January 6th is a day that will live in infamy. Like 9–11, December 7th 1941, and October 25, 1929: it is a day for the history books.
Many have pointed out that the BlackLivesMatter protesters in DC were surrounded by more-than-ample walls of heavily guarded security whereas the White Trump Mob of January 6th was greeted at the Capitol by a dotted line of cops who looked like they were prepared for nothing more than to direct traffic and answer tourist questions.
The contrast and double-standard is obvious but I don’t think that’s what the questions about January 6th should be about. Now I’m not saying that the point isn’t valid, I’m saying that this is not where I think the discussion to go. Why?
- As soon as the discussion goes to race, it’s not about Trump and the Republicans and what they did on January 6th and what they should do now and going forward. I would like to see Fox News talking about the lying and culpability of Donald Trump and of Ted Cruz. #TedCruzKnew. Let me quote Ted Cruz as one of the most guilty of the Republicans: When a candidate urges supporters to engage in physical violence, to punch people in the face, the predictable consequence of that is that it escalates. Yet there was Ted Cruz, on January 6th with the massive mob summoned to stop to steal, and he is on that day, perpetuating and repeating the lies about the Nov 2020 election. he is acting out pretending that there was a steal which was the rationale for the whole mob. This should be the subject that everyone focuses on. He is part of the betrayal.
- Fox News and their ilk always seem to take the easy way out. As soon as the question of race gets into it, they slip into their comfortable groove of bringing out a black talking heads who will say that they are against the playing of the race card. I saw it this morning. It made my blood boil. But Biden did play into this by making the point that the contrast exists. It’s a solid point but it allows for the problems of January 6th to be side-stepped by a discussion on race and to not be sharply focused on the treachery and betrayal of so many people on January 6th. I understand systematic racism and that this illustrates it. But it’s already understood by those willing to understand it and highlighting it here does not advance the discussion that I think should be maniacally pursued right now.
I personally believe that Trump, who controls the Feds and thus a lot of what happens with security in DC, directly or indirectly reduced security because he wanted his mob to have the maximum impact of intimidation and to create an environment in which he might have an excuse to declare martial law. Or, he hoped the Congress would be so intimidated that they agreed to postpone ratification to avoid infuriating the mob.
I don’t think Trump is clever or smart enough to think through how it might actually work. I think like usual, he went with his gut and believed that somehow these forces would collide and work out in his favor. He thought politicians would continue to brown nose, especially when scared by the mob (Brown Shirts), and they would act the way Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley did. They would be slime and keep supporting him. He got close since these two are examples of bright people who calculated that Trump was a winning side so they even on that day, traded in whatever credibility or claim to patriotism that they might have had and continued their nonsensical stories.
But, to Trump’s surprise. Vice President Pence has a backbone. Senator Mitch McConnell has a backbone. Even Senator Lindsey Graham has a backbone. Congress has a backbone. Americans en masse have backbones. I don’t know if the backbone emerged from the fear of chaos, the fear of the aftermath when Trump leaves DC, or the fear of a God who might not be so forgiving of any and all behaviors.
The facts are that the election of Nov 2020 resulted in a clear winner. There was no confusion or question of the validity and accuracy of the election. Yet Trump led the massive disinformation campaign telling the gullible and the treacherous that the election was stolen. He ordered the slime to raise doubts and to tell Americans lies. This behavior should be the entire focus about January 6th.
I’m not disagreeing with the point about race: it’s a true and awful contrast. I will forever remember the horror of seeing the Confederate Flag being marched through the Capitol, racism and scape-goatism is the beating heart of Trumpism. But I think the reason that there was a hyped-up emboldened mob faced with no security on January 6th has to do with treachery and sedition orchestrated by Trump and his allies. I think if they could have found ten thousand blacks to join their cause, Trump would have done so and he would still have managed to keep the security forces to low alert. Trump and Cruz and Hawley’s behavior that day was about trying to betray America and democracy, not about their and other’s racism.
