“On December 12, 2020, a poster on the website MyMilitia.com urged violence if senators made official the victory of President-elect Joe Biden.
“'If this does not change, then I advocate, Revolution and adherence to the rules of war,' wrote someone identifying themselves as I3DI. 'I say, take the hill or die trying.'
“Wrote another person: 'It’s already apparent that literally millions of Americans are on the verge of activating their Second Amendment duty to defeat tyranny and save the republic.'”
(Logan Jaffe, Lydia DePillis, Isaac Arnsdorf, David McSwane. “Capitol Rioters Planned for Weeks in Plain Sight. The Police Weren’t Ready.” Frontline. January 07, 2021.)
The riot and attempted coup at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, did not occur as happenstance or as a spontaneous combustion with unknown and unrelated sources of ignition. Trump and right-wing extremists started planning the chaos months before. Through lies and deceit, the President of the United States manipulated militia groups, White Nationalists, and lawmakers from his own Republican Party to instigate an insurrection and perpetrate a heinous crime that indelibly stained American democracy.
The orchestration of the chaos and death is clear for all to see.
Back during the protests in Kenosha, Wisconsin, in August 2020, militia groups ratcheted up their presence. Then, Megan Squire, a computer science professor at Elon University in North Carolina who tracks online extremism said …
"They (militias) are inventing a scenario in which they can put their gun collections to use by showing up, unbidden, to 'protect' businesses that in many cases aren't theirs and don't want that service.
"The online rhetoric among armed militias and other right-wing gun enthusiasts is really at a fever pitch this whole summer. Now, we're seeing that come to bear in real life."
(Safia Samee Ali. “Where protesters go, armed militias, vigilantes likely to follow with little to stop them.” NBC News. September 01, 2020.)
And, as we all know, during the fall of 2020, armed militias stormed statehouses in Michigan and Ohio to demand "freedom" from COVID-19 lockdowns.
Very soon, the reckless escalation became lawless. On October 8, 2020, the FBI announced the arrests of 13 suspects accused of involvement in a domestic terror plot to kidnap Gretchen Whitmer, the Governor of Michigan, and otherwise violently overthrow the state government. The suspects were tied to a paramilitary militia group that called themselves the Wolverine Watchmen, which was founded by two of the suspects.
(Robert Snell and Melissa Nann.Burke."Plans to kidnap Whitmer, overthrow government spoiled, officials say.” The Detroit News. October 08, 2020.)
In early November, immediately after the 2020 election results were known, right-wing activists pushing baseless claims that the presidential election was "stolen" mobilized in several cities, drawing people to the streets through networks they had forged during the protests against lockdowns.
Then, protests in Arizona, Nevada, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Washington and other states typically involved no more than a few hundred people – some of them armed, chanting and praying for President Trump.
At that time, Hannah Allam, Washington-based national security correspondent for NPR who focuses on homegrown extremism, reported that “these crowds representing the blend of fringe movements and ideologies have flourished in the Trump era. The groups include self-styled militias, white nationalists, armed "boogaloo boys" and QAnon conspiracy theorists.
The right-wing organizers set up Facebook groups that used disinformation and fear mongering as recruiting tools. In response, some social media platforms, shut down some pages or added warning labels to posts.
(Hannah Allam. “Extremism Experts Warn Of Dangers In Baseless Claims Of 'Stolen' Election.” NPR WOUB. November 08, 2020.)
Trump's reckless statements about the vote fanned the "us vs. them" polarization and caused it to flame to dangerous levels. In November, domestic terrorism analysts warned of a prolonged fight developing – a fight being fueled by Trump and his right-wing minions – a misguided effort called “Stop the Steal.”
In October 2020, Andrea Mazzarino, social worker and researcher with the Veterans Affairs PTSD Outpatient Clinic and Human Rights Watch, reported in The Nation …
“It should certainly be obvious in October 2020 how destructive to our democracy fraternal, pro-Trump groups have become during Donald Trump’s presidency. Take those Proud Boys. Among the founding principles their website offers are a vague set of notions that include 'reinstating a spirit of Western chauvinism, anti-political correctness, venerating the housewife, pro-gun rights' (in a pandemic-ridden country where, between March and July alone, an estimated three million more guns were purchased than usual), and – get this – 'anti-racism.'
“For the Proud Boys to say that they reject racism and venerate housewives did little more than provide them with a veneer of social acceptability, even as they planned armed counter-rallies in progressive cities like Providence and Portland with the explicit purpose of inciting violence among Black Lives Matter protesters and their allies …
“One thing is certain: All that matters as markers of humanity to the man who inspires and, however implicitly, endorses such groups, President Donald Trump, is white skin and political support.”
(Andrea Mazzarino. “The Far-Right Militias Supporting Trump.” The Nation. October 29, 2020.)
Evidence now proves far-right supporters of President Donald Trump railed for weeks on social media that the election had been stolen, and they also openly discussed the idea of violent protest on the day Congress met to certify the result.
“We came up with the idea to occupy just outside the CAPITOL on Jan 6th,” leaders of the Stop the Steal movement wrote on Dec. 23. They called their Wednesday demonstration the Wild Protest, a name taken from a tweet by Trump that encouraged his supporters to take their grievances to the streets of Washington. “Will be wild,” the president tweeted.
Meanwhile, pro-Trump websites, including trumpmarch.com, wildprotest.com, and stopthesteal.us, boosted interest in the event. There’s also evidence that specific instructions for taking the Capitol appeared on sites like Parler, 4chan, and Gab.
(Rebecca Heilweil and Shirin Ghaffary. “How Trump’s internet built and broadcast the Capitol insurrection. Vox. January 08, 2021.)
On December 19, Newsweek reported:
“President Donald Trump is calling for "wild" protests to occur in the nation's capital on January 6, the final date on which he and his most hard-line Republican allies desperately hope to overturn President-elect Joe Biden's victory …
“Trump has also drummed up the support of far-right conspiracy theorists and others who are calling for a full-on civil war in America. Alex Jones told a crowd of Trump supporters in Washington that Biden 'will be removed one way or another' from the White House. Jones, 'Proud Boys' members and other fanatical Trump backers have repeatedly told the president they will not allow him to be removed from office.
“That potentially violent and chaotic sentiment appears to be fully supported by the president himself.
"'He didn't win the Election. He lost all 6 Swing States, by a lot. They then dumped hundreds of thousands of votes in each one, and got caught. Now Republican politicians have to fight so that their great victory is not stolen. Don't be weak fools!' Trump tweeted Saturday.”
(Benjamin Fearnow. “Trump Encourages 'Wild' Protests in D.C. on Date of Electoral College Vote Count.” Newsweek. December 19, 2020.)
The Evidence Is In
“Online extremism isn’t ever just online,” said Nina Jankowicz, a researcher on online misinformation at the Woodrow Wilson Center. “We’ve seen so many examples this year of hate speech and incitement spilling over into real life. What happened yesterday (January 6) is another extension of that.”
For months … no, for years, members of movements like QAnon, the Proud Boys, and the Three Percenters – not to mention hordes of white supremacists and conspiracy theorists – have been allowed to accumulate and grow on platforms like Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter.
While the mainstream social networks have taken action to restrict and even ban the groups, the crackdown came too late.
I believe Rebecca Heilweil and Shirin Ghaffary are correct in their assessment …
“Violent events like the 'Unite the Right' rally in Charlottesville, the attack at the Christchurch mosque, and the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting often have their roots in anger and bigotry that festers online. It’s also undeniable that Trump and his high-profile followers have become instigators. By spreading misinformation and false claims that the election was stolen – and by giving tacit approval to groups like Qanon and the Proud Boys –Trump’s online rhetoric excited his base and encouraged the storming of the Capitol.”
(Rebecca Heilweil and Shirin Ghaffary. “How Trump’s internet built and broadcast the Capitol insurrection. Vox. January 08, 2021.)
“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.
“We will never give up. We will never concede. If Mike Pence does the right thing, we win the election. History is going to be made.
“We’re going to see whether or not we have great and courageous leaders, or whether or not we have leaders that should be ashamed of themselves. If they do the wrong thing, we should never, ever forget that they did.
“If you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore.
"We're going to walk down to the Capitol. And we're gonna cheer on our brave senators and congressmen and women. And we're probably not going to be cheering, so much for some of them, because you'll never take back our country with weakness, you have to show strength and you have to be strong.”
– Donald Trump, message to his supporters at the Ellipse below the White House on January 6, 2021
The evidence is clear. The facts overwhelmingly support the verdict. Donald Trump is the person responsible for organizing a coup to usurp the votes of the American people and, like a dictator in a Banana Republic, manipulate an angry, deadly mob of his supporters to seize the United States Congress.
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