Whenever it appears that there is a sinister Machiavellian conspiracy to orchestrate events in order to achieve an evil outcome, I always have to remind myself that the elite are mostly not supergeniuses, just bumbling psychopaths with a hell of a lot of granted power. When it appears that they have manipulated events in just such a way as to trick their own enemies into carrying out their diabolical plan, I am doubly suspicious.

I don't think this is 11D chess. I think this is just the stupidity machine pooping out more surprises. I think the cops are guilty of collaborating, but I don't know who ordered that or what order, specifically, was given - or if the police acted without orders because they thought it would be funny or give them job security or w/e. I'm willing to entertain bigger conspiracy theories here, but not without clear, damning evidence for their existence. If it turns out that someone uses this to push for draconian new laws, my first assumption is opportunism, not manipulation.

But what I would really watch for, is how hard they use this event to push for censorship of the private square and criminalizing protest, vs. how hard they use this event to call for investigations into police corruption and enforcement actions to prosecute collaborators and purge Nazi sympathizers from the police force. I predict there will be a whole hell of a lot of the first category, and almost none of the second.