Thursday, January 7, 2021

Storming the Capitol

Donald Trump has become the best friend his enemies could have imagined. He might believe that he is following his gut, but his recent actions seem to be following the script his enemies wrote.

After contributing mightily to the Republican double defeat in the Georgia senate elections, Trump chose yesterday to incite an insurrection. For those who had declared Trump to be an autocrat, it was Heaven sent. 


After hearing him exhort them to reject the election results, Trump’s most fervent supporters stormed the United States Capital. Legislators were running for their lives. Trump’s enemies could barely contain their glee. The caricature they had spent years creating had come to life. Trump had proven them right.


If he had acted with decorum, he would have made them appear to be deranged. He chose not to do so. 


The result, the considerable successes he had had during his presidency-- think the Middle East-- will be drowned out by the din of those who have consistently believed him to be unfit for office.


By what logic he could have decided to lend credence to his enemies, I do not know. But, do it he did, and he and the Republican Party will be paying for this for a long time.


Miranda Devine explained the stakes in The New York Post:


The storming of the US Capitol yesterday by a group of fired-up Trump supporters was a tragedy for the Republican party, for conservatives and populist nationalists, and for Donald Trump and his legacy.


It has bestowed the great gift of the moral high ground on the most undeserving people in the world: Joe Biden and the left.


They now have a free pass to persecute their ideological enemies while enacting their pet cultural Marxist projects and changing this country irrevocably for the worst.


They will be unimpeded by a Senate now in Democratic control, thanks to Tuesday’s Georgia runoff debacle.


For Georgia, we can blame Trump’s irrational efforts to overturn the November election result, and a clueless GOP establishment which offered Peach State voters two candidates so cartoonishly wrong for the times they may as well have begged the MAGA base to stay home. A guy who made his money outsourcing jobs to China, and a wealthy elitist with a fake southern accent.


Of course, the American left ran its own nationwide insurrection for months this past year. It continued unimpeded by politicians, by local law enforcement and by the mainstream media. 


So, Trump and his supporters must have decided that the Democratic strategy worked-- so why not try it ourselves. True enough, the people who refused to condemn the summer insurrection have been quick to defame the Trump supporters who stormed the capital yesterday. And yet, the two actions are not comparable. 


At the least, the leftists who incited the summer rioting were smart enough not to stand up and declare themselves the leaders of the movement. A leaderless mob looks more like a spontaneous outburst. It allows for deniability.


If Trump supporters, faced with his unwillingness to place himself as the leader of the march, had rioted, it would have been one thing. When Trump held yet another rally, in Washington, to incite the rioters, he was taking ownership of the events.


He made a similar mistake when he held a series of incoherent press briefings about the coronavirus epidemic. Surely, he wanted to appear to be leading the fight against the virus. Surely, he imagined that if the pandemic had waned he would garner the credit. Unfortunately, the virus had other ideas, and besides, when Trump attempted to offer information about the virus, he exposed his inability to understand the situation.


Since Trump was a political amateur, he should not have presented himself as a conquering hero. Since he was a science amateur he should not have pretended to be able to lead the fight against the virus. He might have thought that he was a great communicator, but clearly he was not. 


He was not the first great leader brought down by his own hubris.


Yet, the summer insurrection was not of a piece with what we saw yesterday.


For one simple reason-- the United States Capitol building is a sacred space. It represents the nation, in ways that civic buildings in Portland and Minneapolis do not. 


If you have been running a campaign to restore American patriotism, if your political career is based on restoring national pride after the Obama administration sundered it, you should certainly not attack the greatest architectural instance of it. A minimum of intelligence would have warned you off.


True enough, as you will be thinking, the armies of the American left spent the summer destroying national monuments, destroying the statues of patriots, attacking police officers and forcing American schoolchildren to absorb unpatriotic beliefs.


And yet, the United States Capital building is of another order of magnitude. In attacking it, Trump supporters gave the patriotism issue back to the Democrats.


Michael Goodwin wrote in the New York Post:


The shocking scenes in and outside the Capitol complex were not displays of too-zealous patriotism. They were unpatriotic and unAmerican.


No matter how upset the protestors were over the election, there can be no excuse for violence and forcible trespassing into government offices, including the House and Senate chambers. What started as a legitimate expression of widespread discontent devolved into a riotous mob that destroyed any credible grievance it had.


It was a bad day for America.

15 comments:

Lowghost said...

"The caricature they had spent years creating had come to life. Trump had proven them right."

Sure, you can say the left created a caricature, ex nihilo, and it came to life yesterday.

You could also say the caricature wasn't for nothing and that it wasn't created out of nothing.

Trump isn't the only member of GOP lending credence to his enemies.

Since you didn't mention it I'm assuming you don't know that the newly sworn-in Republican U.S. Rep. Mary Miller invoked Hitler in her speech to the magamob shortly before they stormed the capital.

Fredrick said...

"...the United States Capitol building is a sacred space. "

Was it sacred when armed Black Panthers entered the building in 1967?

Stuart Schneiderman said...

Yes, of course....

Ares Olympus said...

This is it: "When Trump held yet another rally, in Washington, to incite the rioters, he was taking ownership of the events."

Even 2 hours after the forced entry to the capitol building, he lamely said at 3:17pm in a Twitter-banned video "The election was rigged" but "Go home"(?!), after telling everyone to come to DC on January 6 to try to use mob rule to block the count. Those bold souls were doing exactly what he asked them to do. Apparently one of the patriots brought big zip-ties for handcuffs, aspiring to detain everyone in congress under a citizen's arrest!

The biggest mystery to me why there was no extra security at the capitol. I'd almost believe conspiracy, like Pearl Harbor, breaking the Japanese codes (or reading public social media conversations), the powers-that-be decided that having the capitol space invaded and trashed would get funding for updated bullet proof glass and barriers that a sturdy grandmother with a flag pole butt can't break, which will be convenient to the next dictator when there is a real fraudulent election.

Maybe evacuating congress was an overreaction, but given the security breach who knows what weapons or explosives could have been carried inside. Anyway, Trump walked right into this "trap", and now he is done, except in the eyes of his fanatics who must believe the invaders were antifa acting like patriots trying to stop a rigged election against Trump.

Many are saying it time for the 25th amendment or a quick impeachment vote. If this stupidity isn't grounds, I don't know what is.

p.s. "Storming the Capital" or "Storming the Capitol"?

trigger warning said...

"For Georgia, we can blame Trump’s irrational efforts..."

Piss off, Miranda. People can, and frequently do, assign blame in an effort to support their own narratives, and it was Ms Miranda Devine who claimed that Australian conservatives were to "blame" for the Australian bushfires, and that bike sharing is a terrorist threat. Establishing causation is just a little bit more complicated than gabbling about one's own word theory, girl. But some people never tire of invoking that hoary old political Philosopher's Stone: "if they had only done it my way". Yeah, yeah, yeah. Still hearing it about the Soviet economy.

But learning that the Congress of the United States ran into the Capitol tunnels like frightened children was illuminating, the ray of light breaking through lowering clouds. Geez, what happened to "shelter in place"? My theory is that had Mike Pence faced his most ardent supporters like a man and appealed for calm, he would have gotten it. But no! Then, adding insult to injury, "brave" Congressional Republicans, once rescued from their panty-wetting fear of their constituents, reversed position on objecting to the electors... obviously to punish those constituents. Otherwise, explain to me why objecting to the electors was "the right thing to do" before the Capitol melee, and wrong afterward. My opinion: their "principled" objections were nothing but vote-twerking and now they want to punish their constituents for the crime of being bad boys and girls, exactly like the left-wing gubernatorial coven that includes Cuomo, Newsom, and Whitmer.

Donald Trump certainly has an abrasive personality, but he has also been persecuted by both parties, the fourth estate, and social media oligarchs to a degree unprecedented in American history and still managed to deliver. I still await the Daniels/Avenatti DVD promised by those grifters and [ahem] trumpeted by CNN, MSNBC, et al.

"Not showing up to riot is a failed conservative policy"
--- Kate MacMillan

Hand-wringing calls for sober consideration of facts, reason, and courtesy will have precisely the same beneficial effects in the future it has always had when dealing with the Left in the past. Get used to it. Adapt.

Lowghost said...

Storming the Capitol.

Anonymous said...

Stuart, you are missing the point. Trump rallies are the only way half of the American people can be heard.
The Democrats have been encouraging violence and practicing censorship against President Trump, his supporters and civil society since the 2016 election. They rioted in DC during his inauguration. The media calls leftist violence peaceful demonstrations. Rep. Republican Steve Scalise was shot and almost killed in a congressional softball game. Sen. Rand Paul was severely injured by his leftist neighbor and the left applauded his attacker. Countless individual Trump supporters have been harassed and beaten up.
Whole cities have been destroyed with the rioters encouraged and bailed out by Democrat leaders.
The judicial and legislative branches have let down the American voters. Censorship has silenced the American people. Covid lockdowns are destroying many.
Do you really believe that there would be no push back?
Antifa instigators led many into a trap and security was suspiciously absent.
Of course what happened yesterday was terrible but civil society crumbles under these oppressive conditions.


Add

Boggs said...


Oh, and in addition to the Daniels/Avenatti claims, the Congressional testimony of Robert Mueller deserves mention; it's the clearest example of "a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury", since The Bard bit the dust.

Anonymous said...

Franky, those of us who voted for Trump (78 million) are fed up with the Washington establishment. No more double standards, no more BS. I am sick and tired of being denigrated because of my race, my values, my religion. This is not over.

Anonymous said...

The bad day for America was November 3 when the presidential election was stolen. Our elections no longer mean anything. Half the country has been disenfranchised for good. Storming the capitol is the least of our problems.

Ares Olympus said...

It's very good of the proud seditionists to kindly comment on this blog.

We should have expected this from social media algorithms that amplifies the most extreme voices and categorizes people by their likes, so if facebook (and youtube) marks you as "right-wing" and "fanatic", their human-free algorithms will connect you to your tribe until you're all in. One old friend (a member of Mensa for smart people) shared some of the videos in recent week, but they don't make much sense to me because I'm not as gifted in intuition to see the obvious patterns.

I saw Trump was blocked from twitter for 12 hours (still quiet today), while a copy was saved of his last unrepentant melodramatic but now hidden tweet. Trump has no regrets for Wednesday's mob behavior. It's just what happens when other people try to cheat him. He doesn't see a sacred capitol space, but a sacred landslide election that was desecrated with fraud against him.
----
These are the things and events that happen when a sacred landslide election victory is so unceremoniously & viciously stripped away from great patriots who have been badly & unfairly treated for so long. Go home with love & in peace. Remember this day forever!
5:01pm Jan 6, 2021
---

We should assume nothing bad will happen if 60 million Americans remember and ruminate over this massive fraud for the next 4 years and chat among themselves and reinvent themselves for their next anointed leader who will be a more strategic thinker. Ted Cruz seems to have put in his application, if only he was more likeable!

jmod46 said...

I voted for Trump twice, primarily because he espoused sound policies and he wasn't a deranged progressive. But I am really disappointed he couldn't manage to act either strategically or tactically when it counted most. He had the opportunity to become the most influential ex-President ever but threw that away when he couldn't overcome his emotions and fell into what almost appears to be a political trap hatched by progressives. I understand the frustrations he encountered, but there comes a time when discretion is the better part of valor. Staying alive to fight another day would have been a good choice, but he rejected that, and now the progs have an open field to run.

n.n said...

Over half a million people assembled to support audit the vote in several jurisdictions with reported irregular processes. Several hundred people, perhaps, who may or may not have been "Trump supporters", entered the capital.

Trump wants to audit the vote in several jurisdictions where irregular processes were reported. The People (i.e. citizens) want to have standing and confidence in their nation. Democracy is aborted in darkness, behind a wall, under a veil of disinformation. You would think that WaPo et al would know better. #HateLovesAbortion #AshliBabbitt #RIP

n.n said...

The incitement to violence happened since candidate Trump's conception and progressed through his birth ("inauguration") and for more than 16 trimesters with Democrat-lead witch hunts, warlock trials, JournoListic braying, and protests and riots in cities, businesses, and neighborhoods with the intent to force people to kneel (e.g. diversity not limited to racism) and a consensus (e.g. fascist collusion).

Anonymous said...

How soon we all forget who the terrorists and anarchist are. All of you fair weather patriots will find out soon enough. It is actually over, Democracy is over. They stole the elections, not just the president but congressional elections too. NOW they will take your rights and your assets. AND that is only if they have time before the coming great depression they will unleash. Please, save all your quotes and proclamations and reread them in a year or two. It's been a good run but you will not see another Republican president in your lifetime.