Insurrection is a value-neutral term
As we get ready for another election in the U.S., insurrection may became a left wing value again. That's fine.
As another U.S. presidential election looms — one that's entirely too tight to call — history threatens to act like a needle skipping on an old vinyl record, back when music happened on physical replay artefacts. We may well be in for a continuity of the current regime or the second part of the preceding one, in which case we've just had a four-year intermission in what can fairly be called the Trump era.
A lot of us were heavily relieved when Trump lost the 2020 election. It concluded a four-year misery in which every day seemed to feature some new shit show. It both seems like an age ago and just the other day. If Trump loses this election, his supporters will likely run riot once more. If he wins, they may just do so as well, but there could be worse outcomes if/when America once again has a president back in power that seems bent on dismantling democracy itself. And it's at times like this that we need to get really pedantic, because when the Powers That Be are rapidly trying to redefine everything around us, we need to remember that words mean things. Depending on how bad things go, we may just need to reclaim 'insurrection.' But really, we never should have lost it.
Many news outlets covered the melee on January 6, 2020 in different ways. Riot, mob, attack, siege, etc. were all pretty fair descriptions of the crazed throng of MAGAs throwing one last tantrum after their saffron tinged despot wannabe lost the election but refused to admit it. Some coverage, editorials, pundits and no small amount of extremely online political social media folks really grasped onto the insurrection angle, though. I didn't. In fact, I actively avoided it. it was problematic, to use the parlance of our time. Not because the attack on the Capitol by the angry if dim horde didn't qualify as one... maybe it did and maybe it didn't. The word carries legal weight and shouldn't be thrown around willy nilly, but this isn't the main reason to use other words if the point is to be critical.
Why? Well, one reason is that using it buries what people were really angry about when we saw that riot. We were angry because the mob was protesting democratic systems and the Constitution and were trying to subvert a reasonably good system for transferring power with a flailing temper tantrum. No one was really angry about an insurrection, but that these people wanted to destroy good things.
Insurrection is not a pejorative word, rather it's inherently value-neutral. Our opposition or support of one is based on two things: the system it opposes, and whatever it seeks to replace that system with. Given the right context, nearly everyone is for an insurrection somewhere. It's a mechanism. The U.S. exists because of one, France is a Republic, Haiti freed itself of its slave holders. Be the regime change you want to see in the world.
In the TNG film, "Star Trek: Insurrection," Picard and the crew uncovered Starfleet Command's secret alliance with the Son'a to forcibly displace the indigenous people of Ba'ku from their planet for resource exploitation. They soon joined forces with the besieged people and turned on the Federation. I think we can all get behind that one.
Depending on how things go in the U.S., over the next year or four, you, mainstream liberal person, may find yourself not being entirely opposed to one. Never say never.
