Hey, what riot wouldn’t be improved by a tall skinny caramel macchiato? Last night, John wrote about the Antifa riot in Portland and mentioned that another in Seattle had just gotten underway. Those rioters ended up attacking the original Starbucks location in Seattle, damaging it and other businesses in their “celebration” of the new Joe Biden era.

Come for the violence, stay for the snappy and uplifting vocabulary, I guess (NSFW):

“F*** Trump, f*** Biden too, they don’t give a f*** about you” Protesters chant hours after today’s Inauguration in DC #Seattle #SeattleProtests #J20 pic.twitter.com/DWyzTBlnoE

— Brendan Gutenschwager (@BGOnTheScene) January 21, 2021

Antifa militants chanted “f—k” President Biden during a rampage through Seattle after the inauguration — and smashed up the historic location of the very first Starbucks.

Seattle cops made at least three arrests as at least 100 protesters scrawled graffiti, smashed windows and even set fire to an American flag, according to The Seattle Times.

Videos showed the mob chanting their allegiance to “Antifa,” and repeatedly decrying the election of a left-wing president, Biden. …

The destruction included the Starbucks on Pike Place, home of the java chain’s very first location, which opened on the street in 1971.

Police shared images of the store covered in police tape to protect from smashed windows. One of the three arrests Tuesday night was for burglary and property damage at the historic store, police said.

Brendan Gutenschwager captured quite a bit of the protest and violence in Seattle last night, including at Starbucks #1. It doesn’t look as though the rioters made entry into the store, but the damage was bad enough:

A Starbucks is broken into across from Pike Place Market in Seattle #SeattleProtests #J20 #Seattle #Antifa pic.twitter.com/EXY8eKucbW

— Brendan Gutenschwager (@BGOnTheScene) January 21, 2021

Starbucks isn’t just a casual example of collateral damage. The groups loosely known as Antifa these days have descended from the 1999 World Trade Organization rioters in Seattle, who caused days of unrest to demonstrate against globalization. Starbucks has always been a potent symbol of the radical left’s villains, and a frequent target of its rioters.

Starbucks wasn’t the only target. Police may have wondered whether the ghosts of CHAZ/CHOP would re-emerge:

Multiple windows shattered at the William Kenzo Nakamura Courthouse at 6th Ave and Spring Street. pic.twitter.com/uwtZAycyVT

— Seattle Police Dept. (@SeattlePD) January 21, 2021

The street violence didn’t just get limited to Seattle and Portland. Heavy’s Jessica McBride reports that Antifa and other radical left-wing groups organized similar protests and violence in other cities in the western US, such as Denver and Sacramento:

Violent antifa march to the Capitol building in Denver today. They see two street preachers and assault them: pic.twitter.com/74D3J1yuj0

— Rodrigo A.G.Matajurc (@RAGMatajurc) January 21, 2021

According to CPR News, there were also peaceful protests on Inauguration Day in Denver. “Around a hundred demonstrators from the Black Lives Matters movement and other progressive and organizations on the left rallied at the state capitol,” the site wrote, adding that they spoke about regaining political power.

However, according to CPR, another group of several dozen people identified as anti-fascists, dressed in black and carried the Communist flag. They “chanted anti-Trump and anti-Biden slogans,” the site reported, adding that they burned both American and Trump flags. They also “got into confrontations with a local freelance photojournalist and with an anti-abortion preacher from Kansas,” reported CPR, adding that a single Trump fan also showed up at the Capitol on Inauguration Day.

The irony of angry mobs bullying bystanders while screaming about opposing “fascists” will apparently never get absorbed by either the protesters or the media covering them. In the Denver clip, at least one of the leaders/instigators in the mob even references the Capitol rioters as the reason for their march, shortly before descending on two pro-life preachers who had remained stationary to shut them down and chase them off. Way to fight fascism, fellas!

This is why our founders created small-R republican governing institutions — because they mistrusted mob rule. We unfortunately have a ring-side seat to demonstrations of their wisdom by mobs forming from both ends of the political spectrum. This should remind conservatives of the need to conserve those institutions rather than dispense with them when inconvenient to our own desire for power.

Update: Jeff Dunetz wonders where the media is on all of this Inauguration Day violence:

The leftist media has spent the last two weeks warning of Inauguration Day riots in state capitols and for a change they were correct—partially. The violence came from the LEFT, not the right as they predicted. There was Antifa violence in Portland and Seattle. In Portland Antifa even attacked the DNC office (after attacking the police). …

The Democrats and their MSM sycophants still refuse to admit that much of violence in America during the past year has come from their side of the political aisle.