‘”Fascism,” in other words, was defeated ” with a gargantuan military crackdown.’
The Democrats are far more fascistic than Trump ever was, as evidenced by:
– their openly stated plans to clamp down on free speech and ‘deprogram’ people – their alliance with finance and the larger corporates (Mussolini said that the fascism was the alliance of state and industry) – their plans to take away people’s guns while being financed by the Military Industrial Complex
I do agree that Trump’s various pardons were an abomination, but that seems to be the case withe every President, and the same is true of the way that outgoing Prime Ministers in the UK hand out honours to family and cronies. We are both morally, intellectually and corrupt countries, but the US is heading for something very evil indeed.
Thanks to you for quoting Mussolini-it seems that the true definition of “fascist” has been lost-it’s irritating to hear how many use the word with no real idea of it’s meaning.
Well, it’s debatable whether the new regime is a thing of evil but what is certain is that the proven and demonstrated evil of the outgoing regime is no more to stalk the halls of Capitol Hill.
lol; are “lies, obfuscations and false equivalencies” the worst you can accuse any politician of? There has probably been no President in the past 100 years who wasn’t guilty of “tens of thousands” of those.
You know, I prefer Trump’s lies to the spiteful venom spouted by the Democrats, their encouragement and support of violence and mayhem across the country for the last few years and their continued demonisation of half the country who, having been let down by them for years, took their chance at the ballot box to better their lives. Years of Democratic failure begat Trump’s success, forty-odd years in Biden’s case alone; until the Democrats recognise this and learn some humility they will be in no position to heal America – but then, that is not their intention, is it?
I always follow your posts, Fraser, but offer one caveat. Mussolini spoke of Corporatism (believe it or not , Ripley, I got suspended from FB for 7 days for posting the quote). It was pointed out to me in context Mussolini referred not to business entities but to unions, guilds, etc,, which makes California much closer to the definition, various unions (public service, teachers) being the actual controllers of the political elites. Of course, things change. Evolve, one might say. Politics are elastic. The various tech and financial oligarchs wedded to the Democratic party, and to the Cult of Woke, have expanded the definition. But don’t say this too loud. They’re listening.
I’d say they are nearer to Maoism. With their cultural revolution and black propaganda, their denunciations and humiliations, their threatened re education, all backed up by violence and intimidation, they are operating like the Red Guards.
I know that the one woman of the 13 executed killed a pregnant woman by cutting her baby out of her womb. leaving her to bleed to death and fleeing with the baby, which she tried to pass off as her own. Another burned a couple to death, whom he had violently robbed then tortured for days, by shooting them, putting them still alive and conscious into the trunk of their car, then setting it on fire. None were exactly anti-death penalty poster kids.
fascism has nothing to do with it…it was a coordinated coup d’etat timed and targeting the formal acceptance of the States’ electoral college votes which 130+ Republican members of the House and a dozen or so Republican Senators were rejecting even though they themselves were not representing those states and directed from the stage by a President in the two weeks in office before being turned out.
“coordinated coup d’etat”…??? How exactly, if you think it was so “coordinated”, would it have played out if it had succeeded? It looked like just another wanton and aimless riot to me, like the many we saw last year in D.C. and elsewhere, and in terms of the destruction it wrought, quite tame in comparison.
Republican members of Congress giving tours the day before when tours had been shut down due to Covid-19 for the past year; Trump’s effort to install a loyalist AG in the weeks immediately before the failed coup d’etat…oh yeah and the Joint Session of Congress to certify the electoral votes of the 50 states that 130+ Republican members of the House and a dozen or so Senators acting in concert to over turn the votes of the people in states they didn’t even represent.
If it was so intricately planned and “coordinated”, why did it turn into such a train wreck? The wonkiest 9/11 conspiracy theories have more plausibility than this.
Really? Not only has consistent Democrat failure spawned Trump (see previous comment) they have now totally undermined any faith in the US electoral system. It started with GW and the hanging chads and continued in 2016 when they not only refused to accept the result but impugned the very system by which that result was obtained by suggesting, no, insisting that it was open to interference (until they won, of course). Whether or not there was fraud, by either side, until a thorough and transparent audit of the system is undertaken and any flaws sorted out, the US electoral system now has the public credibility of one of the old banana republics, with every loser entitled to cry foul. If both sides cannot see that and address the problem, the refusal to accept results will continue to sow division for years come
Precious little weaponry in evidence for a ‘coup d’etat’. Strolling between the cordons with a camera hardly screams murder. Yes, there were a few idiots, including an armed BLM high up, if the reports are to be believed. Oh, and the ‘fascist’ with that well known fascist symbol, the hammer and sickle tattooed on his hand. Apart from the, ill judged, choice of place, I see little substantive difference between the insurrection at the Capitol, and the bloody and violent insurrection which has been acted out across the country by the other side over the last months.
Joe Francis
3 years ago
What a strangely schizophrenic article. “Look, look, I’m knocking Trump, fellow members of the media”. And yet, there is still a very grudging, unspoken acknowledgment that maybe Trump wasn’t entirely wrong about everything, maybe his appeal to the actual, originalist, isolationist philosophical foundations of the United States had merit and maybe the true, fascistic nature of the left showed through, both in the violence of the Democrats’ street level activists during the summer and in the “official” threat of violence in the “papers please” approach of the locked down inauguration of “the most popular president in history”.
Yes, basically you need both sides of an argument – you can’t just try to silence one side. As I said on another thread, a true democrat listens to all ideas and changes slowly in order to accommodate those ideas. This is not happening in the USA. It is like there was an evil dictator who has now been removed and life can now carry on as before. Trump’s 75 million followers might be a minority – but not a minority to ignore.
Excellent comment, Chris. Unfortunately, the Democrats have been fixated. They have spent four years trying to get rid of Trump without appreciating that Trump is not the cause he is only the effect. 74 million Americans did not cast their vote for Biden. My concern is that Biden’s rhetoric will not be put into action by those around him. In particular, Pelosi has become obsessed with Trump to the point at which her uncivil behaviour will increase division.
So the four year hatred of Trump by the media, Pelosi, Obama, Hilary Clinton and others will begin to end for the sake of unity? They now want the unity that they begrudgenly didn’t give all the way through Trump’s presidency? Something not right somewhere.
My concern is that Biden’s rhetoric will not be put into action by those around him. You mean the people openly calling for deprogramming and otherwise targeting millions of Americans who are not of the left? Already, big tech has done what govt cannot legally do in moving to silence any opposition. Biden is barely more than a puppet.
Pelosi know those nutjobs were heading to the capitol and allowed them to breach it. How could a number of mostly unarmed people just walk right in while congress was in session? The FBI knew and informed her. Ultimately the capitol police answer to her, and she rebuffed any additional security
What a pity we can no longer post the photographs of the Trumpsters strolling in like tourists, in single file between the red cords, looking at the statues, not pulling them down, their cameras slung over their shoulders…albeit undocumented tourists.
Hardly an “effect” more of a “symptom” dont you think? Trump, like boris Johnson emerged from the liberal distaste for the post industrial working class and their heirs. Biden andfolk like him are real uncle Tom’s in the eyes of trumps base. This can only come to grief
We have a population of 330 MILLION and a full 1/3 (110) are not children who cannot vote. A larger than “either” team group of voters did not vote at all. They no longer buy the “lesser of two evils” load of BS. Millions of people no longer register to vote and many registered voters do not vote. They’ve worked out who the state serves and what its purpose is or they simply know the state never serves their interests and what affects and inflicts misery upon them.
Sorry Anne-Marie, As I see it and have experienced it, there are 110 million Americans that are homeless, addicted, in nursing homes, or are totally ignorant of both the people running for office and the issues in dispute. The 35% not voting is more indicative of social pathology than it is of political protest!
Zuckerberg paid the Democrats to get many of these registered. Especially in Georgia for the runoff. Who knows who actually filled in their ballot papers?
You are so right! Until the Democrats realise that they are the reason people voted for Trump and that they, not Trump, destroyed American democracy in 2016 when they not only refused to accept the result but impugned the method used to reach that result, following it with a four year scorched earth policy during which they encouraged and enabled violence and mayhem, they will never even begin to make the adjustments necessary to heal America.
Do you really think the 75 million who actually went to vote for Trump represent his entire support in the US? How many people who admire and support Trump didn’t go and vote in November? Millions and millions.
Age, inconvenience, not being allowed on the register for some reason (plenty of that going on – possibly on both sides before you say it) and, in some neighbourhoods, I can well imagine, fear!
Well, for a start, it was 80 million, and they’re by far the majority. According to the evidence they have gleaned from the Dominion voting machines, Biden barely got 40 million. It will all come out in the wash.
I think I can say with confidence that Trump was not entirely wrong about everything. As they say even a broken clock is right twice a day. It is a sign of how completely fanatical the anti Trump movement became. I am sure some would have rather sacrificed many lives and denounced potentially life saving medication rather than admit he was right about something.
You only have to look at the 180 degree about face the Democrat media did with the moral qualities and personal merit of George W Bush, John McCain and Mitt Romney the second that they were no longer an electoral threat to see how utterly debased the American press have become.
Alison Houston
3 years ago
Time for a rousing chorus of Tom Lehrer’s ‘Send The Marines’ only of course they probably will be sent to Mississippoli and elsewhere in the country (as well as back to the shores of Tripoli) for the express purpose of punishing the 75 million Trump supporters. Now someone the press corps likes has been elected it will be regarded as perfectly natural for American citizens to be criminalised for expressing their political opinions, while violent felons, illegal aliens are released into the community to carry on murdering and raping with impunity, on the basis that it would be racist to deport them.
So glad I don’t live under an oppressive, fascist like dictatorship, where I’m locked indoors for months on end, while thousands of illegal migrants enter the country every year and go on to commit Jihad, where freedom of speech is not allowed, where the press is not truly independent and doesn’t turn and change its tune on a sixpence in order to reflect the political fashions across the pond and patriotism is a dirty word.
On the point of being glad you are not in a country on lockdown whilst thousands of immigrants enter shows me that you are not in the UK which has the same problem.
Sorry, Alison, just trying to work out where you have managed to find such a Utopia! Please send me details, or the recipe for whatever it is you are on.
Ian Howard
3 years ago
It looked more like a coup and only further serves to divide the country, looking at both Sleepy Joes motorcade (with several Guardsmen having turned their backs on him) the lack of people cheering him on and the empty streets (a bit like the DNCs rallies during the campaign) and the thousands who lined the streets to say farewell to Trump and the crowd welcoming him to Florida it really makes you wonder who won the election….The dEMOCRATS ARE THE WORST SORT OF FASCISTS AROUND IMHO
I was being circumspect as some of those with backs turned may have been under orders to do so for ‘security’ reasons it is after all no good if you are looking at the ‘target’ but not behind you
It would have been possible to secure the inauguration with a more covert military presence, by making such an overt show of force they are further embedding the lie of insurrection into the public consciousness, they call Trump a liar but he is an amateur when compared with the liberal left and their media sycophants, rather than uniting the country I expect the cancellation of anyone connected to Trump and the continuing denigration of those who voted for him.
It reminded me of Bliar’s sweeping into Downing street with every available AFO from the Met and beyond escorting and stood posing behind him armed to the teeth as he spoke to the MSMSM, a powerful message ‘I’m in charge now and I have this force of arms backing me’. Some of those AFO’s were soon denounced to PIRA as part of the GFA.
On January 6, there were approximately 250,000 citizens in DC to attend a rally and to express concern about the recent election. About 200 of them became criminal miscreants and entered the Capitol while Capitol Police held the doors for them. A man carried Pelosi’s lectern about and waved to photographers. Another man with face paint and Buffalo horns posed for candids. Videos of all of this are freely available. Since then, the US media has mounted a direct attack on half of the country. Those in DC are now transformed into white nationalist domestic terrorists. AOC swore she “almost died”. This was a “coup”. Tech has silenced conservatives. The FBI remains a political weapon and gravely warned of dangerous events being planned. Unheard in the screeching has been the FBI determination that the miscreants had planned their Capitol incursion for weeks. They were not motivated by Trump. And so Joe/Blow were inaugurated behind barbed wire and 30,00 storm troopers in direct contravention of Posse Comitatus. Anyone, anywhere, who feels “comforted” by this grotesque display of elitist power should think again.
As detail of the arrests leaks out, you can see the intruders were not nearly all Trumpsters. The main agents provocateurs were Antifa/BLM and Democrats. One of them was a CNN reporter. The Democrats and well connected have been released, including a NASA General’s son, and a NY Supreme Court Judge’s son bailed for $100,000, while the less well connected man with the horns, a peace and love type, faces 25 years for being “a symbol of insurrection”.
How do you explain what that BLM agitator Sullivan was doing in the Capitol, participating in all the mayhem?
Jeff Mason
3 years ago
The irony of the situation is not lost on anyone with a brain. The left calls Republicans fascists but then deploys the troops to keep the public who allegedly elected him away from Biden. Say what you want about Mussolini, he was actually popular when he was first elected. Dems are framing legitimate political opposition to their socialist agenda as domestic terrorism. News outlets that don’t parrot the Democrat talking points need to be shut down. They want gun control to prevent another mythical coup attempt. Their violent protesters (BLM and Antifa) are acceptable just like Hitler’s Brown Shirts were in their day. They are proving the old adage that people are more likely to believe a big lie than a little one.
This is the tragedy of the human race, concentration on distractions allows evils to grow unnoticed. And not enough people are wearing hats!
Alex Lekas
3 years ago
And so Joe Biden was sworn in without incident, appealing for “unity”, while the city surrounding him was essentially under full-scale military occupation. Well, yes; because that’s how you send a message to the kulaks that there’s a new sheriff in town. First, you outsource the silencing of opposition to third-party, private actors who can legally do it; then, you assemble the purge lists using terms like ‘cleaning’ and ‘deprogramming;’ and finally, the show of force reminiscent of every People’s Republic ever.
word of advice mate, keep away from the shouty websites
stephen f.
3 years ago
It was a power show to justify all the paranoia spouted about Trump and “right-wing extremists”. apparently 200 cranks led by a guy with a horn hat constitutes a mortal threat to the republic, not the uncontrolled…actually lauded and encouraged, riots and violence in cities across the land. Imagine if there were no troops-just the regular security, and no insurrection ensued-no riots or violence from “the right”…how foolish would the corrupt cabal,(and their media enablers) that have taken the reins then look?
the horns though, they looked dangerous, a weapon in fact.
Scott Powell
3 years ago
It’s just more evidence the west has completely lost all sense of proportionality. Since Covid, this is the norm. We’re being conditioned to just accept all this grossness, and the media are cheering it on.
They thanked us for protecting them – then threw us out’: Outrage as 5,000 National Guardsmen are forced to sleep outside and in a parking lot with single bathroom after being told to leave Capitol Pictures show Guardsmen sleeping on the floor of the packed parking lot after they were moved Thursday Officials said Thursday that of the 26,000 Guard troops deployed to D.C. for the inaugural, just 10,600 remain. Rep. Elise Stefanik tweeted: ‘Speaker Pelosi is in charge of the Capitol complex. She must provide answers immediately.’
A great example of disenfranchising that will not be forgotten.
John Lamble
3 years ago
After 9/11 and the introduction of ‘Homeland Security’ the United States with its huge politicised ‘law enforcement’ system and its politicised and draconian ‘Justice system’ and its generally biased and dishonest media isn’t distinguishable from a police state in any meaningful way. Land of the Free, my eye.
George Lake
3 years ago
“As he slunk away to Florida on Wednesday morning in humiliation and disrepute” Really, after a 21gun salute and rousing reception on arrival?
Otherwise a very perceptive account Mr Tracey of one of the most humiliating days in post-war US history that I can recall. Who on earth organised such an orgy of national degradation and abasement, Pelosi?
There is off course, one iota of compensation, in that the Capitol has been subjected to a day of even greater ignominy than this appalling occupation by Pelosi’s stormtroopers. This may offer a scintilla of hope for US Patriots.
That day was the the 24th August 1814, when the brave lads of HM 44th Foot and others burnt the place to the ground. Now that was truly “a day infamy”, the shame of which is unlikely ever to be erased.
Andrew Hall
3 years ago
The new news media said the WaPo described substantial National Guard presences in all 50 state capitals on inauguration day. They also reported Antifa/BLM supporters rampaging through the Democratic offices in Portland OR and similar activism in Seattle WA. I have heard no corroboration and am interested to know if these reports are true. They suggest that the era of “mostly peaceful” demonstrations which the Guard put down have now served their purpose, that the Dems are the new Sheriffs in town. Time to “build back better” under Honest Joe. The man who grafted his way to the top.
Mayhem in Denver, Portland, and Seattle. The media is free to cover such things again, much like it’s free to cover how the new administration launched its tenure by sticking it to a neighbor and ally, shoving thousands into unemployment.
I live in Portland and I am not sure if any rampaging crowds could do anymore damage than they already have. A trip to any part of the metro area shows nothing but boarded up windows,(including city hall which looks like an armed fortress) graffiti emblazoned walls , broken statues and the homeless living on every street and park. Our mayor and another commissioner are engaged in a battle as to who will do what which results in nothing getting down.
It is very hard to get any honest reporting from our one fading newspaper. Our largest and oldest bookstore is not going to carry the book by the one reporter who has been on the ground reporting during the last many months. They caved to the peaceful protestors who objected. But not to worry. You can still buy White Fragility.
I was told that Wells Fargo (the bank I still use in spite of their miserable history) has had to close many of their branches due to the the nightly damage done to them. We are all waiting for the closure of the last big department store which will put the final nail in the business coffin.
What was once a lovely city is now a disaster zone.
Sorry to hear that. I would advise anyone in Portland to get out if they can, but I understand why many can’t, esp. if you own property – I mean, who would want to buy it right now? It’s strange though, I still see some Portland residents insisting that all the destruction’s been grossly exaggerated and it’s still a great place to live.
stephen f.
3 years ago
This is another “bait and switch” screed by yet another TDS victim. It begins with a few paragraphs that follow the headline, then descends into 8 paragraphs of “Trump bad”…tiresome.
Joe Blow
3 years ago
Central to the left’s fantasy vision of the last 4 years is that Trump was pure aberration, inflicted on the hapless, misguided voters by the malign forces of Putin. Thoughtful analysis and criticism of government policy and action has been replaced by endless recycling of Trump’s tweets with painful self-congratulatory criticism appended.
The absurd response to the “coup” attempt (surely there is no serious observer who really thinks that the clowns parading the Capitol in horns were attempting a coup?) is simply part of cementing this fantasy in place. The Republic is under threat! Trump is a fascist! We must take extreme measures! The Russians are coming! The assorted Q-Anon jackasses were as big a threat to the Republic as the fool-students at the Evergreen College sit-in.
The Democrats are desperate to avoid any self-reflection – they cannot bring themselves to recognise that many sane, thoughtful voters looked at the US trajectory for the past 3 decades and decided that something big – even destructive – was necessary if it enabled a change of direction. Even if that “something big” was Trump. The Dems are so obviously wrong on identity politics (Biden’s awful trans exec order, for example), on much of foreign policy, on BLM, on education… They are wrong on immigration, wrong on trade policy and they put forward H Clinton, the most dreadful candidate in decades. Biden is a weak has-been; he makes GW Bush look eloquent.
Trump is a symptom. I am pleased he is gone; I am dreading what Biden’s handlers will have him sign. I fear he will be so awful that next time, we will be facing a Trump-like person who actually has competence.
Paul Blakemore
3 years ago
I’ve been hoping to read this article all week: thank you Michael for introducing some sanity and simple common sense into the debate.
It was the refusal of American media to question the necessity of these extraordinary measures that will be one of the longest-lasting consequences of the entire bizarre affair. It confirmed that journalists will uncritically accept extravagant shows of intrusive state force, so long as the political incentives are correctly aligned. During the riots in the summer, the US media generally reacted with horror to the prospect of the American military being deployed to allay “civil unrest,” with many claiming that it would be tantamount to white supremacy for soldiers to deter arson attacks against small minority-owned businesses and private residences.
Andy Yorks
3 years ago
Of course one small point. Security of The Capitol is a matter for the hag Pelosi and McConnell and their respective Seargent at Arms. The responsibility for the breach in security rests squarely with those two. They both need to resign immediately. The whole ‘insurrection’ looks more and more like a put up job, like Erdogan and his ‘coup’ the other year. These two idiots should have been more mindful of their duties. Next time it might be a few real terrorists with a few AK47s.
They didn’t interfere as they wanted it to look bad on Trump. As it turns out there were thousands of Antifa and BLM posing as Trump supporters to make him look bad. Pelosi knew this but chose to let the drama unfold so that Trump could be blamed.
I suspect the hag Pelosi and McConnell (possibly just the hag) deliberately reduced the security presence on the day so the place could be ‘invaded’. That gave the ‘excuse’ to demand a second Impeachment, which was window dressing, but might also be used – if they can make the illegal process fly, which with Roberts around is highly likely – to stop Trump running in 2024. It is all far too ‘convenient’ to me and stinks.
Remember what it was that Congress was about to debate when the incursion took place. Two hours was to be devoted to each disputed State in each House. 24 hours of debate altogether. A Senator had just proposed an emergency 10 day Bipartisan Commission on the electoral irregularities, and a Congressman was just beginning his speech on Arizona. This was to be the first and last chance to get some of the evidence out, and it was to be heard in front of the whole world. Now who on earth on the Trump side would have wanted to suppress any of that? The other side, however, had shown themselves to be lawless and violent throughout the four years and particularly through the summer. Why would they have allowed this process, which could have sent the scrutiny back to the State legislatures and changed the complexion of the electors, to go ahead?
Besides, the President was still addressing his orderly rally of half a million, at the Ellipse, at 1.15. The incursion by a motley crew of about 250 took place at the Capitol, a mile away, at 12.52.
The speech did not incite the breach, but he has been impeached for it by a baying mob of lying politicians, so it is now established fact.
Exactly, the violence at the Capitol was the worst possible thing that could have happened that day, from Trump’s and Trump’s supporters POV, and the best thing that could have happened, from the POV of those who wanted Trump to fail. In what world does it make sense to disrupt a hearing in which your concerns are finally going to be addressed, and given serious consideration?
danielbeegan54
3 years ago
The level of force was absurd. I live on the island of Mindanao in the Philippines. We were under martial law for over two years because of genuine threats from ISIS and the New People’s Army. It was far less intrusive or visible than the Biden inauguration show of force.
John Wilkes
3 years ago
I have been waiting for someone else to mention this but will, one day, the Capitol riot be compared with the 1933 Reichstag fire? The ruling power claimed that a communist (Trump?) revolution was being planned and used emergency legislation to suspend civil liberties and send the military onto the streets to restore order. This legislation also silenced the opposition leading to a one party state perpetuated with total media control and the absence of any opposition voice. At first this was deemed necessary by most of the people. Admittedly we are a long way from the eventual outcome but I do find the complete absence of any dissenting view disturbing. Nobody appears to have mentioned that whilst this inauguration day seemed entirely peaceful despite apocalyptic predictions, 4 years ago it was marked with nationwide protests against Trump. I can’t stand the man myself and would never have voted for him, but many millions did and their views appear to be ridiculed or ignored by the media.
Sorry, should have said the absence of any significant visible dissent. Many are doing so privately but have no public sphere in which they are allowed to do so.
Schwarzenegger has already compared it to Krystalnacht.
hotcole
3 years ago
It was a spectacularly sad sight – a history that has preceded the disintegration of so many countries, from the USSR, throughout the African, Asian and Latin American continents, being repeated in the USA. An attempt at self – glorification while cowering behind concrete, razor wire, weapons of war and thousands of armed troops in order to keep dissident citizen-mobs at bay, while repeating the same old patriotic irrelevant mendacious hogwash, desperately trying to feel good, virtuous and worthy. What a joke.
Peter Scott
3 years ago
Much of this is apt; except the penultimate sentence: ‘Fascism was defeated….’
It was not defeated. It has been working its way to a total takeover of the USA over the course of many years in which the ‘Liberal’ Left have marched through all the institutions and all but monopolized public discourse.
On January 20th it was finally enthroned; and the show of force – entirely disproportionate to any need – served two big purposes.
It showed who is Boss to those ‘deplorable’ populist dissentients that do not want totaliarian rule; and it covered up what would probably have been a rather thinly attended event.
Hardly anybody among the Democratic Party supporters ever wanted to exalt either Joe Biden or Kamala Harris. These two did exceptionally badly in the primaries for the recent Election and were simply shoe-horned by the party bigwigs into their respective candidatures.
I challenge any reader to produce ways in which the present state of American politics (and society) differs from that of Mussolini’s Italy.
One party state? Tick.
Nearly uniform reportage and opinion in the media? Tick.
Use of mobs on the street to intimidate all potential opposition? Tick.
A suffocating orthodoxy of opinion effectually enforced by most people’s unwillingness to lose their jobs, social life or (now merely notional) liberty? Tick.
This outcome is what happens to any society which has decayed spiritually in sufficient degree. As Shakespeare so well expresses it, “She that herself will sliver and disbranch From her material sap, perforce must wither And come to deadly use”. (King Lear, Act IV, scene 2)
Add to this the fact that many Democrats are calling for their opponent’s supporters to be ‘deprogrammed and deradicalised.’ It is sad that education,which has recently focused on the rise of dictatorships in the early 20th century, has not enabled its victims to recognise a new dictatorship.
I am not surprised that the majority do not recognise this disturbing rise of oppression. It is happening at unprecedented speed and is barely being commented on in the MSM. Their whole narrative theme is “thank God we have gotten rid of Trump, now let’s silence his supporters and get back on track with our progressive agenda”.
Naive people who celebrate the Democrat victory may find in the coming years that the party they voted for is more extreme than they remembered. Conservatives may start to feel they are living under an occupying power.
Democracy was installed 20.1.21 (good to see someone using the UK convention on dates!) despite the attempt to overthrow it by force on 6.1.21.
Robert Montgomery
3 years ago
Surely there can be no serious discussion of a “coup”, an “insurrection” concerning the shambolic events at the Capitol on January 6. I mean please, coups-real ones-are what the US has been up to it’s foul neck in for a very long time in other countries, yet virtually all the media world wide go along with that nonsense. I’m reminded of an old(kind of) joke which goes: why will there never be a coup in the US? Because there is no US embassy in Washington.
Nick Lyne
3 years ago
Very thin stuff. Very poor. What did the author seriously think was going to happen after the events of the previous week? Still, don’t worry Michael, Trump will be back.
rosie mackenzie
3 years ago
Not only did the fraudsters hide behind barbed wire and put 26,000 troops between them and their own people, but they even purged the troops beforehand.
Reading this feels like being through the looking glass.
ccauwood
3 years ago
Biden reminds me of those full size cut out cardboard policemen they use to deter petty criminals. 2-D, they blow over in the first gust of wind. I can see Harris giving the grandchildren roller skates to leave about on the landing.
billb
3 years ago
Mmm. My understanding is that only the President, as Commander in Chief, could have sanctioned the deployment of the National Guard. And the President at the time of the deployment was — Donald Trump?
So the inauguration of Joe Biden was turned into a really clever piece of political theatre: No adoring crowds, unlike 2016, National Guardsmen lining the route of the cavalcade in fatigues and facing away from the incoming President. It really made Biden look like some sort of third world usurper with no real backing in the country.
I’ve no doubt the whole day has been noted and understood in Moscow and Beijing.
I agree when you think about it the over heavy deployment of the National Guard did make it look like Biden had just been swept to power in a Coup, all very Banana Republic.
William Cameron
3 years ago
Both sides are bad – like all extremists. A President that can only take power by filling the streets with troops -this is not democracy. A President who cannot accept ballot box results – this too is not democracy. History shows all extremists end badly – they all result in huge destruction. Todays left are extreme -just as bad as Trump. The storming of the Capitol – was an outrage. Burning towns down by the left was OK. How does that work ?
I suggest you sit through the hours and hours of State Senate hearings on the electoral irregularities and then listen to individual accounts by other witnesses, of which there are thousands. Youtube may have deleted these by now. Then there are analyses by pollsters, statisticians, IT engineers, psephologists et al for you to peruse, with graphs and charts galore. Again, I can’t guarantee that FATGA have not deleted them. The Californian Oligarchs have been removing a heck of a lot, not just the President.
G Harris
3 years ago
‘The Revolution Will Not Be Televised’
This was, and it wasn’t one.
What is happening here in terms of the impeachment and the cynical overplaying, both in the US MSM and elsewhere, of the ‘storming’ of the Capitol by a few hundred non-military individuals from a population of 330m in arguably the most powerful, militarised nation on earth as if it were some genuine nascent revolution designed to overturn to centuries of US democracy rather than little more than a political stunt gone wrong is an utter travesty and, quite frankly, an affront to anyone with a modicum of intelligence and with any remote understanding of what constitutes a genuine revolution, let alone anyone who might genuinely have experienced one.
Lyn Griffiths
3 years ago
I read the essay, but was not sure what your point was by the end. But to say keeping guard of America’s 46th President was and is paramount. I also feel his security must remain tight because he is undoing what should never been meddled with. Especially by a person whose knowledge of the basics of a bible and it’s content was more than questionable. He was and is a person who will say things for the effect of that moment, and people like that have a mental and behavioural problem and in truth he should never have been president. But millions voted for him so it is and not my call. But I was concerned
You don’t seriously believe those were his own words, do you?
Dan Martin
3 years ago
If Jan 6 had been a real insurrection, do you think the few police defending the capitol building would have been able to stop them? The militarization of DC was a Potemkin response to a Potemkin insurrection, all brought to a boil by a Potemkin resistance to a Potemkin presidency.
Andrew Lale
3 years ago
Given that many Democrat governors actually stood down their National Guard troops during the BLM/Antifa riots, and refused federal armed assistance, you can see that the American system now sees patriotic Republican voters as the enemy. And THAT reminds me of a little kid pulling down a pan of boiling fat on its own head. You can do it, Democrats, but you really really won’t like the consequences.
Harry Powell
3 years ago
Twitter video apparently shows National guardsmen turning their backs on the Biden motorcade travelling to the Capitol. I haven’t read any MSM commentary on this, you have to ask if this was a protest.
Not the crowd, the one off “grassy knoll” guy and his handlers. If Ms Bush, AOC et al are as dangerous as everyone says surely they’ll assassinate Biden and blame Trump? Wait a minute, no state or criminal actor with genuine ability would trust such clowns. Thats why we’ve been happy in the west to let mentally ill psychos on skunk act the part of “islamist extremist”. Real DAESH warriors are too clever to be dupes. Long live Marinus Van Der Luebbe and the Mediahadeen!
As the man says below, 360degree surveillance is a basic requirement of SMEAC,
Ralph Hanke
3 years ago
I am glad Trump is gone.
And I now feel a sense of peace and security that Biden (I.e., the Democrats) are in power. A sense that somehow all will be well now that Uncle Joe and the Joettes are back in town.
The first I am OK with. The second disappoints me. It is as though I have fallen back into my mother’s arms, a peacefully content babe thinking all will be well.
And as the author points out, I am weirdly comfortable that the army was all over the capital. It can be argued, of course, that because the army was in place, there wasn’t an insurrection. And that may be so; but really, we cannot ever know. All we know is that we militarized DC for a certain amount of time and no one got shot.
Ultimately, I know the sense of comfort I described will stay with me; and somehow, so will my sense of disappoint that my personal bias is so strongly in favor of a left leaning government that I easily accept some amount of authoritarian rule because it supports “my side.”
America has a penchant for over reacting when the oligarchy is threatened. Remember when two countries were invaded after 9/11? The US government spent $3 Trillion, displaced 3 million people, caused hundreds of thousands of deaths, and did permanent damage to US foreign relations.
A few million bucks to demonstrate the establishment’s power over the rabble is to their thinking, money well spent. Particularly, when law enforcement’s incompetence to prevent a mob riot at the seat of government was displayed!
Obviously, actions by the private owners of “The Cloud” were more effective at preventing a repeat on inauguration day, than the miles of razor wire and temporary martial law in D.C..
Actually, I read years ago the Iraq War alone will cost $6 trillion with lifetime care of our wounded, probably more. Not that it matters – money printing is endless, and nobody cares.
Derek M
3 years ago
All is well, the corporate warmongers are back in charge. Big tech, big business, big media and big government will ensure the US public don’t make that mistake again.
Mike B
3 years ago
“Why did no one question the military occupation of Washington?”
If you don’t know the answer to the question, you haven’t been paying attention. Of course, they had to lock down the capital and suppress free speech/discussion of our new East Berlin. (Nobody was coming any way and that would not match the narrative.) Those who didn’t vote for the Dementia Party candidate and pogrom are essentially considered to be domestic terrorists and insurrectionists. Because Jan. 6th ( a handy excuse). They are to be exterminated, not accommodated. Silenced, not heard. Because a one party state does not tolerate criticism. Because “Unity” really means shut up or be deplatformed. Shut up or you will be tarred as a follower of K Anon. K as in kulak. If not KKK Anon. Capiche? It’s not rocket surgery, Dr. Kildare. cheers,
Judy Englander
3 years ago
But there was an antifa attack on a Portland federal building that day. So your comment ‘then the day came and went … nothing’ isn’t completely accurate, is it? Or doesn’t antifa violence count?
Nick House
3 years ago
Here’s a Q: is this article an indication that the PsyOp is working, or part of the misinformation plan? Hmmm. A few thoughts to ponder… – check the wallpaper in Pres Biden’s WH office whilst signing the EOs – compare with previous 2 admin’s. – and what’s happened to those EO’s? https://www.federalregister… – why else might a large body of soldiers occupy another country that is no longer a Corporation (1871, DoD LoW Ch XI)? – What else might be going on during these 10 days of darkness? – Are we about to experience the Great Reset or the Great Awakening? You decide. Do your own research. Be your own journalists. Good luck with taking the Red Pill – when it arrives…
Because Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called for it a few weeks back; and Canadians never lie. And I should know, je suis Canadian.
More seriously, I doubt the Davos group is a shadow or dark government. They are willing to, at least somewhat, work out in the open and let us know they are around. At the same time, the group includes some seriously powerful people whose decisions and implementations have a profound effect on our world.
I sincerely hope they have left Plato’s cave and really see “the Good.”
Brian Bieron
3 years ago
The stupid and violent invasion of the Capitol Building, led by the most bizarre collection of crazy conspiracists in American history, is why there were so many troops in Washington. When the US security apparatus gets caught with their pants down, as they were when the loons invaded the Capitol with cries of “Hang Mike Pence”, and there are numerous death threats being circulated online afterwards, you can expect the security folks to double down with bipartisan support. Plus, the fact that there is a pandemic raging obviating any traditional public Inaugural events meant that responding to folks gathering with a policy of Just Say No was the easiest course of action. With overwhelming bipartisan support.
You and a few others are the voices of sanity here. I cannot believe the level of ignorance revealed in most of the other comments. I have always been a bit iffy about reading and contributing on this site, and now my concerns are clearly revealed. The unHerd are just another herd. While I enjoy political dialogue I am disappointed in the level and style of remarks on this site. I expected more. Ug!
How can you criticise the lack of law and order during the riot and then criticise the admittedley overkill during the inauguration. As to why protestors were not around it was because of the armed guards. Duh!
A very interesting article, and somewhat more balanced than some I’ve seen. I have become fascinated with the US election even though I’m not even from that country. Rather than following the Mainstream Press, which I’m very sceptical about, I went to many independent sources trying to find out what the truth was. I can’t guarantee I’ve found it, but from many hours reading and watching I’ve come to certain conclusions: – There seems substantial evidence on the internet that the election was fraudulently stolen in what amounted to a political coup. That would make Joe Biden a corrupt president. If true, America should curse Dominion Systems, algorithms, mail-in ballots, multiple ballot scanning, record rejection rates, poor polling security, vicious partisanship, compromised officials etc. – Biden seems utterly compromised: His son’s laptops; Ukraine; Russia; China etc etc. – The influence of the far left is now increasingly dangerous in the USA. – The attack on Capitol Hill was a terrible thing and completely unacceptable. It seems clear that as well as Trump supporters there were Antifa and Anarchists involved in stirring it. They had attacked before Trump’s speech was even finished, and it had been planned long in advance. – Interesting those angry Democrat voices (and some Republican) absolutely condemning Capitol Hill. Meanwhile they were utterly silent as mobs burned city centres in the summer. Sources said that cost $1.4bn and 47 lives. Kamala Harris allegedly (on video) encouraged the riots and influenced rioters’ charges being dropped. – The huge crowd in DC of possibly 1m was vastly peaceful. If the reckoned 600-800 insurgents is accurate, that’s 0.08% of the crowd! I’ve read testimonies from retired Senior Military and Congress figures on that! – The Military overkill for Inauguration Day was an Overreactive Political Statement. – I think America is in a perilous place, and the new Executive Orders have already started costing money, jobs, border security and trust across the nation. – It seems that the first part of God Bless America should be God Rescue America. – Of course I would be delighted if anyone could give me clear evidence that this is incorrect.
mike otter
3 years ago
If this was supposed to be Creepy Joe’s Reichstag fire the matches were obvs wet! If however he’s a pro fracking, lock up black ppl, fight China all the way sort of guy then he’s more Keepy than Sleepy or Creepy. Good thing the Militias and Tea Party MAGA wing nuts kept their powder dry. Lets hope it stays that way. Given their rhetoric you can see why the National Guard were called out… unlike the leftist version the ZOG wingnuts have balls and brains. You guys gotta know that the whole culture war stuff is only real for a few rich white folks and even fewer rich black ones. Sure the left wing post modernist guys are dangerous as was Che Guevara, Brigatte Rossi, INLA etc but they are a minority within a minority. Pinker is right, we are getting better but as Obama said its not linear and its not guaranteed.
David Cockayne
3 years ago
My country was not invaded in 1940, so what was the point of World War II? Give me a break.
David Bottomley
3 years ago
I leave it to citizens of the USA to decide whether or not they think there was anything wrong with deploying the National Guard ( not the army!). However I can’t but help notice the rather bizarre arguments used in this piece which seem to come down to: the Guard was deployed; there were no signs of riots or violence on the day, there fore deploying the guard was not only a waste of time but an unwarranted ‘gargantuan military crackdown ‘. In a country with serious military hardware in the hands of anyone who want to buy it, and a country where just a short while ago an armed mob took over Capitol Hill, the whole deployment seems like a good move to this observer .
“In a country with serious military hardware in the hands of anyone who want to buy it”
This it not true.
It’s something that’s often said by people who don’t know much about guns and therefore don’t understand the difference between a semi-automatic rifle that superficially looks like a full auto (or 3-shot burst) weapon and the real thing. Or the difference between a rifle and a belt-fed machine gun.
And from the point of view of a Brit, your point simply reinforces the point that the USA is a country where people think it’s totally alright to own and carry automatic rifles, not only at home but in any public place
It is extremely difficult for a private citizen to own an “automatic rifle” in the United States. Google the “National Firearms Act”.
It is, however, relatively easy in the U.S. to own a semi-automatic rifle that superficially looks similar to an automatic rifle, but doesn’t function the same.
Christopher Barclay
3 years ago
If they expect insurrection to be the response, what are they planning?
The Inauguration of the democratically elected President. Just as the Senate’s certification of his election on January 6th provoked violent insurrection.
You must live a soft life-I have seen worse “violent insurrections” on high school ball fields, except of course the unarmed woman who was needlessly shot in the face by a cop.
Terry M
3 years ago
One person who was involved in planning the Inauguration said the planning had been going on for 8 months. That means they started the plan in May 2020. You remember what was going on in May 2020 and onward, right? There were numerous violent riots in cities from Washington DC to Seattle and everywhere in between. These precautions were prepared to protect against the antifa and BLM mobs in case Trump was re-elected. The riot on Jan 6th merely shifted the blame to the Proud Boys and Buffalo guy, very conveniently for the MSM and leftists everywhere.
She could have used them earlier in the past year, rather than painting BLM slogans on the street in front of the White House, while actual rioting mobs looted, attacked, and burned.
George Lake
3 years ago
Historically the US has a propensity for shooting its Presidents, six* so far in 237 years, which works out at one every forty years.
Perhaps we are due another?
(*4 dead and 2 wounded)
johnpower90
3 years ago
You f*****g disingenuous c**t. T
David Kirkwood
3 years ago
You don’t like Trump, do you?
merlin3189
3 years ago
See the Mallen Baker show on Monday 25 Jan 1900 GMT for an honest and balanced appraisal of Trump’s presidency. (Available after on Youtube or his Facebook group – unless banned !) I’ve no idea what he’ll say, but he is the most non-partisan and fact based broadcaster in UK.
Andrew Fisher
3 years ago
On this particular limited question, following the Capitol Hill incursion and in the run up to the Inauguration, having a lot of soldiers and police visibly patrolling the streets, but with mainly unloaded weapons, seems very sensible to me….
Margaret Donaldson
3 years ago
Perhaps some of your subscribers are too young to remember the assassinations of John and Robert Kennedy plus Martin Luther King. The development of drone and sophisticated weapon technology should be considered too. Given the widely promulgated view by the more extreme Trump supporters that they were very angry, it was the duty of the state to protect the incoming President and Vice-President of whatever ilk. If anything HAD happened, that would have been far worse than the scenarios projected by some of your subscribers. The BBC talked to some Trump diehards in the south and without comment showed them waving some of their guns proudly at the camera. The British Army is not so well equipped. But then it can’t shop online.
Given the widely promulgated view by the more extreme Trump supporters that they were very angry, it was the duty of the state to protect the incoming President and Vice-President of whatever ilk. So, who “widely promulgated” this view? On what basis? And when did anger become another term for violence or murder? Well, at least outside leftist circles where trashing cities and killing some people is peaceful protest.
This was a message to the kulaks. The same troops that members of Congress took pictures with beforehand were banished to a parking garage afterward.
jamie buxton
3 years ago
“Imagine if Trump had deployed that kind of force to suppress protest and imagined “threats” ahead of his second inauguration.”
I don’t like this sort of speculation. The answer is: we don’t know what would have have happened. Imagine if the Capital had been invaded by BLM: we don’t know what would have happened. Ditto Antifa and ditto a legion of elderly citizens of Maine wearing big mittens. What we do know is that USA has always and will always respond to threats with massive shows of force, witness the response to the Boston Marathon Bombing of 2013, when the city was effectively shut down; witness the deployment of the National Guard for what we in the UK would consider a policing matter. That’s the way they do things and then everything settles down again with no sign of a fascist state establishing itself in any form.
Actually, you don’t have to speculate. Remember when the left lost its collective mind because some federal agents – in unmarked vehicles, no less – were dispatched to Portland after some antifas tried to set federal building, with people inside, on fire? It was treated as an assault on humanity itself. Attacking people going about their jobs was totally okay. Sending some enforcement agents to address the violence was out of bounds. No speculation necessary.
Are you kidding me? BLM protestors were beaten and subjected to chemicals just for the purpose of Trumps infamous photo-op outside a church in which he held a bible upside down.
And by ‘the left liberal establishment has successfully restored itself to power’ I take it you mean Biden won the election. A phrase you obviously can’t bring yourself to utter. A bit like Trump who clearly you don’t support blah blah blah. I’ll give Trump one thing he didn’t pardon Assange.
Dave Draycott
3 years ago
So a mob invading the Capitol, murdering a police officer, coming equipped to take hostages and looking for the VP in order to lynch him are ‘goofball’? Really? And then of course putting security in place following these ‘goofball’ frivolities is the real crime. Now I hate to pop your bubble but the reason we didn’t get more trouble was the presence of the National Guard. Yes, really. Also following the attack on the Capitol it has also been apparent that the US state will not accept this garbage. There were some at least who had not worked out that they could expect payback. Well now such morons know differently. They can expect a knock on the door from the FBI and maybe a 10 to 20 stretch. And I’m pretty sure in 100 years when kids get taught about these crazies it will be the invasion of the Capitol that will take centre place. You really do need to get yourself plugged back into reality.
Someone is surely in a bubble, or an echo chamber. Even the family of the police officer that died is asking people to quit referring to his death as a murder, as the authorities back off of that assumption. Not a lot of hostage taking, was there? As someone once said: “a useful idiot”…have fun with your peculiar “reality”.
nick harman
3 years ago
Best to have more soldiers than you need than find out you don’t have enough?
After all, gun owners tend to also be rabid Trump supporters. 75 million of them.
In any 10 year period lawful gun owners are responsible for far less gun violence than gun-controlled Chicago or DC in a week. So you go ahead and slander the “rabid” citizens that you seem to fear, knowing full well that there was no armed insurrection danger…
Interesting…..if Trump suggested his “rabid” supporters might consider giving a passing Democrat a hefty bite somewhere on their personal superstructure. …….mind boggles.
Paranoia runs the Left, especially because it’s feeling insecure & illegitimate.
Chris C
3 years ago
14 days after a mob wielding assault rifles storms the Capitol with 5 dead in order to prevent Biden from finally being registered by the Senate as the President-elect, the new President is being sworn in in the presence of 3 ex-Presidents (all also targets for the crazies) on the steps of the Capitol with the whole world watching America to see whether it has finally been reduced to the level of Zimbabwe or the Central African Republic. What are the authorities expected to do – rely on plastic tape and everyone being nice? What would YOU do if you were responsible for security?
As it was, violence was deterred and the event passed off peacefully. Job done.
This article seems to be based on a crybaby attitude – “it’s alright for us to wave Armalites, that’s fun, but when the adults turn up with guns too, that’s outrageous”. Some people need to grow up and stop whining. The irresponsibility and thuggishness of Jan 6th have had consequences. The fact that some people on the left would be equal crybabies will no doubt be quoted here, but remember, when you point a finger at someone else there are three fingers pointing back at you – rightly.
A gross overreaction that did allow the world to see that America had indeed: “been finally been reduced to the level of Zimbabwe or the Central African Republic”
The only gun fired was in the face of an unarmed protestor. Also, except for about 200 rioting cranks., most of the “mob” was pretty tame, as you well know. Congress went on with it’s business later that evening, unlike businesses in Oregon, Washington, Minnesota, New York City, and, of course Washington D.C. Nice grade school quote there ending your post…
shannon
3 years ago
Good grief what a crock. The author is just upset basically that Dems got back in, and his riffing on ‘but isn’t the military lockdown of the Capitol itself a fascist act’ is one of the most baffling elisions of sanity I have read on this site. Can we go back to asking why the military ignored pleas to aid the Capitol police when a violent mob had broken in and were a few doors away from wiping out the representatives holed up in there? Something to do with Michael Flynn’s brother being in on the Pentagon call that resulted in denying their troops? Seriously. do me a favour. Tripe
Can we go back to asking why the military ignored pleas to aid the Capitol police when a violent mob had broken in Because the military is not a domestic police force. We have laws about that. Perhaps you noticed how few governors called out the National Guard when mobs raged in their states for months. And whatever this author is, a fan of Trump is not on that list.
Those governors, all Democrats, all Trump haters, who refused to call out the National Guard to restore order did so out of political expediency. It served their own interests to let their cities burn, their local businesses destroyed, and their citizens suffer and die, if they could use that destruction to go after Trump. It’s the same reason nearly all those rioters were being released without being charged, and police were constantly being ordered to stand down and forbidden to use effective crowd control measures. Now that he’s gone, no way will they tolerate it now. We’re already seeing the difference in places like Seattle and Portland, where police are already dealing with rioters very differently from how they dealt with them all last year.
Any evidence that “a violent mob”…” were a few doors away from wiping out the representatives holed up in there” as they weren’t armed and didn’t actually trash the place? I am asking specifically about the intimation that the intent was to kill elected members of the government as weren’t most/all elsewhere listening to a speech at this time?
Looking at the pictures from inside the Capitol as they were “doors away from wiping out the representatives”, I couldn’t help thinking of Neil from the “Young Ones”
But I heard some of them smeared their feces (“poo d’ etat?”) on the walls, so maybe they were attempting some kind of bacterial warfare….still, however gross that is, this is not the action of one intent on staging a “coup”. At most, it’s the action of someone who is mentally ill.
The policeman died later, of a stroke. The other deaths you mention have not been confirmed. One woman may have been trampled. The only death at the Capitol which has been confirmed is the one which has also been hushed up, that of the unarmed young woman who was shot dead for attempting to climb up and look through a window. She was not part of any violence or destruction. No riots world wide, though.
Keep talking guys, and pretty soon you will have convinced yourselves that a riotous mob invading the heart of democracy were just a bunch of harmless middle of the roaders.
No need to talk to you, apparently. You get the Winston Smith good job award.
Simon Adams
3 years ago
This is just nonsense, it’s a sensible precaution when there is an evident threat to a core constitutional process. This is what the military is for … to protect the citizens and their representatives in doing their democratically sanctioned business.
There are plenty of genuine risks to society that the right should be focussing on, the coup of the universities by postmodern and marxist ideologies that are against liberty, equality, freedom of speech etc. To write all these articles about trivial precautionary measures seems to have no basis other than whipping up polarised politics, seems a bit juvenile. There is a time and place for protest, but if I want to get up and protest on the stage at the last night of the proms, I would rightly be removed.
This is what the military is for … to protect the citizens and their representatives in doing their democratically sanctioned business. No, that’s what police are for. There is a law against using the military as a law enforcement unit domestically. And the National Guard is usually called out after natural disasters and other events where chaos is likely, except apparently for those times when leftists riot in major cities.
There were 25,000 troops. That’s far more than trivial.
If that figure is accurate it is, by way of comparison, roughly double the number of active duty troops and National Guardsmen sent to support police in quelling the 1992 LA riots, which caused over $1 billion in property damage to a total of just under 4,000 buildings.
26,000. The difference of 1,000 is a huge number in itself.
Philip Burrell
3 years ago
What an utterly pointless and biased article! A threat to the President was identified and appropriate security measures were taken. Those measures were successful. What would you have preferred? Another invasion of The Capitol or perhaps a bullet to the head of Joe Biden.If DC is to remain under this level of military security for any length of time, you might conceivably have a point but for such an important occasion, the whole operation seems perfectly justifiable.
What threat? There was no threat to Biden. There were some people who went out of their way to insult troops, like Steve Cohen of TN. There were some police state shows of mandated purity in looking through social media histories to weed out troops who might hold conservative views. But there was no threat.
The threat was the prospect of another repeat of the attack on The Capitol, incited by the outgoing President who along with so many other deluded people still clings to the belief that the election was stolen. With a bit of luck the Republicans in the Senate will finally grow some and support the impeachment of Trump, although given their craven enabling of his Presidency, I won’t be holding my breath.
Multiple media sources said the attack was pre-planned, which means Trump didn’t incite it, so try again. It cannot be pre-arranged AND incited by Trump. And there was ‘threat’ to speak of in the first place. There were more troops on hand than civilians, which is always a great visual for a democratic republic.
Mr Gorbachev said the assault on the Capitol had been planned in advance and it was obvious who did it. When someone tried to quote these cryptic words on the internet, Youtube cut them. You’d think he would be safe from the Californian Oligarchs at his great age.
Couple of points. Just exactly how did President Trump ‘incite’ the ‘attack on The Capitol’ ? He was still speaking when the first people entered the building, and considering it takes 15 minutes walk to go between the two sites it would seem the Presidents speech had nothing to do with it. And having watched the speech nothing in it was incitment to anything and it fell well within the bounds of the 1st Amendment.
Secondly Impeachment is to remove an office holder from office. As President Trump is now a private citizen and holds NO offices he cannot be tried on Impeachment. What you are seeking is a ‘Bill of Attainder’ and such is specifically forbidden by the Constitution. Seeking to ‘try’ him before the Senate is illegal, unconstitutional and tyrannical. If they do this to him then that means Congress can seek to try anyone for anything. Wont do.
What an absurd comment given the Capitol invasion two weeks previously, the gun-waving of Trump supporters and Germany-1930s style right-wing militias, and the long history of political assassination in the US. Of course there was a threat to Biden and indeed to George W. Bush, elected representatives Democrat and Republican in the audience at the Inauguration, and everyone else present there.
Dave H
3 years ago
So a national guard presence, in direct response to an actual coup attempt in which some went equipped for kidnap and hanging of national representatives, is a fascist crackdown?A crackdown in which nobody was actually cracked down upon is fascist?You invite us to imagine what would have happened if Trump had deployed such forces in response to ‘imagined’ threats when such threats abound and less than two weeks ago people erected a gallows outside capitol hill?This is tripe.
The relief program is the start minority and female businesses to be prioritized but not the majority white owned businesses so they will become less viable and disappear
Not really a coup attempt though was it?, a few nutters with props and a few politicians who maybe wet their pants is far different from a coup or insurrection, any attempted coup would require the involvement of the military or police, the capturing of media and communication sites, energy production and so on.
At least a dozen members of the National Guard were purged. This is unprecedented. They now have to show loyalty to a political party, not just the country and constitution.
‘”Fascism,” in other words, was defeated ” with a gargantuan military crackdown.’
The Democrats are far more fascistic than Trump ever was, as evidenced by:
– their openly stated plans to clamp down on free speech and ‘deprogram’ people
– their alliance with finance and the larger corporates (Mussolini said that the fascism was the alliance of state and industry)
– their plans to take away people’s guns while being financed by the Military Industrial Complex
I do agree that Trump’s various pardons were an abomination, but that seems to be the case withe every President, and the same is true of the way that outgoing Prime Ministers in the UK hand out honours to family and cronies. We are both morally, intellectually and corrupt countries, but the US is heading for something very evil indeed.
Thanks to you for quoting Mussolini-it seems that the true definition of “fascist” has been lost-it’s irritating to hear how many use the word with no real idea of it’s meaning.
Well, it’s debatable whether the new regime is a thing of evil but what is certain is that the proven and demonstrated evil of the outgoing regime is no more to stalk the halls of Capitol Hill.
yawn
your lazy intellect is noted.
Please prove and demonstrate that assertion.
the empirical evidence of the past five years and the tens of thousands of lies, obfuscations and false equivalencies.
lol; are “lies, obfuscations and false equivalencies” the worst you can accuse any politician of? There has probably been no President in the past 100 years who wasn’t guilty of “tens of thousands” of those.
again…your willful and malign ignorance is noted.
You know, I prefer Trump’s lies to the spiteful venom spouted by the Democrats, their encouragement and support of violence and mayhem across the country for the last few years and their continued demonisation of half the country who, having been let down by them for years, took their chance at the ballot box to better their lives.
Years of Democratic failure begat Trump’s success, forty-odd years in Biden’s case alone; until the Democrats recognise this and learn some humility they will be in no position to heal America – but then, that is not their intention, is it?
Trump made 30,573 false or misleading claims as president. Nearly half came in his final year.
I always follow your posts, Fraser, but offer one caveat. Mussolini spoke of Corporatism (believe it or not , Ripley, I got suspended from FB for 7 days for posting the quote). It was pointed out to me in context Mussolini referred not to business entities but to unions, guilds, etc,, which makes California much closer to the definition, various unions (public service, teachers) being the actual controllers of the political elites. Of course, things change. Evolve, one might say. Politics are elastic. The various tech and financial oligarchs wedded to the Democratic party, and to the Cult of Woke, have expanded the definition. But don’t say this too loud. They’re listening.
I’d say they are nearer to Maoism. With their cultural revolution and black propaganda, their denunciations and humiliations, their threatened re education, all backed up by violence and intimidation, they are operating like the Red Guards.
A foundation of Maoism is ‘Self Denunciation’. It is coming to the West fast, and will be mandatory soon enough.
It is a logical progression.
so sayeth the great Q in the ether.
Fascism should more appropriate be called Corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power.
and the paradigm of American governance for going on a hundred years.
I see it as a variant of communism which coopts business.
70 pardons from Trump and over a 1,000 from Obama.
The executions were much worse than the pardons.
I do not see the executions as worse than not executing, better more, did you hear what they did?
I know that the one woman of the 13 executed killed a pregnant woman by cutting her baby out of her womb. leaving her to bleed to death and fleeing with the baby, which she tried to pass off as her own. Another burned a couple to death, whom he had violently robbed then tortured for days, by shooting them, putting them still alive and conscious into the trunk of their car, then setting it on fire. None were exactly anti-death penalty poster kids.
That merits the death penalty in my book.
It isn ‘t the number of pardons—it is the kind of pardons!!!!! What a facile comparison.
all of Obama’s actions were through the auspices of the Department of Justice.
Trump not a single one.
All of Trump’s were done through the auspices of The Trump Organization’s offshore banking funcitonaries and all involving a minimum of seven figures.
If you want to talk about abominable pardons, you should start with Bill Clinton.
fascism has nothing to do with it…it was a coordinated coup d’etat timed and targeting the formal acceptance of the States’ electoral college votes which 130+ Republican members of the House and a dozen or so Republican Senators were rejecting even though they themselves were not representing those states and directed from the stage by a President in the two weeks in office before being turned out.
“coordinated coup d’etat”…??? How exactly, if you think it was so “coordinated”, would it have played out if it had succeeded? It looked like just another wanton and aimless riot to me, like the many we saw last year in D.C. and elsewhere, and in terms of the destruction it wrought, quite tame in comparison.
Republican members of Congress giving tours the day before when tours had been shut down due to Covid-19 for the past year; Trump’s effort to install a loyalist AG in the weeks immediately before the failed coup d’etat…oh yeah and the Joint Session of Congress to certify the electoral votes of the 50 states that 130+ Republican members of the House and a dozen or so Senators acting in concert to over turn the votes of the people in states they didn’t even represent.
your willful and malicious ignorance is noted.
If it was so intricately planned and “coordinated”, why did it turn into such a train wreck? The wonkiest 9/11 conspiracy theories have more plausibility than this.
everything Trump touches dies…
Really? Not only has consistent Democrat failure spawned Trump (see previous comment) they have now totally undermined any faith in the US electoral system. It started with GW and the hanging chads and continued in 2016 when they not only refused to accept the result but impugned the very system by which that result was obtained by suggesting, no, insisting that it was open to interference (until they won, of course). Whether or not there was fraud, by either side, until a thorough and transparent audit of the system is undertaken and any flaws sorted out, the US electoral system now has the public credibility of one of the old banana republics, with every loser entitled to cry foul. If both sides cannot see that and address the problem, the refusal to accept results will continue to sow division for years come
Precious little weaponry in evidence for a ‘coup d’etat’. Strolling between the cordons with a camera hardly screams murder. Yes, there were a few idiots, including an armed BLM high up, if the reports are to be believed.
Oh, and the ‘fascist’ with that well known fascist symbol, the hammer and sickle tattooed on his hand. Apart from the, ill judged, choice of place, I see little substantive difference between the insurrection at the Capitol, and the bloody and violent insurrection which has been acted out across the country by the other side over the last months.
What a strangely schizophrenic article. “Look, look, I’m knocking Trump, fellow members of the media”. And yet, there is still a very grudging, unspoken acknowledgment that maybe Trump wasn’t entirely wrong about everything, maybe his appeal to the actual, originalist, isolationist philosophical foundations of the United States had merit and maybe the true, fascistic nature of the left showed through, both in the violence of the Democrats’ street level activists during the summer and in the “official” threat of violence in the “papers please” approach of the locked down inauguration of “the most popular president in history”.
Yes, basically you need both sides of an argument – you can’t just try to silence one side. As I said on another thread, a true democrat listens to all ideas and changes slowly in order to accommodate those ideas. This is not happening in the USA. It is like there was an evil dictator who has now been removed and life can now carry on as before. Trump’s 75 million followers might be a minority – but not a minority to ignore.
Excellent comment, Chris.
Unfortunately, the Democrats have been fixated. They have spent four years trying to get rid of Trump without appreciating that Trump is not the cause he is only the effect. 74 million Americans did not cast their vote for Biden.
My concern is that Biden’s rhetoric will not be put into action by those around him. In particular, Pelosi has become obsessed with Trump to the point at which her uncivil behaviour will increase division.
So the four year hatred of Trump by the media, Pelosi, Obama, Hilary Clinton and others will begin to end for the sake of unity? They now want the unity that they begrudgenly didn’t give all the way through Trump’s presidency? Something not right somewhere.
For unity, read purges.
You’re forgetting the golden rule. He who has the gold makes the rules, or the unity, with 25,000 troops at your immediate disposal.
My concern is that Biden’s rhetoric will not be put into action by those around him.
You mean the people openly calling for deprogramming and otherwise targeting millions of Americans who are not of the left? Already, big tech has done what govt cannot legally do in moving to silence any opposition. Biden is barely more than a puppet.
It looks like America is in for a difficult four years.
Pelosi know those nutjobs were heading to the capitol and allowed them to breach it. How could a number of mostly unarmed people just walk right in while congress was in session? The FBI knew and informed her. Ultimately the capitol police answer to her, and she rebuffed any additional security
I have posed the same question: how could this many people just ‘get’ in? Something smells off, to me.
Did you not see the thugs pushing the police back on Jan 6th? They didn’t stroll in like tourists.
What a pity we can no longer post the photographs of the Trumpsters strolling in like tourists, in single file between the red cords, looking at the statues, not pulling them down, their cameras slung over their shoulders…albeit undocumented tourists.
Why wasn’t there additional security. The FBI warned them. Those warnings went unheeded. Why? Maybe someone might ask the evil woman from San Fran?
No, they did.
Maybe it served the Democrats purpose? There were many Antifa and BLM people there posing as Trump supporters.
Is there any actual evidence of that?
And why isn’t anyone in the media curious about how that happened? Never mind, we know why.
Hardly an “effect” more of a “symptom” dont you think? Trump, like boris Johnson emerged from the liberal distaste for the post industrial working class and their heirs. Biden andfolk like him are real uncle Tom’s in the eyes of trumps base. This can only come to grief
Trump sees the nobility in hard work, and patriotism. Biden sees losers and racists.
We have a population of 330 MILLION and a full 1/3 (110) are not children who cannot vote. A larger than “either” team group of voters did not vote at all. They no longer buy the “lesser of two evils” load of BS. Millions of people no longer register to vote and many registered voters do not vote. They’ve worked out who the state serves and what its purpose is or they simply know the state never serves their interests and what affects and inflicts misery upon them.
Sorry Anne-Marie, As I see it and have experienced it, there are 110 million Americans that are homeless, addicted, in nursing homes, or are totally ignorant of both the people running for office and the issues in dispute. The 35% not voting is more indicative of social pathology than it is of political protest!
Zuckerberg paid the Democrats to get many of these registered. Especially in Georgia for the runoff. Who knows who actually filled in their ballot papers?
Biden doesn’t know which way is up. “Those around him” have practically mandated men in my granddaughters’ locker rooms.
That is sick and says more about Biden than anything.
You are so right! Until the Democrats realise that they are the reason people voted for Trump and that they, not Trump, destroyed American democracy in 2016 when they not only refused to accept the result but impugned the method used to reach that result, following it with a four year scorched earth policy during which they encouraged and enabled violence and mayhem, they will never even begin to make the adjustments necessary to heal America.
Interesting, two down votes but no rebuttal!
Do you really think the 75 million who actually went to vote for Trump represent his entire support in the US? How many people who admire and support Trump didn’t go and vote in November? Millions and millions.
Why support Trump and not vote? That is senseless and self defeating.
Age, inconvenience, not being allowed on the register for some reason (plenty of that going on – possibly on both sides before you say it) and, in some neighbourhoods, I can well imagine, fear!
Well, for a start, it was 80 million, and they’re by far the majority. According to the evidence they have gleaned from the Dominion voting machines, Biden barely got 40 million. It will all come out in the wash.
I think I can say with confidence that Trump was not entirely wrong about everything. As they say even a broken clock is right twice a day. It is a sign of how completely fanatical the anti Trump movement became. I am sure some would have rather sacrificed many lives and denounced potentially life saving medication rather than admit he was right about something.
Trump was right about almost everything. Biden may be right twice a day, Kamala and Pelosi are 24 hour clocks stopped and are right once a day. max.
You only have to look at the 180 degree about face the Democrat media did with the moral qualities and personal merit of George W Bush, John McCain and Mitt Romney the second that they were no longer an electoral threat to see how utterly debased the American press have become.
Time for a rousing chorus of Tom Lehrer’s ‘Send The Marines’ only of course they probably will be sent to Mississippoli and elsewhere in the country (as well as back to the shores of Tripoli) for the express purpose of punishing the 75 million Trump supporters. Now someone the press corps likes has been elected it will be regarded as perfectly natural for American citizens to be criminalised for expressing their political opinions, while violent felons, illegal aliens are released into the community to carry on murdering and raping with impunity, on the basis that it would be racist to deport them.
So glad I don’t live under an oppressive, fascist like dictatorship, where I’m locked indoors for months on end, while thousands of illegal migrants enter the country every year and go on to commit Jihad, where freedom of speech is not allowed, where the press is not truly independent and doesn’t turn and change its tune on a sixpence in order to reflect the political fashions across the pond and patriotism is a dirty word.
On the point of being glad you are not in a country on lockdown whilst thousands of immigrants enter shows me that you are not in the UK which has the same problem.
LOL!
Where are these thousands of Jihadis and what are they doing?
..
Did I say Jihadis?
Sorry, Alison, just trying to work out where you have managed to find such a Utopia! Please send me details, or the recipe for whatever it is you are on.
It looked more like a coup and only further serves to divide the country, looking at both Sleepy Joes motorcade (with several Guardsmen having turned their backs on him) the lack of people cheering him on and the empty streets (a bit like the DNCs rallies during the campaign) and the thousands who lined the streets to say farewell to Trump and the crowd welcoming him to Florida it really makes you wonder who won the election….The dEMOCRATS ARE THE WORST SORT OF FASCISTS AROUND IMHO
“Several” turning their backs on the cavalcade”….there were “thousands” of soldiers with their backs to it. I’ve seen the original video’s.
I was being circumspect as some of those with backs turned may have been under orders to do so for ‘security’ reasons it is after all no good if you are looking at the ‘target’ but not behind you
Yes – Standard Procedure for any professional military force.
Don’t shit on the PBI.
Security forces normally turn their backs to keep an eye on the crowds lining the streets, but there were no crowds.
It was the visual cementing of the coup.
It would have been possible to secure the inauguration with a more covert military presence, by making such an overt show of force they are further embedding the lie of insurrection into the public consciousness, they call Trump a liar but he is an amateur when compared with the liberal left and their media sycophants, rather than uniting the country I expect the cancellation of anyone connected to Trump and the continuing denigration of those who voted for him.
It reminded me of Bliar’s sweeping into Downing street with every available AFO from the Met and beyond escorting and stood posing behind him armed to the teeth as he spoke to the MSMSM, a powerful message ‘I’m in charge now and I have this force of arms backing me’. Some of those AFO’s were soon denounced to PIRA as part of the GFA.
Sorry – can’t speak alphabet 🙂
On January 6, there were approximately 250,000 citizens in DC to attend a rally and to express concern about the recent election. About 200 of them became criminal miscreants and entered the Capitol while Capitol Police held the doors for them. A man carried Pelosi’s lectern about and waved to photographers. Another man with face paint and Buffalo horns posed for candids. Videos of all of this are freely available. Since then, the US media has mounted a direct attack on half of the country. Those in DC are now transformed into white nationalist domestic terrorists. AOC swore she “almost died”. This was a “coup”. Tech has silenced conservatives. The FBI remains a political weapon and gravely warned of dangerous events being planned. Unheard in the screeching has been the FBI determination that the miscreants had planned their Capitol incursion for weeks. They were not motivated by Trump. And so Joe/Blow were inaugurated behind barbed wire and 30,00 storm troopers in direct contravention of Posse Comitatus. Anyone, anywhere, who feels “comforted” by this grotesque display of elitist power should think again.
Who do the capitol police answer to? Who benefited from this the most? The same person is the answer to both of those questions.
Well said
As detail of the arrests leaks out, you can see the intruders were not nearly all Trumpsters. The main agents provocateurs were Antifa/BLM and Democrats. One of them was a CNN reporter. The Democrats and well connected have been released, including a NASA General’s son, and a NY Supreme Court Judge’s son bailed for $100,000, while the less well connected man with the horns, a peace and love type, faces 25 years for being “a symbol of insurrection”.
Oh dear.
I know. All those sneaky lefties pretending to be Trumpists operating in cahoots with the FBI and getting the real Trumpists into trouble.
How do you explain what that BLM agitator Sullivan was doing in the Capitol, participating in all the mayhem?
The irony of the situation is not lost on anyone with a brain. The left calls Republicans fascists but then deploys the troops to keep the public who allegedly elected him away from Biden. Say what you want about Mussolini, he was actually popular when he was first elected. Dems are framing legitimate political opposition to their socialist agenda as domestic terrorism. News outlets that don’t parrot the Democrat talking points need to be shut down. They want gun control to prevent another mythical coup attempt. Their violent protesters (BLM and Antifa) are acceptable just like Hitler’s Brown Shirts were in their day. They are proving the old adage that people are more likely to believe a big lie than a little one.
Say what you like about Mussolini, at least the trains ran on time.
Enoch said: Does every generation have to learn again the lesson that there are more important things than that the trains should run on time?
This is the tragedy of the human race, concentration on distractions allows evils to grow unnoticed. And not enough people are wearing hats!
And so Joe Biden was sworn in without incident, appealing for “unity”, while the city surrounding him was essentially under full-scale military occupation.
Well, yes; because that’s how you send a message to the kulaks that there’s a new sheriff in town. First, you outsource the silencing of opposition to third-party, private actors who can legally do it; then, you assemble the purge lists using terms like ‘cleaning’ and ‘deprogramming;’ and finally, the show of force reminiscent of every People’s Republic ever.
word of advice mate, keep away from the shouty websites
It was a power show to justify all the paranoia spouted about Trump and “right-wing extremists”. apparently 200 cranks led by a guy with a horn hat constitutes a mortal threat to the republic, not the uncontrolled…actually lauded and encouraged, riots and violence in cities across the land. Imagine if there were no troops-just the regular security, and no insurrection ensued-no riots or violence from “the right”…how foolish would the corrupt cabal,(and their media enablers) that have taken the reins then look?
the horns though, they looked dangerous, a weapon in fact.
It’s just more evidence the west has completely lost all sense of proportionality. Since Covid, this is the norm. We’re being conditioned to just accept all this grossness, and the media are cheering it on.
Yes, but not the “West”…. the “Left”.
Yet after the National Guards were called on for inauguration day they were dismissed. See the Daily Mail (including pictures):
https://www.dailymail.co.uk…
They thanked us for protecting them – then threw us out’: Outrage as 5,000 National Guardsmen are forced to sleep outside and in a parking lot with single bathroom after being told to leave Capitol
Pictures show Guardsmen sleeping on the floor of the packed parking lot after they were moved Thursday
Officials said Thursday that of the 26,000 Guard troops deployed to D.C. for the inaugural, just 10,600 remain.
Rep. Elise Stefanik tweeted: ‘Speaker Pelosi is in charge of the Capitol complex. She must provide answers immediately.’
This is as nothing compared to the unprecedented insult of vetting them politically beforehand, because “white males” are all potential assassins.
A great example of disenfranchising that will not be forgotten.
After 9/11 and the introduction of ‘Homeland Security’ the United States with its huge politicised ‘law enforcement’ system and its politicised and draconian ‘Justice system’ and its generally biased and dishonest media isn’t distinguishable from a police state in any meaningful way. Land of the Free, my eye.
“As he slunk away to Florida on Wednesday morning in humiliation and disrepute”
Really, after a 21gun salute and rousing reception on arrival?
Otherwise a very perceptive account Mr Tracey of one of the most humiliating days in post-war US history that I can recall. Who on earth organised such an orgy of national degradation and abasement, Pelosi?
There is off course, one iota of compensation, in that the Capitol has been subjected to a day of even greater ignominy than this appalling occupation by Pelosi’s stormtroopers. This may offer a scintilla of hope for US Patriots.
That day was the the 24th August 1814, when the brave lads of HM 44th Foot and others burnt the place to the ground. Now that was truly “a day infamy”, the shame of which is unlikely ever to be erased.
The new news media said the WaPo described substantial National Guard presences in all 50 state capitals on inauguration day. They also reported Antifa/BLM supporters rampaging through the Democratic offices in Portland OR and similar activism in Seattle WA. I have heard no corroboration and am interested to know if these reports are true. They suggest that the era of “mostly peaceful” demonstrations which the Guard put down have now served their purpose, that the Dems are the new Sheriffs in town. Time to “build back better” under Honest Joe. The man who grafted his way to the top.
Mayhem in Denver, Portland, and Seattle. The media is free to cover such things again, much like it’s free to cover how the new administration launched its tenure by sticking it to a neighbor and ally, shoving thousands into unemployment.
I live in Portland and I am not sure if any rampaging crowds could do anymore damage than they already have. A trip to any part of the metro area shows nothing but boarded up windows,(including city hall which looks like an armed fortress) graffiti emblazoned walls , broken statues and the homeless living on every street and park. Our mayor and another commissioner are engaged in a battle as to who will do what which results in nothing getting down.
It is very hard to get any honest reporting from our one fading newspaper. Our largest and oldest bookstore is not going to carry the book by the one reporter who has been on the ground reporting during the last many months. They caved to the peaceful protestors who objected. But not to worry. You can still buy White Fragility.
I was told that Wells Fargo (the bank I still use in spite of their miserable history) has had to close many of their branches due to the the nightly damage done to them. We are all waiting for the closure of the last big department store which will put the final nail in the business coffin.
What was once a lovely city is now a disaster zone.
Sorry to hear that. I would advise anyone in Portland to get out if they can, but I understand why many can’t, esp. if you own property – I mean, who would want to buy it right now? It’s strange though, I still see some Portland residents insisting that all the destruction’s been grossly exaggerated and it’s still a great place to live.
This is another “bait and switch” screed by yet another TDS victim. It begins with a few paragraphs that follow the headline, then descends into 8 paragraphs of “Trump bad”…tiresome.
Central to the left’s fantasy vision of the last 4 years is that Trump was pure aberration, inflicted on the hapless, misguided voters by the malign forces of Putin. Thoughtful analysis and criticism of government policy and action has been replaced by endless recycling of Trump’s tweets with painful self-congratulatory criticism appended.
The absurd response to the “coup” attempt (surely there is no serious observer who really thinks that the clowns parading the Capitol in horns were attempting a coup?) is simply part of cementing this fantasy in place. The Republic is under threat! Trump is a fascist! We must take extreme measures! The Russians are coming! The assorted Q-Anon jackasses were as big a threat to the Republic as the fool-students at the Evergreen College sit-in.
The Democrats are desperate to avoid any self-reflection – they cannot bring themselves to recognise that many sane, thoughtful voters looked at the US trajectory for the past 3 decades and decided that something big – even destructive – was necessary if it enabled a change of direction. Even if that “something big” was Trump. The Dems are so obviously wrong on identity politics (Biden’s awful trans exec order, for example), on much of foreign policy, on BLM, on education… They are wrong on immigration, wrong on trade policy and they put forward H Clinton, the most dreadful candidate in decades. Biden is a weak has-been; he makes GW Bush look eloquent.
Trump is a symptom. I am pleased he is gone; I am dreading what Biden’s handlers will have him sign. I fear he will be so awful that next time, we will be facing a Trump-like person who actually has competence.
I’ve been hoping to read this article all week: thank you Michael for introducing some sanity and simple common sense into the debate.
He lost me at Edward Snowden.
Presumably the down-voters consider betrayal of national and allied secrets to enemies to be perfectly fine.
Adding Michael Tracey to their list of writers is definitely one of the best things UnHerd have done.
an apologia for a failed coup d’etat…how willfully ignorant of you.
On willfull ignorance I defer to your expertise
this is everything right here:
Of course one small point. Security of The Capitol is a matter for the hag Pelosi and McConnell and their respective Seargent at Arms. The responsibility for the breach in security rests squarely with those two. They both need to resign immediately. The whole ‘insurrection’ looks more and more like a put up job, like Erdogan and his ‘coup’ the other year. These two idiots should have been more mindful of their duties. Next time it might be a few real terrorists with a few AK47s.
They didn’t interfere as they wanted it to look bad on Trump. As it turns out there were thousands of Antifa and BLM posing as Trump supporters to make him look bad. Pelosi knew this but chose to let the drama unfold so that Trump could be blamed.
I suspect the hag Pelosi and McConnell (possibly just the hag) deliberately reduced the security presence on the day so the place could be ‘invaded’. That gave the ‘excuse’ to demand a second Impeachment, which was window dressing, but might also be used – if they can make the illegal process fly, which with Roberts around is highly likely – to stop Trump running in 2024. It is all far too ‘convenient’ to me and stinks.
Evidence for the thousands of Antifa and BLM posing as Trump supporters?
They probably read it on an echo-chamber website.
I’m pretty sure that even if they were to produce ‘proof’, which is doubtful, you’d find a reason to justify it. Just an impression I get.
Remember what it was that Congress was about to debate when the incursion took place. Two hours was to be devoted to each disputed State in each House. 24 hours of debate altogether. A Senator had just proposed an emergency 10 day Bipartisan Commission on the electoral irregularities, and a Congressman was just beginning his speech on Arizona. This was to be the first and last chance to get some of the evidence out, and it was to be heard in front of the whole world. Now who on earth on the Trump side would have wanted to suppress any of that? The other side, however, had shown themselves to be lawless and violent throughout the four years and particularly through the summer. Why would they have allowed this process, which could have sent the scrutiny back to the State legislatures and changed the complexion of the electors, to go ahead?
Besides, the President was still addressing his orderly rally of half a million, at the Ellipse, at 1.15. The incursion by a motley crew of about 250 took place at the Capitol, a mile away, at 12.52.
The speech did not incite the breach, but he has been impeached for it by a baying mob of lying politicians, so it is now established fact.
Exactly, the violence at the Capitol was the worst possible thing that could have happened that day, from Trump’s and Trump’s supporters POV, and the best thing that could have happened, from the POV of those who wanted Trump to fail. In what world does it make sense to disrupt a hearing in which your concerns are finally going to be addressed, and given serious consideration?
The level of force was absurd. I live on the island of Mindanao in the Philippines. We were under martial law for over two years because of genuine threats from ISIS and the New People’s Army. It was far less intrusive or visible than the Biden inauguration show of force.
I have been waiting for someone else to mention this but will, one day, the Capitol riot be compared with the 1933 Reichstag fire?
The ruling power claimed that a communist (Trump?) revolution was being planned and used emergency legislation to suspend civil liberties and send the military onto the streets to restore order. This legislation also silenced the opposition leading to a one party state perpetuated with total media control and the absence of any opposition voice. At first this was deemed necessary by most of the people.
Admittedly we are a long way from the eventual outcome but I do find the complete absence of any dissenting view disturbing. Nobody appears to have mentioned that whilst this inauguration day seemed entirely peaceful despite apocalyptic predictions, 4 years ago it was marked with nationwide protests against Trump.
I can’t stand the man myself and would never have voted for him, but many millions did and their views appear to be ridiculed or ignored by the media.
Yup. I had the same thought right after the riot. I’am from Europe, know the history of Nazi Germany.
Glenn Greenwald and Tucker Carlson have dissented.
Sorry, should have said the absence of any significant visible dissent. Many are doing so privately but have no public sphere in which they are allowed to do so.
Schwarzenegger has already compared it to Krystalnacht.
It was a spectacularly sad sight – a history that has preceded the
disintegration of so many countries, from the USSR, throughout the
African, Asian and Latin American continents, being repeated in the
USA. An attempt at self – glorification while cowering behind concrete,
razor wire, weapons of war and thousands of armed troops in order to
keep dissident citizen-mobs at bay, while repeating the same old
patriotic irrelevant mendacious hogwash, desperately trying to feel
good, virtuous and worthy. What a joke.
Much of this is apt; except the penultimate sentence: ‘Fascism was defeated….’
It was not defeated. It has been working its way to a total takeover of the USA over the course of many years in which the ‘Liberal’ Left have marched through all the institutions and all but monopolized public discourse.
On January 20th it was finally enthroned; and the show of force – entirely disproportionate to any need – served two big purposes.
It showed who is Boss to those ‘deplorable’ populist dissentients that do not want totaliarian rule; and it covered up what would probably have been a rather thinly attended event.
Hardly anybody among the Democratic Party supporters ever wanted to exalt either Joe Biden or Kamala Harris. These two did exceptionally badly in the primaries for the recent Election and were simply shoe-horned by the party bigwigs into their respective candidatures.
I challenge any reader to produce ways in which the present state of American politics (and society) differs from that of Mussolini’s Italy.
One party state? Tick.
Nearly uniform reportage and opinion in the media? Tick.
Use of mobs on the street to intimidate all potential opposition? Tick.
A suffocating orthodoxy of opinion effectually enforced by most people’s unwillingness to lose their jobs, social life or (now merely notional) liberty? Tick.
This outcome is what happens to any society which has decayed spiritually in sufficient degree. As Shakespeare so well expresses it,
“She that herself will sliver and disbranch
From her material sap, perforce must wither
And come to deadly use”. (King Lear, Act IV, scene 2)
Add to this the fact that many Democrats are calling for their opponent’s supporters to be ‘deprogrammed and deradicalised.’
It is sad that education,which has recently focused on the rise of dictatorships in the early 20th century, has not enabled its victims to recognise a new dictatorship.
I am not surprised that the majority do not recognise this disturbing rise of oppression. It is happening at unprecedented speed and is barely being commented on in the MSM. Their whole narrative theme is “thank God we have gotten rid of Trump, now let’s silence his supporters and get back on track with our progressive agenda”.
Naive people who celebrate the Democrat victory may find in the coming years that the party they voted for is more extreme than they remembered. Conservatives may start to feel they are living under an occupying power.
Fascism was installed 20.1.21
Democracy was installed 20.1.21 (good to see someone using the UK convention on dates!) despite the attempt to overthrow it by force on 6.1.21.
Surely there can be no serious discussion of a “coup”, an “insurrection” concerning the shambolic events at the Capitol on January 6. I mean please, coups-real ones-are what the US has been up to it’s foul neck in for a very long time in other countries, yet virtually all the media world wide go along with that nonsense. I’m reminded of an old(kind of) joke which goes: why will there never be a coup in the US? Because there is no US embassy in Washington.
Very thin stuff. Very poor. What did the author seriously think was going to happen after the events of the previous week? Still, don’t worry Michael, Trump will be back.
Not only did the fraudsters hide behind barbed wire and put 26,000 troops between them and their own people, but they even purged the troops beforehand.
Oookkkkaaayyyy…..
Reading this feels like being through the looking glass.
Biden reminds me of those full size cut out cardboard policemen they use to deter petty criminals. 2-D, they blow over in the first gust of wind. I can see Harris giving the grandchildren roller skates to leave about on the landing.
Mmm. My understanding is that only the President, as Commander in Chief, could have sanctioned the deployment of the National Guard. And the President at the time of the deployment was — Donald Trump?
So the inauguration of Joe Biden was turned into a really clever piece of political theatre: No adoring crowds, unlike 2016, National Guardsmen lining the route of the cavalcade in fatigues and facing away from the incoming President. It really made Biden look like some sort of third world usurper with no real backing in the country.
I’ve no doubt the whole day has been noted and understood in Moscow and Beijing.
I agree when you think about it the over heavy deployment of the National Guard did make it look like Biden had just been swept to power in a Coup, all very Banana Republic.
Both sides are bad – like all extremists.
A President that can only take power by filling the streets with troops -this is not democracy.
A President who cannot accept ballot box results – this too is not democracy.
History shows all extremists end badly – they all result in huge destruction. Todays left are extreme -just as bad as Trump.
The storming of the Capitol – was an outrage. Burning towns down by the left was OK. How does that work ?
I suggest you sit through the hours and hours of State Senate hearings on the electoral irregularities and then listen to individual accounts by other witnesses, of which there are thousands. Youtube may have deleted these by now. Then there are analyses by pollsters, statisticians, IT engineers, psephologists et al for you to peruse, with graphs and charts galore. Again, I can’t guarantee that FATGA have not deleted them. The Californian Oligarchs have been removing a heck of a lot, not just the President.
‘The Revolution Will Not Be Televised’
This was, and it wasn’t one.
What is happening here in terms of the impeachment and the cynical overplaying, both in the US MSM and elsewhere, of the ‘storming’ of the Capitol by a few hundred non-military individuals from a population of 330m in arguably the most powerful, militarised nation on earth as if it were some genuine nascent revolution designed to overturn to centuries of US democracy rather than little more than a political stunt gone wrong is an utter travesty and, quite frankly, an affront to anyone with a modicum of intelligence and with any remote understanding of what constitutes a genuine revolution, let alone anyone who might genuinely have experienced one.
I read the essay, but was not sure what your point was by the end. But to say keeping guard of America’s 46th President was and is paramount. I also feel his security must remain tight because he is undoing what should never been meddled with. Especially by a person whose knowledge of the basics of a bible and it’s content was more than questionable. He was and is a person who will say things for the effect of that moment, and people like that have a mental and behavioural problem and in truth he should never have been president. But millions voted for him so it is and not my call. But I was concerned
He sounded like a saint at his inaugeration. It will be great if his words are honest.
You don’t seriously believe those were his own words, do you?
If Jan 6 had been a real insurrection, do you think the few police defending the capitol building would have been able to stop them? The militarization of DC was a Potemkin response to a Potemkin insurrection, all brought to a boil by a Potemkin resistance to a Potemkin presidency.
Given that many Democrat governors actually stood down their National Guard troops during the BLM/Antifa riots, and refused federal armed assistance, you can see that the American system now sees patriotic Republican voters as the enemy. And THAT reminds me of a little kid pulling down a pan of boiling fat on its own head. You can do it, Democrats, but you really really won’t like the consequences.
Twitter video apparently shows National guardsmen turning their backs on the Biden motorcade travelling to the Capitol. I haven’t read any MSM commentary on this, you have to ask if this was a protest.
probably for the same reason that police and security personnel at football matches watch the crowd rather than the game.
What crowd?
Not the crowd, the one off “grassy knoll” guy and his handlers. If Ms Bush, AOC et al are as dangerous as everyone says surely they’ll assassinate Biden and blame Trump? Wait a minute, no state or criminal actor with genuine ability would trust such clowns. Thats why we’ve been happy in the west to let mentally ill psychos on skunk act the part of “islamist extremist”. Real DAESH warriors are too clever to be dupes. Long live Marinus Van Der Luebbe and the Mediahadeen!
The point stands even without a crowd – if they’re looking at the motorcade, they’re looking the wrong way.
As the man says below, 360degree surveillance is a basic requirement of SMEAC,
I am glad Trump is gone.
And I now feel a sense of peace and security that Biden (I.e., the Democrats) are in power. A sense that somehow all will be well now that Uncle Joe and the Joettes are back in town.
The first I am OK with. The second disappoints me. It is as though I have fallen back into my mother’s arms, a peacefully content babe thinking all will be well.
And as the author points out, I am weirdly comfortable that the army was all over the capital. It can be argued, of course, that because the army was in place, there wasn’t an insurrection. And that may be so; but really, we cannot ever know. All we know is that we militarized DC for a certain amount of time and no one got shot.
Ultimately, I know the sense of comfort I described will stay with me; and somehow, so will my sense of disappoint that my personal bias is so strongly in favor of a left leaning government that I easily accept some amount of authoritarian rule because it supports “my side.”
Oh well, time for breakfast.
The line between leftists and satire is so thin these days…
Well that’s refreshing – some real reflection !
America has a penchant for over reacting when the oligarchy is threatened. Remember when two countries were invaded after 9/11? The US government spent $3 Trillion, displaced 3 million people, caused hundreds of thousands of deaths, and did permanent damage to US foreign relations.
A few million bucks to demonstrate the establishment’s power over the rabble is to their thinking, money well spent. Particularly, when law enforcement’s incompetence to prevent a mob riot at the seat of government was displayed!
Obviously, actions by the private owners of “The Cloud” were more effective at preventing a repeat on inauguration day, than the miles of razor wire and temporary martial law in D.C..
Actually, I read years ago the Iraq War alone will cost $6 trillion with lifetime care of our wounded, probably more. Not that it matters – money printing is endless, and nobody cares.
All is well, the corporate warmongers are back in charge. Big tech, big business, big media and big government will ensure the US public don’t make that mistake again.
“Why did no one question the military occupation of Washington?”
If you don’t know the answer to the question, you haven’t been paying attention.
Of course, they had to lock down the capital and suppress free speech/discussion of our new East Berlin. (Nobody was coming any way and that would not match the narrative.)
Those who didn’t vote for the Dementia Party candidate and pogrom are essentially considered to be domestic terrorists and insurrectionists. Because Jan. 6th ( a handy excuse). They are to be exterminated, not accommodated. Silenced, not heard.
Because a one party state does not tolerate criticism.
Because “Unity” really means shut up or be deplatformed.
Shut up or you will be tarred as a follower of K Anon.
K as in kulak.
If not KKK Anon.
Capiche?
It’s not rocket surgery, Dr. Kildare.
cheers,
But there was an antifa attack on a Portland federal building that day. So your comment ‘then the day came and went … nothing’ isn’t completely accurate, is it? Or doesn’t antifa violence count?
Here’s a Q: is this article an indication that the PsyOp is working, or part of the misinformation plan? Hmmm.
A few thoughts to ponder…
– check the wallpaper in Pres Biden’s WH office whilst signing the EOs – compare with previous 2 admin’s.
– and what’s happened to those EO’s? https://www.federalregister…
– why else might a large body of soldiers occupy another country that is no longer a Corporation (1871, DoD LoW Ch XI)?
– What else might be going on during these 10 days of darkness?
– Are we about to experience the Great Reset or the Great Awakening?
You decide. Do your own research. Be your own journalists.
Good luck with taking the Red Pill – when it arrives…
I believe it is the Great Reset.
Why?
Because Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called for it a few weeks back; and Canadians never lie. And I should know, je suis Canadian.
More seriously, I doubt the Davos group is a shadow or dark government. They are willing to, at least somewhat, work out in the open and let us know they are around. At the same time, the group includes some seriously powerful people whose decisions and implementations have a profound effect on our world.
I sincerely hope they have left Plato’s cave and really see “the Good.”
The stupid and violent invasion of the Capitol Building, led by the most bizarre collection of crazy conspiracists in American history, is why there were so many troops in Washington. When the US security apparatus gets caught with their pants down, as they were when the loons invaded the Capitol with cries of “Hang Mike Pence”, and there are numerous death threats being circulated online afterwards, you can expect the security folks to double down with bipartisan support. Plus, the fact that there is a pandemic raging obviating any traditional public Inaugural events meant that responding to folks gathering with a policy of Just Say No was the easiest course of action. With overwhelming bipartisan support.
You and a few others are the voices of sanity here. I cannot believe the level of ignorance revealed in most of the other comments. I have always been a bit iffy about reading and contributing on this site, and now my concerns are clearly revealed. The unHerd are just another herd. While I enjoy political dialogue I am disappointed in the level and style of remarks on this site. I expected more. Ug!
How about rebutting some points and making some of your own?
I expect more than ending your posts with utterances like “duh” and “ug” from someone so interested in “style”.
I can’t believe you didn’t also say “Do better!”
How can you criticise the lack of law and order during the riot and then criticise the admittedley overkill during the inauguration. As to why protestors were not around it was because of the armed guards. Duh!
I would bet that you say “duh” often…
A very interesting article, and somewhat more balanced than some I’ve seen.
I have become fascinated with the US election even though I’m not even from that country. Rather than following the Mainstream Press, which I’m very sceptical about, I went to many independent sources trying to find out what the truth was. I can’t guarantee I’ve found it, but from many hours reading and watching I’ve come to certain conclusions:
– There seems substantial evidence on the internet that the election was fraudulently stolen in what amounted to a political coup. That would make Joe Biden a corrupt president. If true, America should curse Dominion Systems, algorithms, mail-in ballots, multiple ballot scanning, record rejection rates, poor polling security, vicious partisanship, compromised officials etc.
– Biden seems utterly compromised: His son’s laptops; Ukraine; Russia; China etc etc.
– The influence of the far left is now increasingly dangerous in the USA.
– The attack on Capitol Hill was a terrible thing and completely unacceptable. It seems clear that as well as Trump supporters there were Antifa and Anarchists involved in stirring it. They had attacked before Trump’s speech was even finished, and it had been planned long in advance.
– Interesting those angry Democrat voices (and some Republican) absolutely condemning Capitol Hill. Meanwhile they were utterly silent as mobs burned city centres in the summer. Sources said that cost $1.4bn and 47 lives. Kamala Harris allegedly (on video) encouraged the riots and influenced rioters’ charges being dropped.
– The huge crowd in DC of possibly 1m was vastly peaceful. If the reckoned 600-800 insurgents is accurate, that’s 0.08% of the crowd! I’ve read testimonies from retired Senior Military and Congress figures on that!
– The Military overkill for Inauguration Day was an Overreactive Political Statement.
– I think America is in a perilous place, and the new Executive Orders have already started costing money, jobs, border security and trust across the nation.
– It seems that the first part of God Bless America should be God Rescue America.
– Of course I would be delighted if anyone could give me clear evidence that this is incorrect.
If this was supposed to be Creepy Joe’s Reichstag fire the matches were obvs wet! If however he’s a pro fracking, lock up black ppl, fight China all the way sort of guy then he’s more Keepy than Sleepy or Creepy. Good thing the Militias and Tea Party MAGA wing nuts kept their powder dry. Lets hope it stays that way. Given their rhetoric you can see why the National Guard were called out… unlike the leftist version the ZOG wingnuts have balls and brains. You guys gotta know that the whole culture war stuff is only real for a few rich white folks and even fewer rich black ones. Sure the left wing post modernist guys are dangerous as was Che Guevara, Brigatte Rossi, INLA etc but they are a minority within a minority. Pinker is right, we are getting better but as Obama said its not linear and its not guaranteed.
My country was not invaded in 1940, so what was the point of World War II? Give me a break.
I leave it to citizens of the USA to decide whether or not they think there was anything wrong with deploying the National Guard ( not the army!). However I can’t but help notice the rather bizarre arguments used in this piece which seem to come down to: the Guard was deployed; there were no signs of riots or violence on the day, there fore deploying the guard was not only a waste of time but an unwarranted ‘gargantuan military crackdown ‘. In a country with serious military hardware in the hands of anyone who want to buy it, and a country where just a short while ago an armed mob took over Capitol Hill, the whole deployment seems like a good move to this observer .
“In a country with serious military hardware in the hands of anyone who want to buy it”
This it not true.
It’s something that’s often said by people who don’t know much about guns and therefore don’t understand the difference between a semi-automatic rifle that superficially looks like a full auto (or 3-shot burst) weapon and the real thing. Or the difference between a rifle and a belt-fed machine gun.
And from the point of view of a Brit, your point simply reinforces the point that the USA is a country where people think it’s totally alright to own and carry automatic rifles, not only at home but in any public place
You have reinforced my point.
It is extremely difficult for a private citizen to own an “automatic rifle” in the United States. Google the “National Firearms Act”.
It is, however, relatively easy in the U.S. to own a semi-automatic rifle that superficially looks similar to an automatic rifle, but doesn’t function the same.
If they expect insurrection to be the response, what are they planning?
The Inauguration of the democratically elected President. Just as the Senate’s certification of his election on January 6th provoked violent insurrection.
You must live a soft life-I have seen worse “violent insurrections” on high school ball fields, except of course the unarmed woman who was needlessly shot in the face by a cop.
One person who was involved in planning the Inauguration said the planning had been going on for 8 months. That means they started the plan in May 2020. You remember what was going on in May 2020 and onward, right? There were numerous violent riots in cities from Washington DC to Seattle and everywhere in between. These precautions were prepared to protect against the antifa and BLM mobs in case Trump was re-elected. The riot on Jan 6th merely shifted the blame to the Proud Boys and Buffalo guy, very conveniently for the MSM and leftists everywhere.
Good point. But the Mayor of Washington asked for these troops and the C in C obliged her.
She could have used them earlier in the past year, rather than painting BLM slogans on the street in front of the White House, while actual rioting mobs looted, attacked, and burned.
Historically the US has a propensity for shooting its Presidents, six* so far in 237 years, which works out at one every forty years.
Perhaps we are due another?
(*4 dead and 2 wounded)
You f*****g disingenuous c**t. T
You don’t like Trump, do you?
See the Mallen Baker show on Monday 25 Jan 1900 GMT for an honest and balanced appraisal of Trump’s presidency. (Available after on Youtube or his Facebook group – unless banned !)
I’ve no idea what he’ll say, but he is the most non-partisan and fact based broadcaster in UK.
On this particular limited question, following the Capitol Hill incursion and in the run up to the Inauguration, having a lot of soldiers and police visibly patrolling the streets, but with mainly unloaded weapons, seems very sensible to me….
Perhaps some of your subscribers are too young to remember the assassinations of John and Robert Kennedy plus Martin Luther King. The development of drone and sophisticated weapon technology should be considered too. Given the widely promulgated view by the more extreme Trump supporters that they were very angry, it was the duty of the state to protect the incoming President and Vice-President of whatever ilk. If anything HAD happened, that would have been far worse than the scenarios projected by some of your subscribers. The BBC talked to some Trump diehards in the south and without comment showed them waving some of their guns proudly at the camera. The British Army is not so well equipped. But then it can’t shop online.
Given the widely promulgated view by the more extreme Trump supporters that they were very angry, it was the duty of the state to protect the incoming President and Vice-President of whatever ilk.
So, who “widely promulgated” this view? On what basis? And when did anger become another term for violence or murder? Well, at least outside leftist circles where trashing cities and killing some people is peaceful protest.
This was a message to the kulaks. The same troops that members of Congress took pictures with beforehand were banished to a parking garage afterward.
“Imagine if Trump had deployed that kind of force to suppress protest and imagined “threats” ahead of his second inauguration.”
I don’t like this sort of speculation. The answer is: we don’t know what would have have happened. Imagine if the Capital had been invaded by BLM: we don’t know what would have happened. Ditto Antifa and ditto a legion of elderly citizens of Maine wearing big mittens. What we do know is that USA has always and will always respond to threats with massive shows of force, witness the response to the Boston Marathon Bombing of 2013, when the city was effectively shut down; witness the deployment of the National Guard for what we in the UK would consider a policing matter. That’s the way they do things and then everything settles down again with no sign of a fascist state establishing itself in any form.
Actually, you don’t have to speculate. Remember when the left lost its collective mind because some federal agents – in unmarked vehicles, no less – were dispatched to Portland after some antifas tried to set federal building, with people inside, on fire? It was treated as an assault on humanity itself. Attacking people going about their jobs was totally okay. Sending some enforcement agents to address the violence was out of bounds. No speculation necessary.
Are you kidding me? BLM protestors were beaten and subjected to chemicals just for the purpose of Trumps infamous photo-op outside a church in which he held a bible upside down.
How did the Church get attacked and burned?
“ug…duh”
And by ‘the left liberal establishment has successfully restored itself to power’ I take it you mean Biden won the election. A phrase you obviously can’t bring yourself to utter. A bit like Trump who clearly you don’t support blah blah blah.
I’ll give Trump one thing he didn’t pardon Assange.
So a mob invading the Capitol, murdering a police officer, coming equipped to take hostages and looking for the VP in order to lynch him are ‘goofball’? Really? And then of course putting security in place following these ‘goofball’ frivolities is the real crime. Now I hate to pop your bubble but the reason we didn’t get more trouble was the presence of the National Guard. Yes, really. Also following the attack on the Capitol it has also been apparent that the US state will not accept this garbage. There were some at least who had not worked out that they could expect payback. Well now such morons know differently. They can expect a knock on the door from the FBI and maybe a 10 to 20 stretch. And I’m pretty sure in 100 years when kids get taught about these crazies it will be the invasion of the Capitol that will take centre place.
You really do need to get yourself plugged back into reality.
Someone is surely in a bubble, or an echo chamber. Even the family of the police officer that died is asking people to quit referring to his death as a murder, as the authorities back off of that assumption. Not a lot of hostage taking, was there? As someone once said: “a useful idiot”…have fun with your peculiar “reality”.
Best to have more soldiers than you need than find out you don’t have enough?
After all, gun owners tend to also be rabid Trump supporters. 75 million of them.
In any 10 year period lawful gun owners are responsible for far less gun violence than gun-controlled Chicago or DC in a week. So you go ahead and slander the “rabid” citizens that you seem to fear, knowing full well that there was no armed insurrection danger…
Interesting…..if Trump suggested his “rabid” supporters might consider giving a passing Democrat a hefty bite somewhere on their personal superstructure. …….mind boggles.
Paranoia runs the Left, especially because it’s feeling insecure & illegitimate.
14 days after a mob wielding assault rifles storms the Capitol with 5 dead in order to prevent Biden from finally being registered by the Senate as the President-elect, the new President is being sworn in in the presence of 3 ex-Presidents (all also targets for the crazies) on the steps of the Capitol with the whole world watching America to see whether it has finally been reduced to the level of Zimbabwe or the Central African Republic. What are the authorities expected to do – rely on plastic tape and everyone being nice? What would YOU do if you were responsible for security?
As it was, violence was deterred and the event passed off peacefully. Job done.
This article seems to be based on a crybaby attitude – “it’s alright for us to wave Armalites, that’s fun, but when the adults turn up with guns too, that’s outrageous”. Some people need to grow up and stop whining. The irresponsibility and thuggishness of Jan 6th have had consequences. The fact that some people on the left would be equal crybabies will no doubt be quoted here, but remember, when you point a finger at someone else there are three fingers pointing back at you – rightly.
A gross overreaction that did allow the world to see that America had indeed: “been finally been reduced to the level of Zimbabwe or the Central African Republic”
How could those Zimbabwean sized turnouts, all for Biden, in certain strategic counties, not lead to this?
The only gun fired was in the face of an unarmed protestor. Also, except for about 200 rioting cranks., most of the “mob” was pretty tame, as you well know. Congress went on with it’s business later that evening, unlike businesses in Oregon, Washington, Minnesota, New York City, and, of course Washington D.C. Nice grade school quote there ending your post…
Good grief what a crock. The author is just upset basically that Dems got back in, and his riffing on ‘but isn’t the military lockdown of the Capitol itself a fascist act’ is one of the most baffling elisions of sanity I have read on this site. Can we go back to asking why the military ignored pleas to aid the Capitol police when a violent mob had broken in and were a few doors away from wiping out the representatives holed up in there? Something to do with Michael Flynn’s brother being in on the Pentagon call that resulted in denying their troops? Seriously. do me a favour. Tripe
Can we go back to asking why the military ignored pleas to aid the Capitol police when a violent mob had broken in
Because the military is not a domestic police force. We have laws about that. Perhaps you noticed how few governors called out the National Guard when mobs raged in their states for months. And whatever this author is, a fan of Trump is not on that list.
Those governors, all Democrats, all Trump haters, who refused to call out the National Guard to restore order did so out of political expediency. It served their own interests to let their cities burn, their local businesses destroyed, and their citizens suffer and die, if they could use that destruction to go after Trump. It’s the same reason nearly all those rioters were being released without being charged, and police were constantly being ordered to stand down and forbidden to use effective crowd control measures. Now that he’s gone, no way will they tolerate it now. We’re already seeing the difference in places like Seattle and Portland, where police are already dealing with rioters very differently from how they dealt with them all last year.
Any evidence that “a violent mob”…” were a few doors away from wiping out the representatives holed up in there” as they weren’t armed and didn’t actually trash the place? I am asking specifically about the intimation that the intent was to kill elected members of the government as weren’t most/all elsewhere listening to a speech at this time?
Looking at the pictures from inside the Capitol as they were “doors away from wiping out the representatives”, I couldn’t help thinking of Neil from the “Young Ones”
But I heard some of them smeared their feces (“poo d’ etat?”) on the walls, so maybe they were attempting some kind of bacterial warfare….still, however gross that is, this is not the action of one intent on staging a “coup”. At most, it’s the action of someone who is mentally ill.
Is it completely forgotten that the only death in the Capitol was an unarmed female protester shot at close range by the police?
And universally hushed up by the propaganda wing of the Democrats, otherwise known as the MSM.
“the only death in the Capitol ….”
Five dead including a cop. But you don’t care about that?
The policeman died later, of a stroke. The other deaths you mention have not been confirmed. One woman may have been trampled. The only death at the Capitol which has been confirmed is the one which has also been hushed up, that of the unarmed young woman who was shot dead for attempting to climb up and look through a window. She was not part of any violence or destruction. No riots world wide, though.
Only one death so far confirmed to be a direct cause of the riot, that one being of an armed protester shot by police.
One cop killed by being hit by a fire extinguisher, one White women shot in the neck by another hysterical cop, and three dead of cardiac problems.
Hardy Cannae is it?
What an interesting “alternative” fact. Please to inform the families of the other dearly departed loved ones that they are delusional.
Not sure where you get your fake news, but it was pelosi who denied additional security. This from NPR, which isn’t exactly right wing
https://www.npr.org/2021/01…
Keep talking guys, and pretty soon you will have convinced yourselves that a riotous mob invading the heart of democracy were just a bunch of harmless middle of the roaders.
No need to talk to you, apparently. You get the Winston Smith good job award.
This is just nonsense, it’s a sensible precaution when there is an evident threat to a core constitutional process. This is what the military is for … to protect the citizens and their representatives in doing their democratically sanctioned business.
There are plenty of genuine risks to society that the right should be focussing on, the coup of the universities by postmodern and marxist ideologies that are against liberty, equality, freedom of speech etc. To write all these articles about trivial precautionary measures seems to have no basis other than whipping up polarised politics, seems a bit juvenile. There is a time and place for protest, but if I want to get up and protest on the stage at the last night of the proms, I would rightly be removed.
Well, they sure could have used some troops in a few other cities besieged by freedom loving non-Trumpers.
This is what the military is for … to protect the citizens and their representatives in doing their democratically sanctioned business.
No, that’s what police are for. There is a law against using the military as a law enforcement unit domestically. And the National Guard is usually called out after natural disasters and other events where chaos is likely, except apparently for those times when leftists riot in major cities.
Precisely correct. It’s called Posse Comitatus. The military is forbidden from acting as domestic law enforcement.
“trivial precautionary measures”
There were 25,000 troops. That’s far more than trivial.
If that figure is accurate it is, by way of comparison, roughly double the number of active duty troops and National Guardsmen sent to support police in quelling the 1992 LA riots, which caused over $1 billion in property damage to a total of just under 4,000 buildings.
26,000. The difference of 1,000 is a huge number in itself.
What an utterly pointless and biased article! A threat to the President was identified and appropriate security measures were taken. Those measures were successful. What would you have preferred? Another invasion of The Capitol or perhaps a bullet to the head of Joe Biden.If DC is to remain under this level of military security for any length of time, you might conceivably have a point but for such an important occasion, the whole operation seems perfectly justifiable.
What threat? There was no threat to Biden. There were some people who went out of their way to insult troops, like Steve Cohen of TN. There were some police state shows of mandated purity in looking through social media histories to weed out troops who might hold conservative views. But there was no threat.
The threat was the prospect of another repeat of the attack on The Capitol, incited by the outgoing President who along with so many other deluded people still clings to the belief that the election was stolen. With a bit of luck the Republicans in the Senate will finally grow some and support the impeachment of Trump, although given their craven enabling of his Presidency, I won’t be holding my breath.
Multiple media sources said the attack was pre-planned, which means Trump didn’t incite it, so try again. It cannot be pre-arranged AND incited by Trump. And there was ‘threat’ to speak of in the first place. There were more troops on hand than civilians, which is always a great visual for a democratic republic.
You mean the democratic banana republic of Joe Biden don’t you?
Mr Gorbachev said the assault on the Capitol had been planned in advance and it was obvious who did it. When someone tried to quote these cryptic words on the internet, Youtube cut them. You’d think he would be safe from the Californian Oligarchs at his great age.
Couple of points.
Just exactly how did President Trump ‘incite’ the ‘attack on The Capitol’ ? He was still speaking when the first people entered the building, and considering it takes 15 minutes walk to go between the two sites it would seem the Presidents speech had nothing to do with it. And having watched the speech nothing in it was incitment to anything and it fell well within the bounds of the 1st Amendment.
Secondly Impeachment is to remove an office holder from office. As President Trump is now a private citizen and holds NO offices he cannot be tried on Impeachment. What you are seeking is a ‘Bill of Attainder’ and such is specifically forbidden by the Constitution. Seeking to ‘try’ him before the Senate is illegal, unconstitutional and tyrannical. If they do this to him then that means Congress can seek to try anyone for anything. Wont do.
No. I think a false threat to the President was fabricated and then exaggerated.
What an absurd comment given the Capitol invasion two weeks previously, the gun-waving of Trump supporters and Germany-1930s style right-wing militias, and the long history of political assassination in the US. Of course there was a threat to Biden and indeed to George W. Bush, elected representatives Democrat and Republican in the audience at the Inauguration, and everyone else present there.
So a national guard presence, in direct response to an actual coup attempt in which some went equipped for kidnap and hanging of national representatives, is a fascist crackdown?A crackdown in which nobody was actually cracked down upon is fascist?You invite us to imagine what would have happened if Trump had deployed such forces in response to ‘imagined’ threats when such threats abound and less than two weeks ago people erected a gallows outside capitol hill?This is tripe.
A coup attempt? Where were the colonels and the tanks? It wasn’t even a proper “peaceful” protest, as nobody tried to burn down the Capitol.
The place is so rotten one doubts it would have burnt.
But Biden and the hag Pelosi got their ‘Reichstag’ moment, so all we need now is the Enabling Act.
The relief program is the start minority and female businesses to be prioritized but not the majority white owned businesses so they will become less viable and disappear
your willful ignornace of what Congress was doing at the time is noted.
Not really a coup attempt though was it?, a few nutters with props and a few politicians who maybe wet their pants is far different from a coup or insurrection, any attempted coup would require the involvement of the military or police, the capturing of media and communication sites, energy production and so on.
Pretty much the world’s lamest coup, if you insist on calling it that, from an unarmed mob.
At least a dozen members of the National Guard were purged. This is unprecedented. They now have to show loyalty to a political party, not just the country and constitution.