We shudder to imagine how far into fascism and treason
Trump would go, if not for our elections and Constitution. He's already an
admitted sex offender and known criminal.
On Wednesday, January 6, 2021 Trump’s Traitors emulated
Hitler's Beer Hall Putsch by storming our Capitol.
We are in the worst national crisis since the first Civil
War, with no end in sight. CNN reports, “Extremists intensify calls
for violence ahead of Inauguration Day”.
We are engulfed in a rapidly heating second Cold Civil
War. While not waging war to preserve slavery, today’s insurrectionists are
almost all white, and infected with a white nationalist racism and deep
resentment for America’s first Black president. They were the ones who embraced
Trump’s racist birtherism from the start.
This isn’t a secret.
To better understand their cult-like behavior, I highly
recommend the new book, “Authoritarian Nightmare: Trump and His Followers”,
by former Nixon counsel John Dean and Bob Altemeyer.
While there are some Trump followers who are not racists,
they are nearly all right wing authoritarians. RWA’s. Granted, many are simply
low-information voters, or unwitting dupes of radical Right propaganda.
Holocaust survivors have warned us that America's surging radical right with its
racist white nationalism is strikingly similar to the rise of Hitler's racist
nationalism. Trump’s crazed cult of authoritarian followers are cut from the
same authoritarian fabric as Hitler’s loyalists. They are proving millions of
Americans are no different, and would rise in support of an angry, power-mad
demagogue
Like so many German Nazis enthralled by Hitler, we have
millions of Americans just as fanatic for Trump and his lies, resentments,
hate, and racism.
Thousands of the worst of them rallied to Trump’s “Save
America March”. Those words were on the stage banners. It wasn’t a simple
rally. It wasn’t just another speech. It displayed a clear intention to march
on the capitol. Radical Right groups were decked out in camo and body armor.
They brought tactical gear like radios and flex-cuffs. They were prepared to
take hostages. Their intentions were obvious. They were ready for insurrection.
They cheered and chanted for their leader, as he denied
our fair and free election. They were whipped to a frenzy by the president’s
heated rhetoric of resentment, lies, hate, and rage.
This was no grass-roots populist insurrection. It was an
attempted "coup d'état", or violent overthrow of the government, by
an electorally defeated president.
Responding to their leader’s seditious incitement and
ensuing orders, crazed QAnon, militia, Proud Boys, “Three Percenters”, Oath
Keepers, and other radicalized alt-Right loylalsits marched on the capitol to
“Take our country back”. Had they stopped outside the Capitol and protested,
they would not have crossed the line to treason. But they crossed it, and
crossed it violently. It was terrorism.
They believed they were following orders from Trump. And Trump wasn't finished. In the middle of the assault on democracy, instead of sending in more security, he called newly elected Republican Senator Tommy Tuberville to urge further obstruction of the electoral certification.
Some of the terrorists have already been arrested, as all of them should be. The same goes for any Capitol Police who abetted them. Many will no doubt
escape the law and order they claim to support.
The evidence against Trump is in his own words. Here are
some examples of his seditious incitement of insurrection, coup, and treason.
His speech was saturated with the “Big Lie” tactic of Hitler and his Nazis.
“All
of us here today do not want to see our election victory stolen by emboldened
radical left Democrats, which is what they’re doing and stolen by the fake news
media.... Our country has had enough. We will not take it anymore and that’s
what this is all about. To use a favorite term that all of you people really
came up with, we will stop the steal. We will not let them silence your voices.
We’re not going to let it happen. Not going to let it happen.”
The crowd chanted, “Fight for Trump! Fight for Trump!
Fight for Trump!”
This should be enough to make his and his mob’s
intentions obvious. As with most coups, Trump appealed to law enforcement and
the military to march with his mob to the Capitol.
“I’d
love to have, if those tens of thousands of people would be allowed, the
military, the secret service, and we want to thank you, and the police law
enforcement. Great. You’re doing a great job, but I’d love it if they could be
allowed to come up here with us.”
This indicates an intention that amounts to nothing short
of a coup.
More resentment and hate was stoked.
“Cancel
culture. They wanted to get rid of the Jefferson Memorial, either take it down
or just put somebody else in there. I don’t think that’s going to happen. It
damn well better not. Although with this administration, if this happens, it
could happen. You’ll see some really bad things happen. They’ll knock out
Lincoln too, by the way.”
Then he added his special touch of irony and hypocrisy:
“You
hurt our monuments, you hurt our heroes, you go to jail for 10 years and
everything stopped. Did you notice that? It stopped. It all stopped.”
We’ll see about that. He returned to tell them the reason
they gathered.
“We’re
gathered together in the heart of our nation’s Capitol for one very, very basic
and simple reason, to save our democracy... We want to go back, and we want to
get this right because we’re going to have somebody in there that should not be
in there and our country will be destroyed, and we’re not going to stand for
that. For years, Democrats have gotten away with election fraud and weak
Republicans, and that’s what they are.
If
this happened to the Democrats, there’d be hell all over the country going on.
There’d be hell all over the country. But just remember this. You’re stronger,
you’re smarter. You’ve got more going than anybody, and they try and demean
everybody having to do with us, and you’re the real people. You’re the people
that built this nation. You’re not the people that tore down our nation.”
This is how Hitler demonized Jews as “destroyers of
culture”. It is a striking parallel to Hitler’s methods of invoking the Aryan
“master race” and the superiority of the chosen “Volk”, rooted in “blood and
soil”.
He continued to hammer on his version of the Nazis’
demonizing “Lügenpresse”, or lying press,
“Our
media is not free. It’s not fair. It suppresses thought. It suppresses speech,
and it’s become the enemy of the people.”
Trump’s race-baiting was next. Note the common features
in his list of enemies.
“And
then I had to beat Stacey Abrams with this guy, Brian Kemp. I had to beat
Stacey Abrams and I had to beat Oprah... And I had a campaign against Michelle
Obama and Barack Hussein Obama against Stacey.”
Nobody was shocked when the Nation’s Andrew McCormick
reported this later exchange in the mob.
“This is not America,” a woman said to a small group, her
voice shaking. She was crying, hysterical. “They’re shooting at us. They’re
supposed to shoot BLM, but they’re shooting the patriots.” A man, possibly her
husband, comforted her: “Don’t worry, honey. We showed them today. We showed
them what we’re all about.”
Yes, they certainly did show us what they’re all about.
Trump’s next target was the Supreme Court: “Look, I’m not happy with the Supreme Court.
They love to rule against me...They couldn’t give a damn. Let them rule the
right way, but it almost seems that they’re all going out of their way to hurt
all of us, and to hurt our country.”
Their leader went on to list all the fabrications of
election fraud that have been debunked and rejected by dozens of courts, up to
the Supreme Court.
Then the marching orders:
“I
said ‘Something’s wrong here. Something’s really wrong. Can’t have happened.’
And we fight. We fight like Hell and if you don’t fight like Hell, you’re not
going to have a country anymore. Our exciting adventures and boldest endeavors
have not yet begun. My fellow Americans for our movement, for our children and
for our beloved country and I say this, despite all that’s happened, the best
is yet to come. So we’re going to, we’re going to walk down Pennsylvania
Avenue...and we’re going to the Capitol and....we’re going to try and give our
Republicans, the weak ones, because the strong ones don’t need any of our help,
we’re going to try and give them the kind of pride and boldness that they need
to take back our country.”
Trump and his insurrectionist mob went beyond being
merely political enemies of truth, democracy and equality, to being outright
traitors. “We fight like Hell and if you
don’t fight like Hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore.”
There was a reason he never used the word “protest”. In
fact, during an interview with conservative radio host Hugh
Hewitt Friday morning, Sen. Ben Sasse (R-NE) said, “As this was unfolding on television, Donald Trump was walking around
the White House confused about why other people on his team weren’t as excited
as he was as you had rioters pushing against Capitol Police trying to get into
the building. He was delighted.”
And there it is.
House Democrats are following the Constitution by
drafting a second impeachment, no matter how few days remain in his term. If
insurrection and treason are not impeachable, then nothing is.
While it is unlikely McConnell would hold a Senate trial
at this point, history will judge the response by the House as appropriate and
necessary.
If criminal charges against Trump are not filed after
January 20th, there would be no more rules for presidents, and tyranny will
become policy. The republic would be dead.