This is the second excerpt from “I Alone Can Fix It”: Donald J. Trump’s Catastrophic Final Year, by Phillip Rucker and Carol D. Leonnig, published in the Washington Post this week. This excerpt is the account of events leading up to and including the insurrection on January 6, and it is chilling to the bone just how close we came to Trump and his goons taking down the government. This is a must read.
Trust me.
Written by Elizabeth Moon
Many readers have probably read Barbara Tuchman’s superb history of the early days of World War I (if not, go find a used or library copy and read it.) Tensions mounted between great blocks of power in Europe–Germany, Austria, Russia, France, Britain, before August 1914, but many thought–and more hoped–that the “balance of power” would stay balanced.
As we all know, it didn’t. And Tuchman’s book, and others, have pointed out the many, many signs that it could not hold in the face of the pressures on it. Each power bloc had internal pressures pushing its stability to the limit already.
Long before January 6, 2021, there were ample signs–visible to many ordinary citizens–that the traditional balance of political power in this nation was failing, and by September 2020, it was clear that one of the two main political parties had stepped so far out of its internal balance that its titular leader, the sitting president, was refusing to say that the change in Administration would be peaceful, should he lose. Refused to say that he would concede if the count went against him.
Once again, many people thought tradition, more than two centuries of peaceful transfer of power between one Administration and another, would surely prevail. Many others worried, and hoped the sitting president was just trying to wring more votes out of those scared by the prospect of violence.
And once again, that balance of power sustained in our case for centuries…the tradition of healthy inertia, of habit, could not sustain this, and its fracture led to the attack on the Capitol, the sedition, the treason, the conspiracy that threatened the lives of Congress and staff, and resulted in deaths, injuries, damage. And the still unbroken will of those who broke the peace, who clearly intend to try again. Who are eager to try again.
The title Tuchman used, The Guns of August, is still, and peculiarly, appropriate to discuss the next insurrection/rebellion/treason/sedition planned by those who want to take our nation down. Because it is in August–next month–they plan to make another attempt to seize power and restore the former president to the White House, this time using the guns, bombs, and other weapons they did not use in January.
You may remember I said earlier that the January 6 attack could have been intended as the actual attempt to overthrow the government, using minimal violence (compared to war, the injuries and deaths, the damage to the building, etc were minimal) with the secondary aim of probing defenses and reconnoitering the physical plant which was not normally available to public view. The success of the attack, on this secondary goal, was complete.
They found which entrances were easiest to enter; they got through the tunnels into both House and Senate office buildings, identified blind spots, choke points, and other things attacking forces can use to do more harm with fewer troops. They activated at least some of their allies in our military, men and women already knowledgeable about urban combat and assessment of the defensibility of structures. They tested at least some of their equipment. And of course they terrorized those members of Congress who weren’t in on it, while assessing the reactions of those who were (and thus did not feel threatened because they believed they would not be harmed.)
In the aftermath of January 6th, the Republican Party has gone right ahead with inflammatory rhetoric, some of its members in Congress insisting that the attack wasn’t really an attack, and themselves claiming that it’s the Democrats’ fault: the election was stolen, the Democrats are the Nazis, the Democrats are Communists, the Democrats are “enemies of the people” and “enemies of the state.” (I wonder if they even realize those are Communist term, heavily used in the Stalinist USSR and all its satellites, as well as in China? These are not terms Americans typically used unless they had been subject to Leninist or Maoist dialectic. They were tossed around in the Sixties by the most far-Left campus orators when I was in college.) The former president has come back into politics with a firm intention to run again, and dog-whistles calling his attack troops to his side.
In among this are the trickles coming out of 4chan and 8chan, usually single posts tossed into Twitter revealing the clear intention to strike again and use the lethal weapons they already possess against our government and the American people who aren’t on their side…which they believe are a minority. “This time we bring the guns.”
Is there any chance a second attack could succeed where the first didn’t? Indeed yes. Because the first attack, designed to look spontaneous and (at first) harmless with that crowd of MAGA-hatted obvious civilians acting as cover under which the Proud Boys and other obviously military-trained troops moved until the final assault, did not have the firepower it could have had. The designers wanted time inside, photograph everything, measure everything, decide the best way to do more next time.
Next time will be highly lethal for the defenders if they are not prepared and in place. Next time the guns waiting nearby in a truck will be carried by the invaders. Next time it won’t be pepper spray and bear spray but CS and CN and maybe worse gases. It won’t be tasers, effective as they are one on one, but actual bullets, the kind mass-shooters use. Next time…well, here’s how Dunnigan and Nofi put it in their book on military failures, Shooting Blanks: “…your average coup only requires a few hundred infantry and some armored vehicles.”
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
One of the things we try to do in our social studies and English classes is teach our students about logical fallacies. One of those fallacies is the slippery slope fallacy. The idea of censorship is one of those ideas that seems to be bandied about lately.
What’s hilarious is that everyone is familiar with the first amendment. However, it is the bolded part that most interests me. It is the one conservatives seem to miss. It is amazing what they consider to be censorship. Facebook shutting down a post is censorship. Twitter kicking someone off their platform is censorship. It is all a slippery slope.
Except slippery slopes are a red herring. It is something conservatives are extremely consistent about. Regulation of any right is somehow a slippery slope to tyranny. Speech can’t be regulated. Gun ownership can’t be regulated. It’s the same argument.
Except they can be regulated and SCOTUS decisions consistently back this up. The question is what responsibility media outlets have. Congress shall make no laws. That doesn’t mean that private entities can’t limit what it allows. Businesses are free to govern their employees. People are free to suffer blowback from their speech. There’s no slippery slope here.
Those of us who reside in Texas know that, after almost 25 years of single party control, it is now a mere empty shell of the once Great State. This fact was confirmed yesterday when CNBC published it’s annual study of states for business and livability. While Texas ranked 4th for states friendly to business, and ranked as second worst in the nation for livability. In rendering its verdict, CNBC pointed out that Texas is the hardest state in the nation to vote, has no laws against discrimination, and scored an F in livability. It also said that the only thing that kept it from falling below Arizona was the fact that Democrats walked out during the regular session of the legislature to thwart Republicans’ efforts to make voting even harder, if that’s even possible. After all these years of single party rule, Republicans have succeeded in destroying Texans’ access to healthcare, education, and the ballot box. It’s turned our school curriculum into propaganda churning out ignoramuses who have warped understanding of our history and even science. It’s worked tirelessly to deny healthcare for women, the economically disadvantaged, and the elderly. Even while making life miserable for anyone but the rich, the GOP also bungled our response to the pandemic, causing over 53,000 deaths so far, and allowed our power grid to fall into literal ruins, failing to provide power when it is needed most. The corruption and continuous lying from our politicians and RW networks have made truth unknowable, allowing bullshit to proliferate convincing people that Youtube videos are more reliable than scientists, doctors, and engineers. They have played to people’s worst traits to cling to power while suppressing votes.
As our friend Mimi Swartz wrote this week in the NY Times, Texas has truly broken our hearts.
Forgive me if you’ve seen this one before, but I don’t recall it being mentioned around here. Apparently, in addition to making abortions illegal after six weeks it will also be illegal to help someone obtain an abortion after that time period.
As regular readers know (and have told me repeatedly) I have hit the religion very hard the last couple of days. So, I’m looking at this from another angle. One of the things they taught us in political science and history was the notion that over the course of a generation the political parties will often switch positions almost entirely.
It’s one of the hallmarks of conservatism to argue that they were the party for civil rights. In a sense it’s true if you are strictly looking at labels, but the thought behind the label is what matters. Conservatives have been against civil rights from the very beginning. In the beginning, they just called themselves Democrats.
Classical conservatives believe in keeping the government out of our bedrooms, personal lives, and life choices. The Republican party abandoned that a long time ago. Instead they want to stay out of your pocketbook but govern your body. It’s just a little ironic that the best argument against conservatives on this issue comes from themselves. At least it comes from what they used to believe.
Of course, Texans aren’t the only ones passing questionable laws. It seems Tennessee is trying to limit access to all vaccines for children. Somehow, the mental gymnastics needed to consider these laws is staggering. They are still overly concerned about bathrooms it seems.
This is all very simple to me. You believe in freedom or you don’t. You regulate activities where other people can get hurt and you allow those other activities to slide. When you are more concerned about where someone goes to the bathroom than what they could possibly do with a gun there is something seriously wrong. When conservative values go out the window then what values do conservatives have left?
Those of you that have been reading these regularly have probably deciphered a pattern. I tend to hover around the same topics like a moth rushing to the flame. That means I hover between issues of faith, education, and issue framing. While I appreciate that not everyone wants to hear about faith, that issue is paramount to me in terms of reaching a bigger audience.
The simplest way to consider this is to consider it as a form of language. It’s more like a regional dialect. It’s like those raging debates about how “coke” is labeled in speech or how someone says “y’all.” In this case, it isn’t regional but spiritual (or not spiritual).
People speak in a particular way when they come from a Christian tradition. They speak in a certain way when they don’t. They also speak in a specific way when they used to be Christian and have decided to go in a different direction they speak in a specific way. A large part of keeping a big tent in politics is finding ways to communicate to a variety of groups. Those groups all have languages of their own.
The Democratic party has slowly developed an advantage over time of communicating with people of color. They have developed an advantage of communicating with women. They have developed an advantage of communicating with the LGTBQ+ community. They have developed an advantage in communicating with those that have shunned the church.
That leaves one group out. Those are the people that the party is having an increasingly difficult time reaching. Those are the people that many progressives are becoming increasingly hostile towards. These are the folks that share political values even when they are still members of the flock. They can be reached if you simply speak the language.
This concept is easy to understand when we look at the other side. Think of how many times we have watched a conservative think they are trying to reach disaffected groups of their own only to come off sounding more offensive. They belittle women. They somehow harbor racists and spew racist language even when they seem to be trying to be inclusive. It’s awe inspiring in a way.
It is all well and good not to be interested in the church itself, but it is paramount to understand the politics going on inside it. There is a divide throughout Christianity between what we might classify as the legalistic group of Christians and those that we might classify as the social justice group of Christians.
The Bible obviously can be split into various parts, but the two biggest dichotomies exist between all of the rules and regulations that people of faith are supposed to follow and the mission of Christ. That mission involves feeding the poor, clothing the naked, and healing the sick. That is the very heart of the progressive platform.
The problem comes when you insult believers. I understand it. Many believers are insulting themselves. They don’t respect non-believers and deride them unmercifully. We all get that. Yet, there are a group of good and decent believers that believe in our values that are there to be courted. I know because I’m one of them.
The current strategy forces those that we might label “the Christian left” to choose between Christian and left. When you force people to choose you never end up liking their choice. When you are forced to choose you usually choose against those forcing you to make the choice. Stop making them choose.