There is still a possibility that January 20 will come and go without a significant display of violence by Donald Trump’s personal army of fascist thugs; after all, these people typically reveal themselves to be cowards when faced with odds that are not 10 to 1 in their favor, as it was in the Capitol coup attempt. Interestingly, some of the rioters who have been arrested are requesting pardons from Trump, claiming that they only acted on his orders, which certainly doesn’t bode well for Trump in the upcoming impeachment trial.
But who knows what Trump is thinking these days; by not pardoning the rioters, it would send the message that they had acted on their own, but we shouldn’t expect Trump to do the “smart” thing, since that seldom plays into his decision making. We know Trump was thrilled to see the violence on his instigation, and in his mind they still acted “rightly.”
While Trump supporters in Congress and in the media were falsely claiming that Antifa elements were involved in the riot even after the source of the claim—the right-wing The Washington Times—had already been exposed and deleted the story, there was no let-up in the rhetoric of the far-right. The reality is that you rarely see advocacy for violence and murder from even the most extreme on the left today; on the other hand, violence and murder seems to be just part of the fun and games of extremists on right, and yet we are not supposed to assume anything about the level of “seriousness” of this rhetoric.
From the right--especially the Trumpist propaganda ministries masquerading as "news" outlets--even after the coup attempt in which five died, and the various mass shootings, such as the El Paso massacre in 2019, and the “revelation” that all extremist-related killings (over 50) in 2018 were by right-wing domestic terrorists, we are not to be overly "judgmental," because the perpetrators were "pushed" by the "radical left" into acts of violence. We are also not supposed to make judgments concerning the fact that the response to these acts of murder by the Trump DOJ was almost nothing, while Trump was pushing the DOJ to send in the troops so he could thrill to tough-guy “optics” in cities like Portland and Seattle over the summer.
The bloodthirsty rhetoric of right-wing extremists who support Trump is easy to find on the Internet, if that is what interests you. The “chat” site Parler has gained notoriety as a potential landing spot for Trump after he was booted from Twitter and Facebook, although that now seems unlikely, after Parler was removed from Amazon Web Services (AWS). Parler filed an anti-trust lawsuit against Amazon for “breach of agreement,” but Amazon fired back in a counter-suit, claiming that Parler had violated its terms of service by failing to properly moderate its content and remove obvious incitements to violence. Here are the examples that Amazon provided to prove its point:
Fry’em up. The whole fkn crew. #pelosi #aoc #thesquad #soros #gates
#chuckschumer #hrc #obama #adamschiff #blm #antifa we are coming for you and you will know it.
#JackDorsey … you will die a bloody death alongside Mark Suckerturd Zuckerberg].… It has been decided and plans are being put in place. Remember the photographs inside your home while you slept? Yes, that close. You will die a sudden death!
We are going to fight in a civil War on Jan.20th, Form MILITIAS now and acquire targets.
On January 20th we need to start systematicly [sic] assassinating [sic] #liberal leaders, liberal activists, #blm leaders and supporters, members of the #nba #nf #mlb #nhl #mainstreammedia anchors and correspondents and #antifa. I already have a news worthy event planned.
Shoot the police that protect these shitbag senators right in the head then make the senator grovel a bit before capping they ass.
After the firing squads are done with the politicians the teachers are next.
Death to @zuckerberg @realjeffbezos @jackdorsey @pichai.
White people need to ignite their racial identity and rain down suffering and death like a hurricane upon zionists.
Put a target on these motherless trash [Antifa] they aren’t human taking one out would be like stepping on a roach no different.
We need to act like our forefathers did Kill [Black and Jewish people] all Leave no victims or survivors.
We are coming with our list we know where you live we know who you are and we are coming for you and it starts on the 6th civil war… Lol if you will think it’s a joke… Enjoy your last few days you have.
This bitch [Stacey Abrams] will be good target practice for our beginners.
This cu** [United States Secretary of Transportation Elaine Chao] should be…hung for betraying their country.
Hang this mofo [Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger] today.
HANG THAt N***** ASAP
Amazon informed the court that Parler’s CEO told them that it had a “backlog” of 26,000 instances of “problematic content” that its “volunteer” moderators had not gotten around to days after the Capitol coup attempt, at which point Parler was booted off AWS.
Now, we can mull over whether the above “problematic content” was “serious” business or just mostly “talk.” But we saw what one such person can do in El Paso. Some people may recall what happened to Denver “shock jock” Alan Berg; in a radio universe dominated by far-right commentating, it was the left-wing Berg who was murdered, by members of the neo-Nazi group The Order in 1984. More recently, Reps. Gabrielle Giffords and Steve Scalise were the targets of political fanatics; Taking words “seriously” should not be the subject of “after-the-fact” recriminations.
On the other hand, we saw on January 6 what such people are capable of when acting as a mob, and we should partake in deep thought what would have happened if the rioters were of the mind to take that next step—to actually physically detain lawmakers as the military and National Guard did nothing while a deranged president thrilled at the spectacle of a fascist putsch attempt. What would Trump have done?
Some historical reference: After the Reichstag Fire in February, 1933—which was almost certainly the work of the Nazis—President Paul von Hindenburg signed an emergency decree that suspended the constitution of the Weimar Republic. Just one month later German Chancellor Adolf Hitler forced through the legislature the Enabling Law, which gave Hitler the power to rule by decree and detain indefinitely all dissenters.
In our worst nightmares, we could have seen Trump declaring a “state of emergency," ruling by executive order, and suspending the writ of habeas corpus, as Abraham Lincoln did during the Civil War. Who would have stopped him? The courts? Why would he listen to them? Would the military have taken action against him? Would state governors take action against him—or would they be cowed by fanatical Trump supporters of an authoritarian white nationalist bent whose "defense" of democracy is limited to one-party rule (meaning their party), and taking to the streets threatening violence to prop-up an unlawful fascist regime, and even occupying government buildings, bringing democratic government to a standstill.
A scary thought, but then again, some of these people are scary enough to do just that.
No comments:
Post a Comment