The key issue with the January 6th attack on the Capitol was the element of surprise. It just did not even occur to anyone outside of far Right circles that anything was even possible. So when it happened, there was not enough security and what security there was, was not prepared and was easily over run.
As such, I seriously doubt there will be anything like what happened on January 6th at this weekend’s Sept 18th protest near the Capitol. I guess it’s still possible, it’s just not probable. And, really, if they did manage to do it again, they really need to put some more forethought into revolt’s security around the Capitol once they seize it.
If they can just have some order to their bonkers Hail Mary Pass move, they could join the Paris Commune in the history books as surreal political events. But these guys, thankfully, remain just a political grunt. And if they’re that organized to think about things like that, then we’re REALLY in trouble.
So, what I think will happen is the whole thing will give us PTSD from January 6th, but in the end it will be a lulz. That, at least, it what I think — hope — will be the maximum extent of any problems.
Something that we have all taken for granted, living in a liberal democracy, has been if you do something bad on the national stage there are consequences. You resign in disgrace. You don’t run again. You maybe even go to jail.
Pray.
As Congress begins to look into the January 6th Insurrection, however, there is a dark, looming outcome that we have not thought about: nothing.
What if we learn the truth, it’s bad and it’s all a lulz? The indications that this will be the case, at least on a political level, are already there. Republicans have done a 1984-style job on what happened on January 6th to the point that the base is now willfully accepting their lies. So it seems very possible that even if, after much gnashing of teeth on the part of Republicans, we learn that there was direct co-ordination between the Trump White House, Congressional Republicans and the Insurrectionists, absolutely nothing will happen.
People like me will get upset. It will be a huge scandal for 60% of the population, but for that crucial 40% of the country that seems to control everything….it’s a lulz. They just won’t care. The power of negative polarization will be so extreme that the absolute best we can hope for is maybe Democrats continue to cling to power in Congress.
But even that might be a stretch because of the power of gerrymandering and voter suppression. This seems so likely that we have to prepare ourselves for it. Instead of worrying about how Republicans will, on a political basis, get away with such astonishing political crime, we maybe need to start thinking about how we’re going to handle the obvious implications of all of this: we’re going to have a severe, historic political crisis no later than January 2025.
Something so big that everyone will be forced to pick a side, any side, even if they don’t want to. And, what’s more, because of the nature of such a crisis, there will be moments when you may find yourself tested as to the choice you picked. Your life may even be threatened and you’re going to have to decide if your life — and the lives of the people you love –are worth the choice you made, the side you picked.
I’m well aware that this sounds like my usual “hysterical doom shit.” And, honestly, if you’re a normal person with a career and limited abstract thought abilities, I can totally understand why you might think that
Apparently, tomorrow, Monday, August 23, Cyber Ninjas is supposed to come out with its report on its “forensic audit” of the 2020 presidential vote in Arizona. The whole fucking point of this clusterfuck is — at a minimum — give the MAGA New Right a talking point they can piviot to whenever this or that horrific thing that Trump did while in office comes up.
Uh oh.
But the actual goal of this fucking sham “audit” is to force the hand of Republicans in Arizona to press for “decertification” of Biden’s win in the state. The logic on their part is this would force other states that Trump lost fair and square to do the same thing — they might even skip the Cyber Ninjas part. All that will matter is Republicans have it within their power to decertify the vote and there will then be talk of “nullifying” the Biden Administration altogether.
Then we would have a January 6th (but on a national scale) type situation where Trump eggs loons on for profit and the next thing you know, we have not just a decertification or nullification crisis, we have a secessionist crisis. But there are so pretty huge “ifs” involved in all of my dystopian hellscape pontificatining.
You would have to have some sort of momentum started by the obvious lie that this whole bullshit “audit” is a part of. People with something to lose would have to, well, lose their minds. But it could very well happen in the heat of the moment. We saw it with Trump’s slow, rolling soft coup attempt after the election was called for Biden in late 2020.
But, for the time being, I think while there is likely to be a shit tone of frothy discussion about GOP-controlled states “nullifying” the Biden Administration, all of this fucking bullshit is probably just going to be a MAGA New Right talking point. It’ll be the stuff of tweets that are spammed into MAGA New Right Twitter and never make it to the “Top” page of that particular search.
Yet, there’s something we have to keep at the forefront of our minds. And that is — when Cyber Ninjas’ “proof” of a Trump “win” in Arizona inevitable falls apart, it won’t matter. The talking point will exist within the MAGA New Right until the sun goes dark, no matter what.
I just can’t, at the moment, game out if the Cyber Ninjas bullshit is, in itself, enough to force us into something akin to a Second American Civil War.
Who organized the Pence Gallows in front of the Capitol? Sometimes, the biggest tell about an event comes from something we simply take for granted. In this case, it took some planning to set up a gallows for Pence on January 6th. That thing didn’t just magically appear out of nowhere. It suggests that there was a specific point to the insurrection — scare the shit out of Mike Pence so he wouldn’t certify the vote.
Why did Trump give Jim Jordan the Medal of Freedom on January 11? Again, it’s easy to dismiss this by saying Jordan was such a long-term toady of Trump’s that of course he would get the Medal of Freedom before Trump left office. And, yet, the case could be made that Jordan did something specific in that prompted Trump in his zero-sum-game mind to feel compelled to give Jordan a “gift” in exchange for…what? Silence? Actively fucking up any investigation into what happened January 6th? Why did a Proud Boy leader visit Trump in the days before January 6th? This is one of those things where what actually happened is kind of nebulous. Did a Proud Boy leader get a tet-a-tete with Trump in the White House? What did they talk about? There are a lot of conflicting stories about all of this, but someone needs to ask some questions to figure out what happened. How much did Trump know about the plot for January 6th? It is reasonable to believe that Trump was the driving force for what happened on January 6th….but just like with the Russia conspiracy stuff, it was probably very chaotic and haphazard. Trump probably would dip in to a meet every once in a while to give “his people” a general goal then wonder off. This gives him legal “plausible deniability” because all he had to do was incite the mob — he likely didn’t know exactly that was going to happen. He just knew there was a good chance they would attack to Capitol in such a way that it could scare the shit out of Pence so he didn’t do his job.
12/27: Trump threatens Rosen to replace DOJ leadership + install Clark 12/28: Clark sends draft GA letter to Rosen 01/02: Rosen says won’t sign 01/03: Clark tells Rosen: Trump has decided to fire him and make Clark the A.G. 01/03: DOJ threatens mass resignation; Trump backs down https://t.co/QaggTbS3SE
The key issue — the one that set up Pence to save American democracy for about four years — is “1/03: DOJ threatens mass resignation; Trump backs down.” It is a testament to how Trump has always been playing himself that he backed down at that point.
A true Great Man would have pushed ahead, despite mass resignation. The autocrat is willing to endure the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune — see, also, how Hitler handled the SA — while an idiot ding-dong like Trump goes through all the trouble of getting to that point then backs down.
By January 3, 2021, it was well established that on a political level, Trump was above the law. Nothing, in real terms, would have happened to him if there were mass DOJ resignations. He could have easily gotten what he wanted — to stay in power — and the mass resignations would have been seen as just a blip. This would especially been the case once he was in second term and he could simply purge the media to control the narrative of how he secured a second term.
That, at least, is what an actual autocrat would have done.
The question is, will it be Trump that attempts to shepard us into autocracy in the 2024 – 2025 timeframe, or will it be someone far more adept like Ron DeSantis? But as I keep saying, we have three options ahead of us as of the moment: autocracy, civil war or military junta.
Who organized the Pence Gallows in front of the Capitol? Sometimes, the biggest tell about an event comes from something we simply take for granted. In this case, it took some planning to set up a gallows for Pence on January 6th. That thing didn’t just magically appear out of nowhere. It suggests that there was a specific point to the insurrection — scare the shit out of Mike Pence so he wouldn’t certify the vote.
Why did Trump give Jim Jordan the Medal of Freedom on January 11? Again, it’s easy to dismiss this by saying Jordan was such a long-term toady of Trump’s that of course he would get the Medal of Freedom before Trump left office. And, yet, the case could be made that Jordan did something specific in that prompted Trump in his zero-sum-game mind to feel compelled to give Jordan a “gift” in exchange for…what? Silence? Actively fucking up any investigation into what happened January 6th? Why did a Proud Boy leader visit Trump in the days before January 6th? This is one of those things where what actually happened is kind of nebulous. Did a Proud Boy leader get a tet-a-tete with Trump in the White House? What did they talk about? There are a lot of conflicting stories about all of this, but someone needs to ask some questions to figure out what happened. How much did Trump know about the plot for January 6th? It is reasonable to believe that Trump was the driving force for what happened on January 6th….but just like with the Russia conspiracy stuff, it was probably very chaotic and haphazard. Trump probably would dip in to a meet every once in a while to give “his people” a general goal then wonder off. This gives him legal “plausible deniability” because all he had to do was incite the mob — he likely didn’t know exactly that was going to happen. He just knew there was a good chance they would attack to Capitol in such a way that it could scare the shit out of Pence so he didn’t do his job.
I’m too lazy to hunt down the details of what I’m about to write — I’m not writing for VOX, after all — but here is a rough outline of what I know about the events leading up to Trump’s January 6th attempted autogolpe. I’ve added relevant text from another post I’ve written to flesh out this post.
Background When the history of Trumplandia is written, two people will stick out as having changed everything by what they did — or didn’t do: Bill Barr and Mike Pence. What makes their actions so weird in hindsight is neither one of them was ever mentioned as the “guardrails” that were going to save us from Trump’s excesses. In fact, they were some of the biggest toadies for Trump — until they weren’t at very crucial moments in time.
First, Bill Barr. Bill Barr — at least in my opinion — had a specific purpose when he was originally hired: end the Mueller Investigation. He wrapped that up and did plenty of really shitty things. And then in the 2020 – 2021 timeframe he did something that saved American democracy for four more years: nothing. He sat on his hands.
So, even though Barr intimately knew on a personal basis how badly Trump wanted DOJ to indict the Bidens, or Hillary or Obama or whomever, he was able to simply slow walk all of Trump’s would-be autocratic moves so they were moot. Without Barr doing that, it’s very possible that all the autocratic things I thought up in 2020 Trump would have done and he would still be president.
It is a testament to what a lazy ding-dong Trump is that in the summer and early fall of 2020 he was not far more aggressive against Biden. Anyone else in Trump’s position would have leaned into the fact that he was now politically above the law and, as such, could do anything to stay in power and it work. If Bill Barr wouldn’t indict the Bidens, then a true autocrat in Trump’s position would have fired him in the middle of 2020 and found someone who would. Trump talked a lot about indicting Hunter Biden or Joe Biden…but it was all talk. He didn’t even simply fire anyone necessary to have something akin to the Second Comey Letter released.
We can only conclude from this that Trump is a historical and political avatar. He’s not a great man, he just kind of drifts through history reflecting the rot of our undead liberal democracy back at us. As such, it didn’t really sink into Trump he might be forced out of office until the moment it was too late to use politics — the moment the election was called for Biden. It was at this moment Trump both freaked out and, on a political level, all of Trump’s options ended.
Thus, Trump would have to use extra-political means to stay in office.
The Modern Republican Party
Autogolpe When, on a political basis, all of Trump’s options faded away, he began to freak out and think up ways to stay in office through an autogolpe — self-coup. His first idea was to berate and lean on the people who certified the election results in an effort to get them to nullify Biden’s win that way. He was calling up election officials from all over the country — and even inviting to the White House –in a panicked, desperate attempt to nullify Biden’s win at one of its weakest links.
When that didn’t work, Trump continued to panic. He began to lean on the Justice Department, hoping that they would simply say “the election was corrupt.” That’s all he wanted, just like with Ukraine. He just wanted people with authority to announce an investigation into the “corrupt” 2020 election and then he and Rudy would use the same agitprop techniques of the last five odd years to, through sheer ego and bullshit — force the election into the House and Senate.
Here’s something to mull — it’s very possible that our autocracy will come “legally’ when Republicans starting in 2024 always push POTUS elections into the House and Senate. Because Republicans have a majority of House delegations, they will always win. Let me repeat that: They. Will Always. Win. Because this up-to-now obscure element of the Constitution is their ultimate failsafe for winning elections, Republicans will use it to establish white Christian minority rule.
In fact, if America slips peacefully into autocracy, it will be because of that specific provision of the Constitution. It will be “Constitutional” so it will give the liberal media a hook to explain to the average person why they should cool it with talk of a civil war. This development will be framed just like the Bush V. Gore decision and, gradually, it will be such conventional wisdom that Republicans always win presidential elections that Republicans will finally get what they want: people will stop voting.
Of course, Republicans, once they know they can do whatever the fuck they want, will inevitably abuse their power to the point where we’re indistinguishable from autocratic Russia or there’s a civil war. I think we’re probably just going to become an autocracy and that’s it. At the moment, I just don’t see us breaking the seal on civil war.
If civil war happens, it will probably happen directly because of Trump’s personal incompetence at some critical moment in history. If history picks anyone else to shepherd us into autocracy, then it’s a done deal.
Let’s go back to the autogolpe. In the end, what spelled the demise of Trump’s autogolpe plot was how fucking lazy and stupid he was. He came up with all these ideas for how to throw the election into the House and Senate…and he just couldn’t bring himself to pull the trigger. He just was too deranged to simply fire anyone necessary to get that accomplished.
All the conditions were there, but, in the end, it was Trump, specifically, who fucked up and gave American democracy a few years of breathing room.
Because Trump could not pull the trigger, the last ditched effort of the autogolpe was something like this — gather a bunch of die hard MAGA fuckers near the Capitol, incite them in a speech, and then see what happened. At moment, there is no evidence that Trump knew how successful the insurrection would be, but he and his toadies knew, in general, what was likely to happen. In this respect, Trump gave himself some “plausible deniability” should the insurrection actually be a success.
So, from what I can tell, what Trump wanted was to get the mob to browbeat Pence into not certifying the vote. Why else were they chanting, “Hang Mike Pence?” This would throw everything up in the air and then Congress would get involved and that’s where Trump thought he would win because in the House each state delegation would get one vote and Republicans have a majority of delegations
The specific uses of the Electoral Count Act elude me, but it might have bene the middle step that Trump and Rudy could have fucked with to get a win. But the point remains — weirdly enough, we all owe Pence a lot of gratitude for destroying his political career by doing his fucking job.
Pence is the consummate Trump sycophant. Or, at least, he was until January 6th. After defending Trump at every turn for any and everything he did, no matter how horrible or autocratic, on January 6th Pence gave American democracy a second chance by simply doing his fucking job. (Which in the specific case of certification was simply to announce the certification, he didn’t really have to do anything other than not nullify the certification by going rouge.)
And, so because of the actions of two people everyone assumed would be Trump’s lapdogs, American democracy was spared for a few years. You honestly could not make such shit up.
Anyway, once Pence certified the vote, Trump lost.
Background The bonkers thing about what happened on January 6th is Trump was so fucking lazy and stupid as an autocrat that he waited to the very last moment to attempt an autogolpe (self-coup). Any other autocrat would have wrapped up the theft of the 2020 election before it was even held by firing whomever stood in the way of an indictment of Joe Biden.
It is testament to what lazy, moronic brat Trump is that even a rando like me kept thinking up the most obvious ways to steal the 2020 election and Trump just could not comprehend how to do it. The political conditions existed for Trump to steal the election without an autogolpe right up until the point where the election was officially called for Biden.
January 6th
The Plot First, given what we know of how Trump thinks, I doubt there were all that many specific elements to the plot. Probably, Trump knew what he wanted — stay in power no matter what — and he just ranted about that around his toadies so much that they began to use the spaghetti method to see what stuck. For some reason, a number of opportunities for Trump to pull the trigger on the “just say it was corrupt and I’ll take care of the rest” idea — and he didn’t do it. This is is very, very weird. Why he would choke simply because of the prospect of mass resignations is very strange.
But back to the plot.
I suspect it went something like this — in a general way, Trump and his co-conspirators created the conditions for a mob to attack the Capitol in hopes that when Trump told them to attack they would and this would either buy them time or force Pence’s hand on the certification of Electors or both.
When you have a very powerful brat to deal with as normal human being, your main goal is to buy time so you don’t have to deal with their disappointment. The theory Trump had was every moment the election wasn’t certified by Congress was a moment they might be able to somehow win.
But more specifically, they probably had a two pronged approached to their autogolpe — neutralize Pence and get the election thrown into Congress where Trump and Rudy could muddy the waters on a political level so much that they might, just might, get within shouting distance of winning that way.
If they could just put enough pressure on Pence so that he refused to certify the election — even though that isn’t within his power to do — then they would throw everything at Congress. All they needed was to get the extremely poorly written Electoral Count Act involved and all the bullshit agitprop techniques that were so successful for them over the years would take care of the rest.
Once they got past the huge personal obstacle of Pence, and they got the Electoral Count Act involved, their next goal would be to get the election thrown into the House and Senate. If the House picks POTUS, then each state’s delegation has just one vote.
And that would be how Trump would “win” in such a way that gave Fox news a media narrative that would simply be Bush V. Gore Redux. Get over it, libs, you lost, Trump is YOUR president, too, (again.)
An unknown is what was Jim Jordan’s involvement in this plot. Why did Trump in the waning days of his administration give Jorden, of all people, the Presidential Medal of Freedom? Was there something specific that Jorden did over and above the call of duty in this particular plot that Trump felt forced his hand? Does Jorden know something that no one else does? He got the medal AFTER January 6th, so it sure does sound like Trump was both thanking him and making sure stayed loyal in the future, no matter what.
I do believe there was a specific, coordinated attempt to stage an autogolpe on January 6th. What I don’t think happened was it was all that well thought out or had any specific sequence of events they thought they could pull off, which was why it failed.
They just wanted to buy time, get the election thrown into Congress and then attack the process with everything they had. It’s possible that some very smart, well educated people actually did have a specific goal in mind — get the House to pick the president — but they failed because of how stupid, lazy and disorganized the leader of the plot — Trump — was.
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