and create chaos.
This isn’t the first time the G20 summit has seen violence and mayhem. Nearly every year, leftists and anarchists from across Europe gather together to protest what they see as an event designed to promote the political elite’s self-interest in free trade, globalization, and capitalism. This year is no different.
Leftists once again have directed their ire against G20 leaders, including Western politicians and representatives from central banks. Protests will likely continue through the weekend as protesters express their anger and angst by indulging in vandalism and violence.
Predictably, the leftist activists do not appear to have a coherent, let alone unified, message. Activists are airing their grievances about everything from climate change to capitalism.
“Tens of thousands of protesters are expected to march in the city this week against globalization and what they say is corporate greed and a failure to tackle climate change,” notes Reuters. “German authorities believe around 8,000 demonstrators were prepared to use violence, the interior minister said on Tuesday. Some 20,000 police officers will be deployed.”
Like their counterparts across the Atlantic, European leftist activists often promote violence and reap chaos through time-tested tactics such as black bloc assaults which feature thousands of black-clad and masked self-professed anarchists destroying everything in sight with hockey sticks, baseball bats, metal poles, trash cans, and virtually anything they can get their hands on.
The tactic was popularized by leftist rioters during the 1999 World Trade Organization protests in Seattle. Since then, it has been deployed by an eclectic blend of leftists at both college campuses and international summits in an effort to terrorize those who promulgate problematic points of view, including capitalism, patriarchy, and alleged racism.