Prediction: Next week's conflict

The violence isn't over.

 CNN:  "The FBI has received information indicating 'armed protests' are being planned at all 50 state capitols and the US Capitol in Washington, DC."

 

My instincts may be way wrong. I am out of touch with the people who could make this happen. My sense was that the vandalism at the Capitol backfired very, very badly. The rioters looked dangerous, but un-serious. They used the American and Trump flagpoles as weapons against police officers. They attacked people whose support they need: Republican officeholders. The intent was bad: Overthrow the government. The optics were bad for Trump: He looked like an incompetent dictator. It was the final straw for some Republicans.

So, since it hurt Trump and it was a setback for the stated purpose of keeping Trump in office, then surely people won't repeat the error. Right? Not necessarily. 

Many of Trump's strongest supporters have been convinced that Trump's supposed loss is proof positive that elections are corrupt. That means even Republican officeholders cannot be trusted, that corporations, the Deep State, the fake media, and the overall corruption of American values is so profound that the only appropriate response is to tear it all down. Break things. These angry people are the the ones that would show up at statehouse and the inauguration site to make trouble. These angry people exist and I sometimes hear from them directly. Pollster Frank Luntz talks with them in focus groups.

Luntz told Fox viewers that his research indicate that 95% of Republican voters would vote for Trump again today, even after the Capitol insurrection. He said a majority of Republicans blame the riots on Antifa and Blacks and Biden, not Trump. He said  a significant minority of people liked what they saw happen at the Capitol and sympathize with the rioters.  People who believed two weeks ago that Donald Trump had won a landslide victory, still believe it and still think the election was stolen from the rightful victor.

Those are the people the FBI says are ready to go to war against American institutions. State and federal governments are responding by calling up National Guard units.

Peter Coster and then-fiance, now wife

Peter Coster brings an up-close view of what it means to have National Guard troops on duty. He was an officer in a National Guard unit back during an earlier period of civil unrest, the time of Vietnam protests fifty years ago. 

National Guard troops are weekend soldiers, not people whose mindset and training reflect their day jobs and civilian life. Often they are in the National Guard because they dislike the martial orientation of the regular military. At times of civil unrest they are put into the most stressful, difficult policing situations. 

What could go wrong? A lot could, he says.

Peter Coster is a retired manager of a truck logistics company. He lives in Virginia and Florida.

Guest Post by Peter Coster

News reports say that the National Guard will be deployed around the Capitol and each soldier will be armed. That reminds me of Kent State, where four people died. It didn't have to happen.

I was an officer in the Massachusetts National Guard at that time. They called it the Yankee Division, which had fought in WWII. In 1969 our training was doubled from once a month to two. The second drill was for riot control training only. It was a time of unrest against the Vietnam War and protests were being held at college campuses all around the country.

Then Kent State happened. The protest at Kent State threatened the Administration building and the Guard was called in to protect it. The Ohio National Guard lined up troops in front of the building and gave everyone ammunition. As the crowd made up of mostly white college kids was yelling and screaming at the men, someone got nervous. So he pulled the trigger. Once one guy pulls the trigger, the other guys automatically start pulling theirs. It's a natural reaction.

But, the troops forgot their basic training. When a bullet is fired from an M1 or M14 rifle, it flies high first, then settles to the aiming point about 100 yards down range. So, the trainees were taught, if a target was around 25 yards or less from you, you aim at their feet to hit them in the chest. If you aim at their torso, the bullet will go over their head and you will miss. They forgot that. So, when they tried to fire into the crowd, their bullets hit people far away from the crowd, people who were not protesting. The unlucky four.

In Massachusetts we were taught differently. No one was allowed ammunition. The soldiers in the front line were armed with only bayonets, pointed at the crowd. Each guy would stand shoulder to shoulder with the guy next to him, each protecting the other. No one was getting through that line, unless they wanted a bayonet in the throat. There was also an officer behind the line who was armed with a .45 pistol and a sharpshooter standing next to him who could only use his weapon on orders from the officer. That kept everyone safe on both sides. College kids don't (or didn't) carry guns to protests. Lots of yelling and screaming for sure, but no violence. I thought Massachusetts did it the right way. If Ohio had done it that way, no one would have been killed. And the Administration building would have been safe, which was the point to begin with.

So now they're sending out the Guard again and, it looks like, fully armed. If the protesters show up armed as well and start pointing their weapons at the troops, someone is going to be shot. Probably several on both sides. It doesn't have to happen, but it will. Trump could easily tell people to stay home or peacefully protest. He won't. He loved every second of the 6th as it fed his ego. "Look what they're doing for me."

People will die.

Prediction: This is what will happen next week: Notice that I said will, not might. If an average of 1000 people protest in front of each Capital in 50 states, that's 50,000. Many of them will be armed and certainly dangerous. The Guard will be stationed in front of them, also armed, but just trying to keep people away from the building and its occupants. Everyone will be eyeing each other, just waiting for something to happen. The one thing I can assure you is this: Every one of those troops will be nervous. That's very dangerous, especially when ammo is involved. There will be a mob in front of them screaming and yelling and calling them names, maybe even throwing things. Every one of those soldiers will be on edge. It won't take much for a nervous trigger finger to be pulled. Once someone fires their weapon, no matter which side fires first, the other side will respond in kind. There will be a blood bath. Innocent people will die like they always do. In any war, more civilians are killed than combatants.

That is what I expect. Some young healthy people alive today won't make it past next Wednesday. And Trump will be pleased.

Ten-year prison for Capitol rioters

The Capitol is a crime scene.

The rioters in the Capitol may be guilty of trespassing, vandalism, attempted kidnapping, murder, and, of course, insurrection. 

They were gullible. They believed a demagogue. They were brainwashed.

Click: Executive Order

The penalty for destruction of federal monuments is ten years in prison, as President Trump proudly announced this summer. The crimes committed in the Capitol include destruction of property and more. The FBI says they have information that many people were plotting kidnapping and murder. People inside the Capitol considered it "war," the FBI said. They wanted to stop Congress from carrying out its duties. They wanted to overthrow an election.

These are crimes.

Some of the photos of the rioters show them in costumes.  Some may have had a "spring break" mentality, thinking a little taste of fun-loving threats by an angry crowd would knock some sense into the weak-willed Republicans who Trump said could save the republic. I am aware of prominent local citizens who travelled to DC to be part of this. Perhaps they thought they would be a witness to history, the overturning of an election. Perhaps they just wanted to show their support for Trump.

The Capital insurrection was a high crime made up of multiple small crimes. There were cameras everywhere, including those held by fellow attendees. Heads up to readers who were there on January 6. Facebook posts and text messages to friends don't really get deleted when a person clicks "delete." The phone company knows exactly where you were. The evidence is still there in servers, discoverable and recoverable by the FBI. It may contain evidence of a federal crime with your face and a timestamp.

The brainwash defense. People facing ten years in federal prison will want to raise a defense. Was it insanity? Were they brainwashed? 

 

Can it be simply that they believed people who lied to them? Can they say they didn't have the mental state of criminals and instead believed they were patriots, saving American democracy from a stolen election, acting at the command of the Commander in Chief? Could that be enough?  After all, their understanding of the world was shaped by what they learned from trusted and very public sources. They all had a consistent message that the election was stolen. Trump said that assertions to the contrary by election officials in the states and the federal government--even Republican ones appointed by Trump--were misinformed, or by co-conspirators in the fraud, or were made out of cowardice. 

How do we know what we know?  There is a monument in the Cambridge, Massachusetts "Common," a public park, which reports that it is the location where General George Washington met with the Massachusetts militiamen and took command of them, forming the Continental Army. Given the technology of that day, it is certain that few of those men had seen George Washington personally or had any basis for independent knowledge that the man in front of them was, in fact, Washington, or that his credentials to take charge were legitimate. They would have acted on "common knowledge" signals from other trusted people that this was all legitimate. Based on that trust and presumption, they put at risk their lives at the direction of this man.

No doubt many of the demonstrators and Capitol rioters were dead serious, earnest people, feeling assured that they were operating within  "reality." They have seen Trump in person in front of them right then, and on TV a thousand times. They had multiple confirmations that Trump was President, that Giuliani was his lawyer, that Don Junior and Eric were his sons, and that congressmen and senators agreed with Trump that the election was stolen. 

They heard what they heard. Trump said that a great crime was taking place. They were there to "stop the steal." It was a rally to "Save America." They were making things right.  A "stop the steal" organizer, Ali Alexander, said "These degenerates in the deep state are going to give us what we want, or we are going to shut this country down." Alexander achieved national prominence and had been invited to the White House after a tweet of his went viral. It said Kamala Harris was not a legitimate American Black because her father was from Jamaica. He got a photo opportunity with Trump. The people saying "stop the steal" were connected to top leadership. Presumably they knew something.

I posed a question to some of the lawyers who read this blog. How would they distinguish the behavior of the lawyers from this instance of my hypothetically taking direct action as a citizen?

Suppose I were driving on a country road and a person in a police uniform waved me down and told me there was an accident just ahead and he desperately needed me to stop traffic behind me to keep people from plowing into the accident scene. Suppose he asked me to wave down traffic and tell them to wait, perhaps at great inconvenience to them. I would do so. If, later, I learned that I was actually helping a robbery getaway car by causing a traffic jam, and that the "policeman" was a co-conspirator in the robbery, my defense would be that I thought I was helping out in an emergency, being a good citizen, under instructions from an authority. 

Would not that be the correct defense for the rioters--that the person they knew to be the Commander in Chief had told them, insistently, that this was an emergency and they were needed to do a citizen arrest to stop a catastrophe?

The events on January 6 make evident now that Donald Trump was trying to overthrow an election, and he nearly succeeded first with legislatures and local officials, then with Republicans in Congress. Then he incited an insurrection. He wanted to hold power by extra-Constitutional means. He sold the idea that there was justification for voideing the election. 

Militiamen on the ground in front of Washington and citizens in the audience in front of Trump would logically presume that the leaders have access to more information than they do. If Washington says that there are cannons at Fort Ticonderoga, then it is probably true. He might know. If Trump says the election had been stolen, then presumably he knows.

I do not excuse the rioters.They were criminally stupid, and people often pay a price for rash stupidity. I expect several hundred of them--maybe more--will spend a decade or more in prison for the crimes they committed. They believed a giant, self-serving lie by Donald Trump.

Punishment for being part of the Capitol insurrection will send the lesson of the hot stove: It is dangerous to believe authoritarian leaders. Fall for it and you may go to prison a long time. The politicians will escape prison, which is deeply unfair, but it is the inevitable way of the world. The people who lied are morally the more guilty, but they will pay only a political price, perhaps, but not a legal one. 

If rioters at the Capitol lose a decade or more of their lives in prison, their misery will not have been in vain. Their punishment will send a message of warning to Americans. Don't send bank information to a Nigerian prince. Don't exceed the speed limit going through small Southern towns.  Hard lessons for the incautious.

The rioters will have been patriots after all. They will have served their country by doing prison time, being a vivid warning to the public. They will show what happens to people who believe authoritarian demagogues. 

Republicans screwed up

They set some very bad precedents.

Loyalty to their president made Republicans abandon their own principles. 

They also abandoned their own self-interest.

Trump is my president

Trump made clear throughout his presidency, and especially in the two months after the November election, that he does not respect democratic process. He really, truly, wanted to overthrow the 2020 election. 

He made phone calls to multiple people urging them to ignore the vote and give the election to him, or to "find" votes, which would give him the win, or to ask Congress to ignore electoral votes cast for his opponent, and then his Vice President to rule "out of order" votes cast for his opponent, and as a final act, urged Proud Boys and other rough people to come to the Capitol and to "be strong" and demand Congress or the Vice President retain him in office.

He really did this. A significant number of Republican officeholders affirmatively went along with it, and most others were silently consenting to it. 

They were loyal to Trump. They weren't loyal to themselves.

Void state elections. A majority of House Republicans voted that Congress should void state elections for president, elections that happened under rules agreed to and adjudicated by the states, where Americans voted thinking the agreed-upon rules were in place and their vote mattered. The votes were counted, and Biden had more votes than Trump. Republicans objected anyway, after the fact. Reverse the election, they said. Republicans really did this. This denies the longstanding Republican respect for federalism and the notion of this country as a collection of states, and that people's votes matter. Republicans are on record. Republicans who were silent are on record, too. A precedent.

Expand Executive Power. A majority of House and Senate Republicans allowed Trump to ignore their power of the purse and significantly expand the power of the executive at the expense of Congress. He ignored legislation saying how money was to be spent, and spent it the way he wanted, not how Congress voted. Republicans went along. That sets a precedent of presidential power and Congressional weakness. 

Presidents can ignore Congressional oversight. Congress issued subpoenas to Trump and executive departments, and in the impeachment inquiry sought written answers to questions. Trump ignored them. Republicans consented. After all, it was Trump, their guy. Another precedent established. 

Government control of private companies. Republicans are objecting to the decision of Twitter to de-platform Trump and of Amazon and Apple to de-platform the Twitter competitor, the free-for-all Parler. Republicans are asserting this is censorship and a denial of free speech. Those companies are not the government. They are private enterprises, objecting to Trump and Trump-supporters using their services to incite violence on Twitter, and plotting and coordination of acts of violence against the government on Parler. This puts Republicans on record that they think that government can and should tell private companies how to run their businesses. Normally Republicans are on the other side of that, especially when it involves "freedom of expression." Republicans have asserted in the past that a Christian baker had the right to refuse to create gay-themed decorations for wedding cakes, but now they are telling Twitter they must tolerate people using their platforms to plot insurrection.  Another precedent.

Vote by mail. Republicans have echoed Trump in treating vote-by-mail as fraudulent. Traditionally Republicans have used mail-in voting as a get-out-the-vote technique. Trump's attacks on it may have been his margin of loss in the close state votes in Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, and Wisconsin because he discouraged an easy, convenient way for his supporters to vote. Following Trump's lead, Republicans are now on record generally in opposition to it. Oregon votes by mail, but Oregon's own Republican Secretary of State candidate did not defend her voting system. If there will be election reform, Republicans are stuck with their record of opposition to a voting system that would better accommodate seniors, a group that currently votes disproportionately for Republicans.

Distrust of elections generally. Trump made clear his distrust of elections. He complained about the Iowa caucus vote he lost to Ted Cruz back in the 2016 primary, he complained that the election that he won in November 2016, and then in 2020 he complained bitterly about the impending fraud even when he had months to assure the election would be handled well, which is was, according to his own appointed election security chief and Attorney General. Republicans echoed Trump, saying that elections are subject to widespread fraud. This even included officeholders who were elected in the very elections they say are fraudulent. Republicans advocated--or were silent when Trump and others advocated--selection of leaders by means other than elections.

Accept insurrections by the executive against the legislature and the Constitution. Republicans are standing by their man. The GOP is Trump's party now, as Don Junior said on Wednesday, just before the Capitol riots. A majority of House Republicans voted along with Trump, right after they sheltered and hid from violent mobs attempting to find Pence, Pelosi, and other legislators and force them to reverse an election. That vote was on record. They are active supporters of Trump's insurrection or they consent silently to the premise of it, that a defeated incumbent president can deny election results, even in the face of judicial decisions to the contrary. A party leader can claim a vote is fraudulent, and by doing so raise doubts about an election within that party, and an election in which there are doubts can be ignored, so they can use existing seated officeholders to over-rule the election, and that president retained. Perfect! A self-fulling arrangement. Republicans are on record.

Accept bad character by officeholders.  

This is the worst. This won't go away for a long time. 

Republicans--even ones who are locked into tight support for Trump--generally agree that Trump does things which are disreputable. Sure, he lies, they say. Sure, he calls people names. Yeah, that call to Ukraine wasn't exactly perfect, but it wasn't clearly criminal. Yes, his tweets are excessive and sometimes dangerous. Yeah, he spreads rumors of crazy conspiracies. Sometimes he says things that are openly hostile to Muslims or Blacks, and that isn't right. Yes, the business about grabbing pussies is embarrassing, and presidents should set a better example, and no, men should not just reach out and touch women and they shouldn't brag about it, either. Whatever happened with Stormy Daniels doesn't look good, no, but that is really between himself and Melania, and the fact that he paid the woman--two women--hush money doesn't mean he did what they said. Sometimes Trump acts like a schoolyard bully, and the name-calling is beneath the dignity of a president, but it isn't impeachable. Yeah, pardoning people who were found by courts to be guilty of perjuring themselves to protect the president looks bad. Yeah, he urged people to come to DC and he got them wound up and told them to be strong and brave and convince Congress or Pence or someone to overthrow an election, but he didn't exactly meet the elements of "inciting" violence. They were probably going to be violent on their own, not because of Trump, and he didn't exactly tell them to break glass and stab people with flag poles, they did that on their own.

Team Trump

It goes on. Republicans tolerate all that. 

High profile Christian leaders and nearly every Republican officeholder either actively and publicly supports Trump, or is silent about Trump's behavior. Trump's bad character doesn't matter.  Character does not matter. Trump being a bad example doesn't really matter. He fights with liberals and he appoints very conservative judges; that's enough.

Republicans are OK with politicians who openly and publicly display bad character.  No School Board would tolerate a School Superintendent like Trump. No corporate board would tolerate Trump as CEO. But he is good enough for Republicans.

 

Biden Team: Meritocracy Elites.

The Biden Team is building out.

It is a serious, competent, reasonable group of people whose resumes read as experienced and moderate.  

Biden says they look like America. They do.

But they are also representatives of the meritocracy liberal elites that a great many people dislike and distrust. 

Biden presented himself as a "Regular Joe," a guy in touch with his roots in a working class family, a guy who genuinely understood and empathized with people who depend on a monthly paycheck, people with traditional values of religious faith and patriotism. The hope  was that he would win back votes of the White working class. It did not happen. Biden won by five million votes because the middle income moderates in the suburbs turned out for the guy who wasn't Trump.

Trump's support came--and still comes--from people who know what they dislike and distrust. They disliked Hillary and her liberal meritocracy elites and they dislike the snooty self-righteousness of "woke" culture and values. They resent coastal liberal elites, whose economic and cultural values appear to be becoming the new normal. Trump's people are fighting a tide of secular internationalism and cosmopolitan culture. Democrats held them in contempt, Trump said, but he loved them. They loved him back. They bought "I'm Deplorable" tee shirts at the Trump website.

Rich Lowry at The National Review, in an article headlined "Only Middle Finger Available" published just before the 2020 election wrote: "If Trump manages to pull off an upset in 2020, it will be as a gigantic rude gesture directed at the commanding heights of American culture."

Biden was the alternative to all that, the non-Hillary.  Biden says his Administration will "look like America." He gets criticism for paying attention to gender and race, which criticism elevates it to an "issue" and Biden has taken a side, for diversity as a value in itself. White conservatives complain: But what about us White men? Women, Black, Hispanic, and Asians have reason to think Biden stood by them. 

Joe Biden has a diversity problem.

The resentment of Trump voters against the tide of change was only partially demographic. It was also about meritocracy elites. 

On both left and right, people feel frustration over the narrowing of pathways to success. The rich get richer. The smart get richer. The pathways to success are narrower, and the people on the fast track appear to have organized the economy for the benefit of people like themselves, not the "regular Joes."

Biden does not appear to be fixing that problem. His Administration may look like America, but it is still an expression of liberal elitism, adjusted to be multi-cultural and multi-ethnic elitism, a version that exacerbates rather than solves the elitism problem. It adds the demographic marginalization resentment to the educational and social class one.

College background is a signal of the cultural orientation of a student and graduate, and of Biden's orientation toward the status quo meritocracy establishment. It is a blunt instrument of analysis, but it does signal something: Holy Cross is different from Yale. Michigan State is different from Harvard. LSU is different from Princeton. There are very smart students and graduates from all of them, but people generally get there from different tracks, and once on an elite track tend to stay there. 

Joe Biden's website lists 55 people in the "White House Senior Staff" roster, with photographs and biographies. They all seem highly qualified There is a near-universal pattern. They are liberal elites, educated at a tiny pool of elite, national universities

Ron Klain, Chief of Staff, went to Georgetown, where he graduated summa, then Harvard Law where he again graduated summa and was editor of the Harvard Law Review.

Jake Sullivan, his National Security Advisor, graduated from Yale, was a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford, then got a J.D. from Yale.

Yohannes Abraham, Chief of Staff and Executive Secretary, has degrees from Yale and the Harvard Business School, where he was a Baker Scholar.

Click: Biographies

Brian Deese, Director of the National Economic Council, has degrees from Middlebury College, and then Yale Law School.

Bruce Reed, the Deputy Chief of Staff, graduated from Princeton, and was a Rhodes Scholar, with another degree from Oxford.

Dana Remus, White House Counsel, graduated from Harvard, then Yale Law School.

Susan Rice, Director of Domestic Policy, graduated from Stanford, was a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford, where she stayed for a Ph.D.

It goes on and on like this, with a near un-broken series of resumes of people whose biographies project American meritocracy from the time these people were in the ninth grade, getting straight A grades, getting top test scores, achieving at the highest level in America's institutions. Who better to choose as leaders than our best, brightest high achievers? Is there a problem?  

Yes. A great many Americans don't trust those people. 

Their experiences are built around success that only a tiny fraction of people can achieve. There are only 1600 spaces at Harvard and only 30 Rhodes Scholars. Voters are afraid of the instincts and values of them because they perceive those meritocracy liberals to be more interested in global business, academic, and governmental institutions and policies that make sense for them than they are in the problems of "regular-Joe" Americans like themselves. Those elite liberals may not see immigrants as a threat to jobs, because in fact they don't threaten the jobs of Yale Law graduates. Those elites don't understand threats to neighborhoods because elites live in expensive ones. It is easy for them to support free trade because they don't work in a factory whose product competes with a Chinese manufacturer.

Those liberal elites can afford politically correct coastal elite values because they live lives of privilege. Screw them!

So some of Trump's supporters dress up in Viking outfits and storm the Capitol, whipped up by Trump who says to take the country back from people like those elites. A greater number stay home but silently applaud the Capitol rioters. And a greater number yet are just glad that someone understands the world they way they do, and on election day they voted for Trump. 

They will again if Biden doesn't advance policies that seem focused on "regular Joes." This team might do it, but their instincts might be all wrong.

The cost of crossing Trump

     "You traitor! You traitor! You traitor! You're a traitor. Lindsay Graham, you are a traitor to the country!"

Donald Trump may be doing a performance. For his base, it is real, very real.

They bought the Trump story.

Remember, Donald Trump came to the presidency as the star and executive producer of a "reality TV" show. This means it was not reality. The shows are planned, semi-scripted, filmed, and edited to look like a real contest in real time, but they are not. Trump was a performer, and still is.

One way to make sense of Trump's presidency since the election is that Trump is continuing a performance and setting up the next chapter of his life. Trump is narcissistic and he is acting unusually manic, but he is not stupid. He may know full well he lost the election for the simple reason that Biden got a lot more votes. That has to hurt, especially since Trump's personality demands he be on top at all times, and a foundation of his business brand is that he wins and the people who buy his products, live in his buildings, golf in his resorts are winners.

He survived defeats in the past by making lemonade out of lemons, and the brand-consistent way to do that is to be--and present himself to be--an indefatigable fighter. He is being in character as the Trump character, displaying his fury at the incredible injustice of having the election stolen from him. 

Does Trump really believe he won in a landslide, even as he is doing a performance of a person who believes he won in a landslide? Very probably. It is method acting. Every salesman knows the experience of having internalized a sales script. An angry, hurt, petulant, narcissistic Trump is playing the role of an angry, hurt, petulant, narcissistic Trump.

Of course he is disappointed at losing, but all is not lost. Trump's post-presidency show can be a comeback story, a media-mogul story, or maybe a Trump-sets-up-his-kids story. The least interesting thing he could have done was to have been a good loser, with scenes of handshakes with Biden. That puts Biden into the middle of the act--not Trump's style. 

Trump is maintaining his brand and essential character. He is the heroic Rocky getting pummeled, or the falsely accused guy in The Fugitive getting a raw deal. In Trump's favorite movies, the Godfather series, he would be Don Corleone, setting up his sons Sonny and then Michael. Don Junior would be Sonny, the first born and the hothead; Ivanka would be Michael, cool and professional. That works.

More important for America's future, Trump's fans believe in the reality of the Trump performance. In real life, people sometimes rush from the audience and try to stop the professional wrestler who appears to be beating up the good guy. In real life, people get angry with the ventriloquist's dummy, for saying all those mean things.  

Reality TV shows need to stay in character and preserve the illusion of reality.  People on the inside know that the nice young couple choosing between three houses and expressing apparent spontaneous joy as they walk into the big open kitchen are doing so for the fifth time, as ten people hold cameras, lights, reflectors, and microphones. Trump sold his shtick. He connects with his base. He says what they want to hear. They believe him.

Trump was so persuasive that other politicians in the orbit of Republican politics go along with the Trump story. They have no choice. Their voters are Trump voters and Trump voters bought the Trump story line: He was robbed.

Democrats show some impatience--this blog included--that so many Republican incumbents have enabled Trump's improbable and disproven story of massive fraud. By agreeing with Trump, those officeholders gave credence to Trump. It wasn't just Trump's story line.

  

Click

At this late moment, Lindsay Graham, who had been critical of Trump prior to his election, then had been a sycophant during his presidency out of necessity, finally, in the aftermath of the Capitol insurrection, made another switch. He criticized Trump. Graham is a political pro on the inside. He knows full well the reality behind the Trump performance. The attack on the Capitol was over the line for Graham, and he couldn't bear to stick with Trump's story. 

Graham left the cast, but the audience did not leave the theater. The audience bought Trump's performance. It resonates with them. Trump is an embattled hero. The embedded clip is one minute. Watch it. It helps explain why so many Republican officeholders enable Trump. They must. The fans believe. 

For people unable to click the link, here is the audio, verbatim:  

You traitor! You traitor! You traitor! You're a traitor! Lindsay Graham, you are a traitor to the country. You know it was rigged! You know it was rigged! You know it was rigged! You garbage human being! It will be like this forever, wherever you go! Audit the vote, audit the vote, audit the vote, audit the vote! You piece of shit, audit the vote! Audit the vote, audit the vote, audit our vote, audit our vote, audit our vote, audit our vote! You son of a bitch. You better join [unintelligible]. You fucking asshole. You piece of shit! You don't represent us anymore!

 

Representative Cliff Bentz. A Disappointment.

Cliff Bentz has been in office for less than a week and he is already lying to us.  

Can't Bentz be better than this?  Apparently not. He is afraid.

      "Orchestrating a mob to pressure Congress is inexcusable."            

             Former AG William Barr

Disappointment

It isn't inexcusable if you pretend not to see what is right in front of your eyes.

Newly elected and sworn in, Cliff Bentz, the U.S. Representative from Oregon's 2nd Congressional District, was one of the people who voted to object to counting the Electoral College votes from one or more states that voted for Joe Biden. The votes took place in the early morning hours after the Capitol had been invaded by disorderly mob that just left a Trump rally.

At the rally Trump and his sons issued threats to Republicans that the GOP was now Trump's party. Trump said, "We're going to walk down, and I'll be there with you. You'll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength, and you have to be strong." 

Take back our country. That was the language of the rally, voiced by Trump and his entourage. He was speaking to people he had been encouraging in multiple speeches and tweets to come to DC and demand that the government retain him as president. For months he had been congratulating armed militia group protests. He had told the Proud Boys to stand by and be ready for that day. Social media groups had been buzzing about this for weeks, saying they needed to gather and storm the Capitol. Many of the people in Trump's crowd were wearing helmets and body armor. They had a purpose. Their cause was just and the situation was critical; President Trump said so.

The former Attorney General William Barr described Trump's role: he was "orchestrating a mob to pressure Congress."

The Wall Street Journal--the Murdoch owned, reliably Republican and conservative voice--had no illusions about the President they had defended for years. He incited a crowd to do an assault on another branch of government:

In concise summary, on Wednesday the leader of the executive branch incited a crowd to march on the legislative branch. The express goal was to demand that Congress and Vice President Mike Pence reject electors from enough states to deny Mr. Biden an Electoral College victory. When some in the crowd turned violent and occupied the Capitol, the President caviled and declined for far too long to call them off. When he did speak, he hedged his plea with election complaint.

This was an assault on the constitutional process of transferring power after an election. It was also an assault on the legislature from an executive sworn to uphold the laws of the United States. This goes beyond merely refusing to concede defeat. In our view it crosses a constitutional line that Mr. Trump hasn’t previously crossed. It is impeachable.

Bentz defended Trump by closing his eyes and mind. He sees nothing. He knows nothing. He said Trump "wanted a protest. I don't think he ever would have wanted it to turn violent. The protesters are responsible, the people who decided to take it upon themselves to damage things."

Please don't insult us with this. 

Trump made multiple statements and tweets calling on the Proud Boys and others to come to DC to "be wild." The Proud Boys are not a debating society or book club. They are people who bring weapons, explosive devices, and Molotov cocktails to protests--which is exactly what they and others did on January 6. 

Click: I see nothing. I know nothing,

Trump wound up the crowd and encouraged them. It was no secret. He did it in public. It was on TV and recorded. Trump called the mob "patriots" who were right to be upset that he was not elected. Trump said they should be "strong" and "courageous." He issued mild tweets telling protesters to "remain" and "stay" peaceful, while they were in the Capitol actively breaking windows and doors to enter Capitol rooms, opening mail, setting fires, and defecating on office floors. Five people died. Simultaneously with telling them to be peaceful he justified violence by repeating the allegation that "things and events happen when a sacred landslide election victory is so unceremoniously & viciously stripped away."  He told the rioters "We love you. You're very special."

While watching the rioting on TV, he tweeted: “Mike Pence didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our Country and our Constitution, giving States a chance to certify a corrected set of facts, not the fraudulent or inaccurate ones which they were asked to previously certify. USA demands the truth!"

Donald Trump was not a by-stander. 

This was a plan, done openly and proudly. Neither he nor the crowd appear to have had a detailed plan of kidnapping, executions, and takeover of the institutions of government--a genuine coup d'état--but he wanted to use physical intimidation through rough guys with a show of force. 

His plan worked!  At least it worked on my congressman, Cliff Bentz, who caved to Trump's intimidation with a vote to void an election, and now he lies to us by pretending that Trump was just an innocent bystander to the ransacking of the Capitol.

Mr. Bentz is not blind and stupid. He is apparently more afraid of a primary challenge from his right than he is of being caught treating his constituents as fools. Better to be blind and stupid than admit that the person whose bidding he does carried out an assault on the Congress and the Constitution.

A very disappointing start.

To Cliff Bentz:  

Mr. Bentz, if you don't believe that elections matter, and you think that the Article One legislature should be bullied into carrying out the will of the executive, why did you bother running in an election for a seat in the Congress?

Coup d'état? No. It was a threat.

Trump sent a mob to the Capitol.

Some people call it a failed coup d'état.  It is the violent overthrow of the government. It is treason. 

After all, he gathered a crowd, egged them on, and sent them to demand he be kept in office. One policeman has died, property was damaged, they set fires, they left explosive devices. The business of an orderly transition of power was interrupted on purpose. That sounds sort of like a coup.

Something big happened. Just what was it?

Herbert Rothschild writes today that it ought to be understood not as a coup d'état but as a threat, a heavy-handed attempt at intimidation. Trump was being a bully. As this blog described yesterday, Trump and his sons were making political threats against Republicans, and the events on January 6 were a culmination of those threats. Persuasion came to push comes to shove. The shove part was sending people there to disrupt Congress and put the fear of God into them. 

The more ugly, loud, rowdy, militant, and potentially armed the crowd was, the better. They did not represent debate. Debate failed. Lawsuits failed. He had failed to get Republicans to manufacture votes for him or discard votes cast against him. It was down to this: blunt force disruption. The threat was that these people--and millions more like them--represent the future for Republican officeholders. Angry mobs will disrupt their Town Hall events, march in front of their offices, make their lives miserable, and defeat them in their next primary elections if they don't come through for Trump. They were the advance guard of Trump's army.

Herbert Rothschild grew up in Louisiana, was educated at Yale and Harvard, and is now a retired professor and lifelong activist for civil rights and peace. He lives in 

Southern Oregon.

Herbert Rothschild

Guest Post by Herbert Rothschild

People speak of the invasion of the Capitol by several thousand unarmed people as a coup attempt. But if a coup means an effort to seize (or in Trump's case) hold onto the levers of power, there's no evidence that he laid such plans. If one wishes to preempt rule by law, one must control executive and communications centers--e.g. military installations, TV stations. The people he unleashed had no idea of where such levers were to be found. Apparently a few of them thought they were in Nancy Pelosi's desk.

Far from formulating a coup, here's what I think took place in Trump's mind: He believed (with considerable evidence) that the Republican Party is his party and that it will remain his party long after he leaves office. So he was sure that he could control the Republican Members of Congress, that he need only crack his whip and they would jump for fear of his "primarying" them. But when most of them didn't jump, it seems to have shocked and outraged him. So his overriding (if not single) reason for unleashing the attack was to instill fear into them and bring them to heel.

Well, he did scare them and other Members and a sizable number of Americans, including his own staff, but no additional people were brought to heel. Besides fright, there was shock, and those feelings will quickly morph into anger. There is no upside for Trump. He has ruined himself.

I won't pretend that I thought he would go so far. We've known that he is extraordinarily egotistical and contemptuous of any rules of conduct. But I've used the "maniac" in "megalomaniac" to characterize, not diagnose him. Perhaps I should have given more weight to his going so far as to appoint a commission after his 2016 victory to discover why the election returns showed (wrongly, he was sure) that he trailed Clinton in the popular vote. A person focused on power wouldn't have cared. His party controlled both chambers of Congress as well. His being troubled by an operationally total but image-related partial electoral victory came back to me yesterday with new force.

If we define madness as living in a reality that no one else shares, then we cannot yet declare Trump mad. He still has the ability to get large numbers of people to share--and thus confirm--his certainties. But that is only one definition of madness, because while social reality may be largely a matter of consensus, reality transcends and ultimately judges social reality. Hitler and his legion of adherents experienced that judgment. The Reich that was to have lasted 1,000 years lasted 13. I predict that Trump's sway will end more quickly than that. What isn't clear to me is the future of the Republican Party, which now must cope with his demise.