Chuck Schumer called January 6, 2021 “A day of Infamy”. So did I with a post on Instagram a few hours before he did. Although it is not for me a mere mortal to measure which infamy was more deplorable, the infamy of 1941 did unite our country in solidarity to fight an enemy from beyond and not blemish our nation because the infamy and the enemy now come from within.
What should have been a routine day in an election season when Congress officially counts the electoral college votes, then votes to accept the results, formalizing the winner turned into an attempt to overthrow the government by a faction of people sent to do the enemy’s bidding. Just as the Japanese planned the attack on Pearl Harbor on that first infamous day so did the enemies of the nation on January 7: plan for the attack on the Capitol. They planned to disrupt the democratic process and stop the peaceful transfer of power.
When an errant child can’t take no for an answer and there are no parents to keep him in line but only more errant children to do his bidding then we are left with chaos. Sadly the child is our current president and his posse for that eventful day has a long list of perpetrators who have been enabling his worsening behavior but for the moment I will focus on the Stanford and Yale educated Senator Josh Hawley who announced he would object to the electoral college count and certification of electoral votes.
Why does this matter?
It matters for a number of reasons. Coups don’t happen in a bubble. The dictator needs help and in the hierarchy of enablers and foot soldiers there are the right wing extremists with pedigree degrees and there are the Neo Nazi hoodlums wearing T-shirts with the slogan 6MWE glaring loudly for the world to see and the KKK racists on motorcycles. Both are insidious and both are enabling Donald Trump.
It matters because this coup started long before yesterday. The diet of grievances and lies were a steady source of fuel and the only outcome that this president would accept was one where he was declared winner and king of the universe. Just one day before the attack Trump announced he would never concede,
“All of us here today do not want to see our election victory stolen by emboldened radical left Democrats which is what they are doing, and stolen by the fake news media. That’s what they’ve done and what they’re doing. We will never give up, we will never concede,” a defiant Trump told the crowd. “You never concede when there is theft involved.”
Yesterday was what we pray was the last ditch attempt at turning the United States of America into one of these pseudo democracies controlled by strongmen or worse an outright fascist state with no more elections. This was a coup attempt orchestrated by the American president, his white supremacist Nazi followers and his Republican Party enablers who for some reason or the other are so drunk with power and malignancy that they permanently reside in a world of illusion.
It matters because Trump tweeted on December 19 that there would be a big protest in Washington on January 6. “Be there, will be wild.” So was that the Save the Date?
It matters because the match was lit for yesterday’s shit show on December 30 when Josh Hawley announced on Twitter that he was going to object to the Electoral College certification. And for him to object he needed House support which he got from Mo Brooks (R), Alabama. And then in total 6 senators and 121 House members boarded the objection train on and by that infamous day.
Why was Hawley objecting?
“I cannot vote to certify the electoral college results on January 6 without raising the fact that some states, particularly Pennsylvania, failed to follow their own state election laws,” Hawley said in his Dec 30 tweet. He also alleged without providing evidence that megacorporation’s like Facebook and Twitter were interfering in the election in support of Biden. He felt justified in raising these objections because in 2004 and 2016 the Democrats raised and were praised when raising objections about election integrity.
I suppose Josh Hawley’s Twitter announcement was the invite to the save the date. A call to action of an insurgency of MAGA members incited by the president and fueled by his warlords to do the bidding of overthrowing the government or at the very least disrupting the certification of Joe Biden – kicking the stone down the street that much further hoping that they will win the day and make Trump king.
And then everyone gathered before hand at the “Save America Rally” on January 6, the final straw, the party bus, with Trump edging his mob on, with the final push,
“We’re going to walk down. Anyone you want, but I think right here, we’re going to walk down to the Capitol–
And we’re going to cheer on our brave senators and congressmen and women and we’re probably not going to be cheering so much for some of them.
Because you’ll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength and you have to be strong.”
Yes they were ready for that, too. The seditious foot soldiers who packed their backpacks, gas masks not covid masks, pipe bombs, donned Neo Nazi T-shirts emblazoned with the letters 6MWE and their Confederate flags also carried flags blaring the name Trump. Our president succeeded in having a flag donning his name carried in into the capitol building of the United States of America. As if carrying a Trump flag into the capitol, the people’s house, were his own personal Hiel Hitler. And the cherry on the cake before all hell broke loose is the fist bump gesture from hero Josh Hawley to the waiting mob earlier that day.
It matters because all this happened under the not so watchful eye of the capitol police who seemed to resist just enough but not so much and really how could they have let an angry mob breach the stairs let alone enter the building?
But, hey, they had to stop and take some selfies with the Neo Nazis once the security has been breached. Or was there something else at work, behind the scenes? Why would they not take an angry mob where 5 people ended up dead seriously? Why would they not take domestic terrorism seriously?
This was an angry mob of domestic terrorists who had the wherewithal to sneak in pipe bombs and a cooler with Molotov cocktails that were later recovered by Washington DC police. Inside the building capitol police fired pepper balls and smoke bombs but failed to turn the mob away. Watching it on television was surreal as the capitol was evacuated of lawmakers and Trump’s goons roamed the House floor: it had that eerie cartoonish quality like watching Bane take over Gotham in the Dark Knight Rises.
How could such a massive security failure take place so easily? How could a pack of low life confederate covid-spreading Nazis with MAGA hats take over what should be one of the most secured buildings in the nation with such arrogance, ease, and privilege?
And there in lies the answer. Privilege. The privilege of this group of terrorists being white. Plain ole’ white. Like white bread with no seeds or heterogeneity.
“Rep. Cori Bush said if the protesters who stormed the Capitol building were black, they “would have been shot.””
“It was white privilege, and it was the call of our president, and it was encouraged by our Republican colleagues,” Bush added.”
And that look is the reason the Capitol police were seen taking selfies with the “protesters” who are thugs and terrorists and not protesters. I
suspect if they were black or dressed as Hasidic Jews they would not be taking selfies. That is why they were lax in their authority when it came to the mob getting too close for comfort. The white face is familiar. Even if it is attached to an unruly code of dress and branded with tattoos of hate.
Perhaps, too, there is something else going on behind the scenes. They knew there was going to be a protest. Trump announced it. Were they told to stand down? Do they sympathize with the white faces of the mob and share the MAGA mindset? Why else would they not take an angry mob seriously where 5 people are now dead? Why would they not take domestic terrorism seriously? Because the mob was white. But not liberal white. Not Whole Foods white. White supremacist white. Conspiracy theory white. Jew hating White. Black hating White.
And, that’s the kind of white that won’t get a knee in the neck or a chokehold. It’s the same kind of white that stormed the Michigan statehouse in May of 2020 to protest the coronavirus lockdown. It’s that kind of white we need to fear as the countdown to inauguration day comes closer because with all the good faith efforts Congress is making to enact any 25th amendment and the removal of Trump from office how safe can we really feel when a desperate child says yes like this:
“Mr. Trump said in a statement tweeted by his social media director Dan Scavino, “Even though I totally disagree with the outcome of the election, and the facts bear me out, nevertheless there will be an orderly transition on January 20th”, or like this: “This was a fraudulent election, but we can’t play into the hands of these people,” Trump said in the video. “We have to have peace. So go home. We love you; you’re very special.”
“Our incredible journey is only just beginning”, were the last words in Donald Trump’s speech to his supporters after the mayhem he created on that infamous day as he started by expressing the outrage to the violence he himself incited and then shifting his focusing to insuring a seamless transition of power to the new administration.
And the journey did begin with his announcement on January 8 that he would not attend the inauguration (is that code for the coast is clear for more mayhem); his removal from Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube for fear of more violence,
“Twitter, Facebook and YouTube also removed a video posted by Trump in which he called on rioters to go home, but doubled down on his false claims that the election was stolen and told rioters he loved them.”
Then the chatter of a possible second attack on the capitol on January 17 by our very own homegrown terror organization comprised of those very special people who hang on every word of the would be dictator if not for our democracy that is hanging in the balance at this very moment.
Is there more to come. Is January 20, 2021 safe? This is an unfolding story.
Author: Sherry Margolin