Itâs 21 years since the attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. As Michael de Adder says:
Twenty one years on, America is more at war with itself than with any foreign terrorists, despite having troops deployed in 80 countries. Our society and our democracy are threatened from within in a way that Osama bin Laden could never have managed. And where are we today? Cartoonist Mike Luckovich has a thought:
If ever so briefly after that fateful day. Today we face threats that might end our democracy:
Weâve nearly lost our social cohesion
We arenât dealing with income inequality
Weâre seeing racism grow
We see clear threats to the right to vote, or whether our votes will even count if we cast them
In these 21 years, Republicans have moved from being the Party of national security to the Party of grievance and anger. As Elliot Ackerman wrote last year in Foreign Affairs:
âFrom Caesarâs Rome to Napoleonâs France, history shows that when a republic couples a large standing military with dysfunctional domestic politics, democracy doesnât last long. The US today meets both conditions.â
MAGA asks the wrong question:
When you have no policies, this is what you get:
Letâs close today with a song by Mary Chapin Carpenter that she wrote back on the first anniversary of 9/11. Carpenter was inspired by an interview with Jim Horch, an ironworker who was among the early responders at the WTC site. Hereâs part of what Horch said:
âMy responsibility at the site was to try to remove big pieces of steel. The building fell so hard there wasnât even concrete. It was dustâŠ.I started to feel the presence of spiritsâŠnot very long after I was there. The energy that was there was absolutely incredible andâŠit was more than just the people that I was working withâŠit was energy left behindâŠ.One day when I was working, I felt this energy and it felt lost and it wanted to go home but it didnât know how to go home and it came to me to go to Grand Central Station. When I got off the subway, I walked into the Great Room. Into where the constellation is in the ceiling. And I walked around the perimeter andâŠout of the building. I didnât feel the energy anymore. I could feel it leave.â
And hereâs Carpenterâs âGrand Central Stationâ:
We are 100 days away from the midterms. Thatâs usually a blink of an eye in political time. But it can also be an eternity in politics under the right circumstances. And in this year of all years, nothing can be assumed. The Jan. 6 drip of negative information about Trump and his Republican henchmen, and the looming revolution that the judicial overturning of Roe has caused, might mean that anything is possible.
For more than a year, the news media have snowed us with their conventional wisdom about the mid-terms, insisting that the presidentâs Party will lose seats in Congress. But, Josh Marshall has thoughts about this (paywalled):
âNew Georgia Senate poll out this morning from The Atlanta Journal-Constitution: Warnock 46%, Walker 43%….Meanwhile, three new congressional generic polls have come out over the last 24 hours, two of which give the Democrats a six point advantage and one of which gives a 4 point margin. One of those 6 point margins is actually a Republican Party poll.â
Given the Republican advantage in Red states, six points may not insure that the Dems hold Congress. But we clearly shouldnât give up, because right now, the House isnât a lost cause.
Positive polling momentum brings with it both the energy and hope that a political turnaround is possible, even in 3+ months. Momentum is a thing in sports. Players and coaches usually cite momentum as a reason for victory in close contests. Maybe weâre seeing Biden and the Democrats building some political momentum.
Itâs also true that Republicans arenât reading the national mood as well as they think they are.
Just hours after the Republicans worked with Dems to pass the Chips and Science Act (CHIPS) which includes $52 billion in subsidies for chipmakers building new foundries in the US, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer announced a deal to revive big portions of the Build Back Better (BBB) bill.
Sen. Manchin (D-WVA) had walked away from negotiations with Schumer on a scaled-down BBB tax bill that could only pass via Reconciliation two weeks ago. Then Senate Minority Leader McConnell let his guard down, and allowed Republicans to vote for CHIPS, which was popular with Senate Republicans.
Apparently Schumer and Manchin waited until the CHIPS bill cleared the Senate before announcing agreement for an even more scaled-down BBB program now called the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), which has both significant funding for climate and a minimum corporate tax. It too will need to be passed by reconciliation, since it will have zero Republican support.
Schumerâs move caused a McConnell meltdown. Under orders from Mitch, Republicans got revenge by voting against a procedural vote to advance a bill that would expand health care access for military veterans who became ill after being exposed to toxic burn pits in Iraq and Afghanistan.
It was a near-legendary playing of McConnell by Schumer and Manchin. And it infuriated McConnell so much he took the bill to give medical care to dying veterans exposed to toxic burn pits hostage. It was a bill that Republicans had helped to pass overwhelmingly just a few weeks ago (it needed a technical fix). Blind sided veteran groups erupted in anger and indignation.
The GOP revealed itself to be, at least for now, incapable of making decisions that promote the common good. Their decision to turn against veterans was a grave miscalculation that will hopefully rouse a few million of the recalcitrant, alienated, apolitical 100 million Americans who typically decide not to vote in elections, to get straight to the polls.
This family-sized combo of a revival of the Biden agenda and angry Republicans making terrible choices on popular legislation may help the Dems in November.
Maybe a cosmic ray beam hit Washington and gave Schumer the Machiavellian cunning of a Republican and McConnell the guileless ways of a Democrat.
Had enough for this week? Wrongo certainly has. Letâs try to grab a few minutes and not think about the state of the world, or why Republicans insist on speaking like neo-Nazis. Itâs time for our Saturday Soother.
The drought in New England still has the upper hand. We have little need to cut our grass every week. Weâre watering a few specimen plants, but since our water source is a well, we must be careful.
Time to grab a mug of cold brew (or iced tea) and find a seat under a tree. Now watch and listen to Yo-Yo Ma perform âIn the Galeâ, which was shot outdoors in late spring. It is from The Birdsong Project, a community dedicated to the protection of bird life.
This performance includes many wild birds accompanying the cello:
Americaâs in a dark period, and itâs becoming increasingly difficult to see how we can come out of it.
Writing in Foreign Affairs, Steven Levitsky and Lucan Way say:
âThe Republican Party…has radicalized into an extremist, antidemocratic force that imperils the US constitutional order. The United States isnât headed toward Russian – or Hungarian-style autocracy…but something else: a period of protracted regime instability, marked by repeated constitutional crises, heightened political violence, and possibly, periods of authoritarian rule.â
They say weâre heading into a period of protracted instability. They arenât saying we face a civil war. Itâs more subtle: a future of intermittent armed conflict, something like âThe Troublesâ in Ireland.
Youâve probably seen the campaign ad by Missouri Republican Senate candidate Eric Greitens, where he struts into a home after some camo-clad associates have broken in, saying their purpose is âRINO huntingâ. After the team busts into the house, Greitens walks in through a cloud of smoke and says:
âJoin the MAGA crew. Get a RINO hunting permit. Thereâs no bagging limit, no tagging limit, and it doesnât expire until we save our country.â
Hunting down oneâs political enemies with guns hasnât been the American way, but it sure is becoming so now. Itâs only a matter of time before racial, sexuality and politically-based violence occurs at scale in America. The Brennan Center found that 17% of Americaâs local election officialshave been threatened during the 2020 election cycle. There’s a growing domestic terror threat to civil servants.
But it was only two weeks ago that Republicans found it easy to have moral clarity when authorities arrested a man and charged him with the attempted murder of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. The suspect turned himself in before anything happened. However, Republicans were outraged and questioned why Biden and other Democrats did not condemn what happened.
Candidates say outrageous things all the time in the heat of the moment and lately, hitting below the belt is often rewarded. But that is a far cry from a call to hunt down your political enemies in order to âsave the country.â
The GOP is normalizing violence, and it became clear after the Republican response to J6. From Robert Hubbell:
âThe Republican National Committee described the events of January 6th as âlegitimate political discourse.â Georgia Rep. Andrew Clyde said that video of the attack on the Capitol looked like âa normal tourist visit.â Mike Pence, whom rioters wanted to hang, said on Monday that Democrats were using the January 6th hearings âto distract attention.ââ
Republicans try pretending that they have no idea whatâs happening (âI havenât seen the ad, so I cannot commentâ). But the right thing is to take the risk that someone will yell at them on Facebook and Twitter and condemn it by saying loud and clear, âThis isnât the way for a candidate to conduct himself.â
Unless Republicans change their act, the normalization of violence will move toward its logical conclusion â election officials and politicians will be wounded or killed by someone who believes that violence is a legitimate political tool.
GOP candidates are posting ads about killing us in our homes. The Texas state GOP party wrote a campaign platform calling for the repeal the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and seceding from the US, while saying that gay people should get back in the closet. They passed a resolution declaring that Biden’s election was illegitimate.
This is the platform of the governing party of the nationâs second largest state, and no non-Texas Republican has complained.
Pundits keep saying that Democrats have no chance in the 2022 mid-terms because of Bidenâs low approval ratings. Wrongo has repeatedly said that there are âpersuadableâ voters who can be reached before the Fall. Proof of that is in the 6-point increase in public support for indicting Trump since the start of the J6 hearings.
If pundits argue that Bidenâs unpopularity will affect the 2022 races despite Bidenâs absence from the ballot, they must also agree that other issues not on the ballotâ the J6 conspiracy, the Supreme Court abortion decision, Texas secession, and yes inflation, will also affect the 2022 races.
The 2022 election (not the 2024) will determine our future. Will people vote this Fall based on the price of gas? Or the threat of a recession? Or, will they understand that thereâs a real possibility that democracy as we know it in the US could vanish?
Democracy is whatâs on the ballot in 2022. Inflation comes and goes. Recessions come and go. If we lose our democracy, it wonât be returning any time soon.
Americans understand democracy. Theyâve fought and died for it. Dems can make voters see that democracy is on the ballot this year, while inflation and other issues sadly need to take a back seat.
Let’s not make the mistake of selling Americans short. Democracy is more important than our pocketbooks. People will vote for democracy.
The slogan should be âVote Democratic And Save Democracyâ.
Sandhill Cranes, Monte Vista National Wildlife Refuge, CO – February 2022 photo by Rick Dunnahoo
Most of us had few expectations that the organizers of the Jan. 6 insurrection would face any legal consequences. Indeed, weâve had almost zero confidence that the truth about what led up to that day would ever be known.
âJoshua James, one of the 11 Oath Keepers militia affiliates indicted earlier this year on a charge of seditious conspiracy alongside the groupâs founder, Stewart Rhodes, on Wednesday became the first person to plead guilty to the sedition-related charge in connection with the storming of the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.â
James admitted that he tried to disrupt the peaceful transfer of presidential power and that Oath Keepers leader Stewart Rhodes had a âplanâ for accomplishing that disruption. The plea deal statement describes planning that occurred in November 2020 in the DC area and VA:
âOn November 14 and 15, 2020, James met with Rhodes and others in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area and at Caldwellâs Virginia farmhouse and learned about the start of their plans to oppose by force the lawful transfer of presidential power.â
The November planning meetings are important, because they suggest broader coordination with âothersâ at the Jan. 6 March. Perhaps the most interesting detail of the statement describes a plan to report to White House grounds and secure the perimeter:
âIn the weeks leading up to January 6, 2021, Rhodes instructed James and other co-conspirators to be prepared, if called upon, to report to the White House grounds to secure the perimeter and use lethal force if necessary against anyone who tried to remove President Trump from the White House, including the National Guard or other government actors who might be sent to remove President Trump as a result of the Presidential Election.â
This begs the question of who is suicidal enough to plan to meet as an armed group at the White House grounds, unless they believed they were invited there and cleared for entry by Trump. Absent that, they should have expected to be arrested or shot on sight.
Weâre looking at a plea of seditious conspiracy. From the WaPo:
âFederal law defines seditious conspiracy as two or more people who âconspire to overthrow, put down, or to destroy by force the Government of the United States,â or act âby force to prevent, hinder, or delay the execution of any law of the United States.â
This means we can now legally describe Jan. 6 as a conspiracy to commit sedition. For those among us who were wondering what Merrick Garlandâs DOJ has been doing for the last year, itâs this: January 6 was officially a sedition, at least for Joshua James.
That says things are getting very interesting, particularly when we add to it this from the WaPo:
âThe House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol said on Wednesday that there was enough evidence to conclude that former President Donald J. Trump and some of his allies might have conspired to commit fraud and obstruction by misleading Americans about the outcome of the 2020 election and attempting to overturn the result.â
In a court filing in a civil case in California, the Committeeâs lawyers said they had accumulated evidence demonstrating that Trump, the conservative lawyer John Eastman, and others could potentially be charged with criminal violations including obstructing an official proceeding of Congress and conspiracy to defraud the American people by illegally obstructing the counting of Electoral College ballots.
The Committee made the statement in a court filing to force Trumpâs lawyer, John Eastman, to turn over documents to the Committee. Eastman is the attorney who advised Trump that Vice President Mike Pence could reject the electoral ballots.
The Committee also released an email written in the middle of the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol, to Eastman from Greg Jacob, a Pence advisor:
When you read the email above, donât gloss over this sentence: âI share your concerns about what the Democrats will do once in power.â That shows he is a hard-right partisan. But he closes with the big point:
â…thanks to your bullshit, we are now under siegeâ.
Short-term, despite the way the media is breathlessly talking about the Select Committee’s court filing, the Joshua James guilty plea is more interesting.
He connects the dots with the Oath Keepersâ leader, Stewart Rhodes. James was also in contact with Roger Stone, which begs the question of what Stone knew about their plans, or more troublingly, what Stone might have directed them to do.
Letâs not get too excited, but it seems that itâs now remotely possible that Trump, Roger Stone, and others will discover that in America, itâs true that no one is above the law.
Well, this was predictable. NPR reported that China’s ambassador to the US warned that the US could face a possible âmilitary conflictâ with China over Taiwan:
“If the Taiwanese authorities, emboldened by the US, keep going down the road for independence, it most likely will involve China and the United States, the two big countries, in a military conflict.”
It isnât a coincidence that China raises the specter of war while the US is focused on a possible threat by Russia in Ukraine. This week, 39 Chinese military aircraft flew near Taiwan, including two of China’s most advanced warplanes, their J-16D jets. Military analysts think that the J-16D has capacity to interfere with Taiwan’s defense radar systems and could make a huge difference in combat.
This is more evidence of how strategically fraught Americaâs legacy global policies are in a multi-polar world. Russia is threatening NATO and our Western allies, while simultaneously, China threatens our strategic position in Asia. We havenât fought a two-theater war in 77 years, and haven’t won a war since.
Itâs ironic that neither Taiwan nor Ukraine are formal mutual defense treaty partners with the US, yet US defense hawks think we should defend either or both. On to cartoons.
Surviving is difficult when you live in the wild:
Some voices on the Right support Russia:
Breyer retires, but opinions differ on who owns the right to replace him:
There seems very little Republicans can do to stop Biden from filling this seat, since thereâs no filibuster for Supreme Court nominees. That was taken away by Mitch McConnell, during the nomination of Neil Gorsuch.
Mitch looks for a loophole:
The never-ending Republican hissy fit:
Art Spiegelmanâs Pulitzer Prize winning book, âMAUSâ, is a memoir about the Holocaust. It was banned last week by a school board in Tennessee. In the book, the cats are the Germans while the mice are the Jews:
The Rittenhouse verdict is in. The jury has spoken, and in our system, regardless of who agrees or disagrees with it, it’s decided, and we move on.
Whether justice was done by a “not guilty on all counts” verdict is a question that can will never be fully answered, but he WAS found innocent, and there’s no appeal. That says more about us than it says about him. The problem isn’t our laws, either about gun ownership, or self-defense, although Wisconsin’s self-defense law could be better. Not so long ago, we had exactly the same laws and we lived in a (mostly) decent society that wasn’t armed to the teeth.
But we no longer live in that society now. We now live in an angry society where vigilantes are praised. The Republican Party has turned this little son of a bitch into a murderer and then, into their little pet hero.
Rittenhouse is a hero to the entire American Right Wing, which is represented politically by the Republican Party. Doubt that? Consider this tweet from Rep. Anthony Sabatini, Republican representing Floridaâs 7th Congressional district:
On to cartoons. The Rittenhouse trial checked all the boxes:
Wrongo heard a pundit on NPR say the Rittenhouse verdict was a win for Constitutional rights. Wrong! It had nothing to do with the Constitution:
Rep. Gosarâs murder tweet didnât even register with the elephant:
The difference between the Parties:
Bannon plans to make his taking of the 5th Amendment a long slimy road:
Itâs Saturday, so we have a lightning round of news you can use. First, the Daily Beast reports:
âA pickup truck parked at the US Capitol and bearing a Three Percenter militia sticker on the day of the Jan. 6 riot belongs to the husband of freshman Rep. Mary Miller of Illinois, who approvingly quoted Adolf Hitler a day earlier,â
The Three Percenters are a para-military group who wish to overthrow the US government. And before you ask, yes, Rep. Miller is a new Republican Congresscritter, who spoke at a pre-coup âMoms for Americaâ rally in front of the Capitol the day before the riot. She said:
âHitler was right on one thing: whoever has the youth has the future…”
Second, a new poll on Covid vaccine skepticism shows that since last fall, it has come way down for Blacks and Hispanics. Skepticism remains high among white Republicans. Nearly 60% of White Republicans will either not take the vaccine or are unsure:
One of the great challenges during the pandemic has been establishing public trust, particularly among racial minorities who have a long history of both exploitation and neglect by the medical establishment and the government.
The good news is that vaccine skepticism is falling substantially over the past few months. It now appears that the only barrier to achieving herd immunity is White Republicans.
Their skepticism about government involvement in health is part of a long trend among Republicans. In the 1960s, Reagan was against Medicare, and called any expansion âsocialized medicineâ. He refused to acknowledge the AIDS crisis. In the 1990s, Newt Gingrich blocked Clintonâs health care plan, although he was in favor of a similar program that was adopted by Mitt Romney as Governor of Massachusetts.
The Romney plan was the template for Obamacare, which all Republicans opposed, including Newt Gingrich, who was for it before he was against it.
It isnât just ideological resistance, itâs a bone-deep antipathy to any collective attempt to have high quality public health in America. Their antipathy toward health is beyond ideology, itâs pathology.
Finally, a few words about just how old and out of touch members of Congress have become. Demo Memo, a site Wrongo highly recommends, posted about the demographics of Congress. The bottom line is that the Baby-Boom generation dominates both the House of Representatives and the Senate.
âAccording to an analysis of the 117th Congress by Pew Research Center, Boomers account for a 53% percent majority of the House and for an even larger 68% percent of the Senate…â
House: number (and percent) of members of the 117th Congress by generation
Millennials: 31 (7%)
Gen Xers: 144 (33%)
Boomers: 230 (53%)
Silent: 27 (6%)
Senate: number (and percent) of members of the 117th Congress by generation
Millennials: 1 (1%)
Gen Xers: 20 (20%)
Boomers: 68 (68%)
Silent: 11 (11%)
The ages of the 117th Congress range from 25.5 years to 87.7 years. The median age of the House is 58.9. The median age of the Senate is 64.8. That may explain why Sen. John Thune (R-SD), can reminisce about working for $6/hour in a restaurant in 1978, as part of his objection to a $15/hr. wage.
A $6/hr. wage in 1978, adjusted for inflation, would equal $24.07/hr. in 2021. A person making $24.07 an hour, working 40 hours a week and 52 weeks a year would earn over $50,000 a year before taxes. And a person working the same hours and earning the proposed wage of $15/hr. would earn just over $31,200 a year before taxes.
A person working the same hours and earning the current national minimum wage of $7.25/hr. earns just over $15,080 a year, before taxes today.
Time to let go of the DC merry-go-round for a few minutes and enjoy a brief Saturday Soother. Itâs going to rain in Connecticut today, helping to melt some of the snow remaining on the ground. So, settle back and watch this stunning video from âPlaying for Changeâ who weâve featured a few times in the past. Here, Peter Gabriel is singing his song âBikoâ, that he wrote and performed in 1980.
For decades, domestic extremists have flaunted their ties to the US military, seeking to attach themselves both to the militaryâs credibility, and their tactical skills.
The January attack on the US Capitol showed us that the ties between US military members and the extreme right are deeper and more pervasive than we thought. Among the Capitol crowd were many military emblems: Some waved Marine Corps flags, many wore military gear, or specific unit patches signifying their time in service.
The AP found that at least 21 active-duty US Army and law enforcement personnel were present at the riot. We know that about 207 people have been arrested so far. The Military Times reported that 32 of the participants in the US Capitol coup had previously served in the military. If you want to get a current reading on the attitudes of the military to the Capitol coup, read the 640 comments on the article. Itâs chilling.
How big is the problem? Last year, the FBI told the Pentagon that it had opened criminal investigations that involved 143 current or former service members. Sixty-eight of those involved domestic extremism and the vast majority involved veterans, not active-duty troops. Importantly, the Defense Department has no central database for tracking the allegations or disciplinary actions related to extremism.
Also, military regulations allow service members to have extremist affiliations and use extremist rhetoric if a service member doesnât act upon them. In fact, the Pentagon reported in 2020 that only 21 service members had been disciplined or discharged over the previous five years for extremist activities. Itâs doubtful that reflects the true scope of the problem.
âDespite a low number of cases in absolute terms, individuals with extremist affiliations and military experience are a concern to US national security because of their proven ability to execute high-impact events….Access to service members with combat training and technical weapons expertise can also increase both the probability of success and the potency of planned violent attacks.â
Military leaders say tackling the problem is difficult because the Constitution protects freedom of speech, and the law prohibits criminalizing affiliations that are deemed fundamentally political in nature, rather than a threat to harm the public. New defense secretary, Gen. Lloyd Austin, vowed at his confirmation hearing in January to:
â…rid our ranks of racists and extremists, and to create a climate where everyone fit and willing has the opportunity to serve this country with dignity.â
And Pentagon spokesman John Kirby told reporters on Feb. 3:
âExtremism has risen to a top priority as the new secretary called in the service secretaries and Joint Chiefs of Staff…directing them to conduct a 60-day stand-down for leaders to speak with troops about the problem….â
Another concern is that 35 US Capitol Police officers are being investigated for their actions during the Capitol riot, and six have been suspended. In addition, the NYT reports that at least 30 police from around the country took part in the rally before the Capitol riot. Many are being investigated, and three have been arrested on federal charges related to breaching the Capitol.
The military appears to be less politically representative of society, with a long-term downward trend in the number of officers identifying as Democrats. Instead, identification with the Republican Party has become the norm. The junior officer corps, apart from its female and minority members, appears to be overwhelmingly hard-right Republican. And military personnel have for the past decade been voting in greater percentages than the general population.
In many ways, the military and civilian police seem to have, as Samuel Huntington wrote in 1957, “the outlook of an estranged minority.”
Time to wake up America! We canât bury our heads in the sand, hoping that the linkage between the military, our police, and groups like QAnon and the fringe of the GOP wonât grow stronger. We need to call out the problem whenever and wherever we see it.
To help you wake up, listen to the group Kiwi Jr.âs âMaid Marianâs Toastâ from their brand-new album âCooler Returnsâ:
Sample Lyric:
now you’ve got something we want
it’s the Twenties and you’ve got something we want
so youâve made the decision to make the decision
View of Torrance, CA from Palos Verdes, CA – January 2021 photo by Gary W. Stuart. A perfect reason to live in Palos Verdes, where Wrongo and Ms. Right lived for 10 years: Views of ocean and mountains on a rare crystal clear LA winter day. The San Gabriel Mountains in the background are ~35 miles away.
Weâve had a few bitter cold days on the snow-covered fields of Wrong. Friday morning, it was 6° with a 20+mph wind, making it a tough walk for the dog.
The emotional temperature is also icy in DC.  There is a growing rupture between Republicans who insist that the deadly Capitol riot was not the work of Trump supporters, and who insist on carrying concealed weapons onto the floor of the House, and Democrats who say they are afraid they’ll be harmed by those very same Republicans.
Since Republicans refuse to hold their colleagues accountable, some House Democrats have started refusing to work with some of their GOP counterparts, specifically those who favored the election sedition and who refuse to wear masks.
Rep. Cori Bush (D-MO) is moving her office away from the office of Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA). Greene and her staff are berating and harassing the Congresswoman and her staff because they wear masks. Bush said:
“I’m moving my office away from hers for my team’s safety,”
Three weeks after the attack on the Capitol, and two weeks after the disgraced president was impeached for the second time, the GOP is wallowing in a debate over impeachment, trutherism, and… Jewish space lasers?
Sen. Brian Schatz (D-HI), sums up THE issue of 2021:
There were plenty of jokes made about the space lasers, but one thing that isnât a joke is the palpable fear by Democrats who have to deal with this lunacy every day. We learned that the new acting head of the Capitol Police wants a wall around the Capitol:
“Vast improvements to the physical security infrastructure must be made to include permanent fencing”
The acting head of the Capitol Police has no faith that we can satisfactorily explain to Republican-Americans that Biden was fairly elected. That his victory was reasonably large. That Trump and most of his enablers lied continually about the outcome of the election.
She thinks the only option is to put fences and razor wire around the Capitol to discourage people whose minds have been poisoned, from attacking it again. And our government may well follow her recommendation. We canât harden a free society. Whatever you fence off will be âsafeâ while other places are open to attack. As Jonathan Last says,
âThe fences and razor wire at the Capitol are the physical manifestation of the Republican lie. Every time you see them, remember Kevin McCarthy and Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley and Jim Jordan and Matt Gaetz and…the hundreds of elected Republicans across the country who created this lie.â
The tragedy of Trump is that words and deeds, no matter how reckless or disconnected from the truth, carry no political consequences.
Organizer Bree Newsome translated Republicans’ current attitude:
âSorry we tried to assassinate you & overthrow the election. We didnât expect it to fail & create this awkwardness between us. Let’s move forward & get back to normal with us blocking any legislation you introduce while we continue to feed a racist terrorist movement. Love, GOPâ
We live in disturbing times, but we must find ways to let go of the anger and fear, at least for a few moments on a Saturday. Outdoor activities are not recommended when the wind chill is below zero, so pick up that long read that youâve been putting off, settle into a comfy chair and get going!
To help get you started, brew up a vente cup of Dafis Abafita Natural Ethiopia ($21.50/12 oz.) from Topeka Kansasâ PT Coffee Roasting Co. The roaster says you can taste mulberry, cocoa nib, tangerine zest, and agave syrup in the cup. Sounds like that cup is doing a lot of work!
Now put on your Bluetooth headphones and listen to âBorn in the Right Countryâ by the group River Whyless, from the mean streets of Asheville, NC. This song is a powerful and elegantly drawn statement about racism in America. Itâs a must-watch:
Sample lyric:
I’ll tell you baby a secret
Manufactured truth is easy to sell
When you own the factory
And you own the hearts of the clientele
Look closely at the size of the crowd in the photo above, because our future may look a lot like that. The GOP has become two Parties, says Timothy Snyder in an excellent article in the NYT. He says that the Republican Party is now two coalitions of politicians and their supporters. One group wants to game the system, while the other wants to break the system.
What this portends for the immediate future, is chilling. The Breakers have moved on from the US Capitol to statehouses. Kentucky.com reported that dozens of heavily armed people gathered on Saturday outside the Kentucky Capitol building, demonstrating against socialism, communism, Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), and Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY), along with Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear:
âSeveral members of the Kentucky State Police looked on as members of the group, composed of people from self-described âmilitias,â made speeches interspersed with live performances of country songs. Some in the crowd held flags or wore hats supporting President Donald Trump.â
By Wrongoâs count, that makes 12 state capitols that have seen militia-style demonstrations since the attempted coup at the US Capitol. Weâve entered a period when mobs of angry individuals now feel sufficiently emboldened to just go and break any law they disagree with.
We know that the Republican Party is culpable: By defending Trumpâs big lie about a stolen election even after the Jan. 6 attempted coup, theyâve set a precedent: A Republican presidential candidate who loses an election should be appointed to the job anyway. For at least the Breaker branch of the Republican Party, they will operate in the future with two plans in mind: Plan A, to win the election. And Plan B, to lose, but then to win through force.
As with Ted Cruz and Josh Hawleyâs objections to the Electoral Votes of certain states, a finding of election fraud isnât necessary. Breaker Republicans will only need to hear allegations that there was fraud. More from Snyder: (emphasis by Wrongo)
âPost-truth is pre-fascism, and Trump has been our post-truth president. When we give up on truth, we concede power to those with the wealth and charisma to create spectacle in its place. Without agreement about some basic facts, citizens cannot form the civil society that would allow them to defend themselves. If we lose the institutions that produce facts that are pertinent to us, then we tend to wallow in attractive abstractions and fictions. Truth defends itself particularly poorly when there is not very much of it around…â
Snyder says that for the Republican Breaker faction to succeed, they need an angry minority, organized for nationwide violence, ready to add intimidation to an election. It is surprising just how close they are to having all of that in 2021. One more from Snyder:
âInformed observers inside and outside government agree that right-wing white supremacism is the greatest terrorist threat to the United States. Gun sales in 2020 hit an astonishing high. History shows that political violence follows when prominent leaders of major political parties openly embrace paranoia.â
How large is the cohort of Breakers? Wrongo hasnât seen any estimates. But, a YouGov Direct poll of 1,397 registered voters who knew about Wednesdayâs attempted coup found that 62% of voters perceived the mob action as a threat to democracy:
Democrats (93%) overwhelmingly see it this way.
Most Independents (55%) also agree.
68% of Republicans didnât think that mob violence to overturn an election was a threat to democracy.
One poll isnât dispositive, but since Trump got 70 million votes, and 68% of them seemingly condone overturning an election, weâre dealing with nearly 50 million people. Not all of them will take up arms against their government. But if organized, it would be a very large and well-dispersed militia. One that communicates instantly via social media.
There is much to say about the tension between our First Amendment rights, and the use potential coup plotters and their enablers make of social media. Trump was permanently banned from Twitter, while the hard right social platform Parler has lost access to the Apple store and to Amazonâs server platform.
Freedom of speech is essential to a democracy, but using Twitter, Facebook and the far-right platforms to lie, and to organize armed resistance to our government, brings with it the danger that our democracy could fall to angry, armed people who believe the big lie.
Time to wake up America! Weâve become a pre-coup nation. All of the necessary conditions are in place: vast inequality, growing poverty, a stabbed-in-the-back narrative that a large segment of Republican voters believe, along with the storyline that a right-wing President was the victim of voter fraud.
Remember that the majority of police and members of the military are sympathetic to the right, not to the left. A very smart, would-be dictator who understands the keys to power could work to either freeze the military, or gain their cooperation.
And the Breaker group has several of those smart, ruthless people.
