“They can’t arrest us all,’’ a future defendant had posted days before, and this was the vibe in the moment, the ecstatic invulnerability that leads someone to smear feces on the floor of the building in which the most powerful country on earth writes its rules.
“The worry set in later, when the swarm resolved into 9,000 separate bodies in separate homes in separate beds. At first it was just a feeling, watching the news, as the word rally gave way to the word riot, that the mood of the day had not carried onward into the present.”
(Kerry Howley. “Gina. Rosanne. Guy: What do you do the day after you storm the Capitol?” Intelligencer. December 06, 2021.)
The deadly riot at the US Capitol on January 6 left an indelible stain on American democracy. Deluded rally-goers, who saw themselves as patriots fighting for their country, demanded that Congress declare Donald Trump the rightful winner of the 2020 presidential election. It was a myth of Trump's own invention, and one he used as a calling card to a narcissistic coup.
Many who were there came to wage war against the foundations of the government. As they committed their crimes of insurrection, they opened up deep national wounds beyond the pandemonium on the Capitol. Their actions fueled a movement to silence truth tellers and political opponents while pushing through measures that reek of voter suppression – a commitment to a “Big Lie” that continues to threaten the United States of America.
Their crimes are well-documented. The FBI was at the airport. There were photographs on the FBI’s web page and online sleuths trawling for clues. There were tipsters calling in names of old classmates. Arrests would be made in nearly every state. Five hundred by August.
Kerry Howley, feature writer at New York Magazine and professor at the University of Iowa's Nonfiction Writing Program, relates: the rioters were “people who took immense pride in paying attention.” She explains …
“'I did storm the Capitol,' a rioter named Robert Chapman messaged someone on Bumble. '
“'We are not a match,' said the recipient, who then sent the message to the authorities. Rioters looked about and wondered who among their acquaintances had the motivated malice to dial 1-800-CALL-FBI. They were betrayed by co-workers, and they were betrayed by exes, and they were betrayed, very often, by former classmates. Someone who worked at Circle K pointed out that an assistant manager had requested time off to go to this. It was not unusual for six, seven, eight people to take it upon themselves to identify a single man.
“'Thanks for your tips!' tweeted the FBI.
“Here was a crime to which people loved to confess.
“'I STOLE SHIT FROM NANCY POLESI,' wrote Douglas Jensen on Discord. At a dentist’s office, Daniel Warmus bragged that he had smoked marijuana inside the Capitol; someone in the office turned him in.
“'Just broke in this bitch!' said Cole Temple in a video of himself that he posted on Snapchat.
“Rioters had given interviews to the Baker County Press, the anti-abortion publication LifeSiteNews, and the Finnish newspaper Ilta-Sanomat, a Finnish reader of which contacted the FBI. Rioters were identified because other rioters tagged them on Facebook.
“As part of an Instagram Story, Edward Lang posted a picture of the crowded Capitol entrance, to which he added a pointing-finger emoji and the words 'THIS IS ME.'”
(Kerry Howley. “Gina. Rosanne. Guy: What do you do the day after you storm the Capitol?” Intelligencer. December 06, 2021.)
Literally hundreds of people caught on-camera committing sedition went home to discover that federal agents were already setting up surveillance. Howley says, “They would pay a price paid for the right to stand on a dais and say, 'You’ll never take back our country with weakness.'”
Howley continues …
“... it was true that Google would hand location data to the FBI and Facebook would deliver reams of messages, but the Capitol riot was among the most-filmed events in history not because the NSA was listening but because the rioters themselves obsessively documented all four hours of it.
“'My name is Gina Bisignano,' said Gina Bisignano into the camera as men raved around her. Gina’s Beverly Hills on Instagram.
(Kerry Howley. “Gina. Rosanne. Guy: What do you do the day after you storm the Capitol?” Intelligencer. December 06, 2021.)
The insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on January 6 is most probably the most documented crime in U.S. history. Vera Bergengruen and W.J. Hennigan of Time report that surveillance and law enforcement body cameras captured more than 15,000 hours of footage. The federal government snagged some 1,600 electronic devices teeming with electronic communications. Citizens from across the country have flooded the FBI with more than 270,000 tips, which include videos, photos and social media posts.
And the rioters themselves extensively captured their exploits on camera, posting hours of digital evidence of the rampage. Thanks to all of that evidence, more than 370 suspects have been arrested on charges related to the insurrection.
(Vera Bergengruen and W.J. Hennigan. “The Capitol Attack Was the Most Documented Crime in History. Will That Ensure Justice? Time. April 09m 2021.)
What the Hell Did the Idiots Have In Mind?
Dan Zak and Karen Heller of The Washington Post report that post-January 6 “the responsibility for the event is spread so thin that true culpability doesn’t exist.”
Some defendants seemed bent on bloodshed and were charged with felonies including conspiracy. One group dressed in combat attire, used walkie-talkies, adopted code names such as “Gator 1” and “Gator 6” and, once inside the Capitol, appeared to be searching for legislators, according to the government. One militiaman wore a patch on his vest that read: “I don’t believe in anything. I’m just here for the violence,” according to an affidavit from an FBI agent.
Others, like Josiah Colt, the Idaho man who was photographed hanging off the balcony in a helmet and kneepads and sitting in the chair reserved for the vice president, say: “I got caught up in the moment.”
How? Zak and Heller say …
“They immersed themselves in politics, conspiracy theories, Trump’s rhetoric and right-wing media. One attorney has cited 'Trumpitis' and 'Foxmania.' Lawyers have mounted what you might call an externalized-insanity argument: The defendants were hearing voices saying the presidential election would be stolen by sinister forces unless they intervened. It was a delusion, but the voices were real. And one of them belonged to the president of the United States.
“Folly and sadness abound in these cases. When a Pennsylvania man was arrested last month on charges of stealing government property amid the chaos, among his possessions were literature titled “Step by Step to Create Hometown Militia” and a model of the U.S. Capitol made of Legos …
“Eric Munchel, who was photographed leaping through the Senate gallery carrying zip-tie handcuffs, was there to protect his mother, according to his attorney.”
(Dan Zak and Karen Heller. What were the Capitol rioters thinking on Jan. 6?.” The Washington Post. July 20, 2021.)
Some of the rioters were evidently motivated by vanity and pride. For example, Patrick Stedman, a self-proclaimed dating guru from New Jersey, was flagged to the FBI by former classmates who saw him bragging publicly about participating in the first wave of rioters to breach the building, according to an affidavit. After being charged with disorderly conduct and obstruction of government procedure, Stedman continued to share his wisdom on Twitter.
“The essence of the masculine spirit is the impulse toward oblivion,” he tweeted shortly before his indictment was filed. (He has pleaded not guilty). Days later, he posted: “Women will fall in love with any man so long as he’s in the arena.”
(Dan Zak and Karen Heller. What were the Capitol rioters thinking on Jan. 6?.” The Washington Post. July 20, 2021.)
And, of course, now that the arrests have taken place, many of the guilty parties claim their own “personal baggage” as their motivation for taking part.
Douglas Jensen – the Iowa man who wore a “Q” shirt and stalked Capitol Police officer Eugene Goodman up a flight of stairs – is “the product of a dysfunctional childhood” spent mostly in foster care, according to his lawyer. Jensen, saddled with stress, the lawyer said, became a “true believer” in QAnon, an extremist ideology that the FBI has deemed a domestic terrorism threat.
“True Believers” of many militias and the like took part. The storming of the Capitol drew extremists that included adherents of the QAnon conspiracy theory, the far-right group the Proud Boys, militiamen, white supremacists, anti-maskers and diehard Trump supporters.
The toll of the January 6 riot that left five people dead and 140 police officers injured is still being measured. At a virtual gathering titled “The Events of January 6 and the Future of American Democracy,” Erica Chenoweth, Berthold Beitz Professor in Human Rights and International Affairs at the Harvard Kennedy School and Susan S. and Kenneth L. Wallach Professor at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, compared the attempted coup to Adolf Hitler’s failed takeover in Bavaria in 1923 and the seeding of anti-government conspiracy that followed.
Chenoweth castigated the people in Congress who perpetuated the false claim that the election had been stolen from former President Donald Trump even after the insurrection.
She said:
“l don’t want to be accused of being overly alarmist at any point, but there are historical examples we can avoid if we take very seriously this pattern of behavior and stand up for the truth, and absolutely reject people who are in power and authority and who want to challenge and destroy the truth. We should have our elected officials standing up for the rule of law or demanding that they resign.”
(Jill Radsken. “Capitol losses.” The Harvard Gazette. February 02, 2021.)
“It’s a difficult thing when a demagogue hijacks your party. It is true that, on the one hand, Republicans enabled Donald Trump but, on the other hand, he enabled them.”
--Harvey Mansfield, American political philosopher and Professor of Government at Harvard University
The "Big Lie" – the verifiably false assertion that Trump won the 2020 election – stems from an age-old tactic, according to Yale history professor Timothy Snyder.
"Part of the character of the 'big lie' is that it turns the powerful person into the victim," says Snyder, who has spent years studying the ways tyrants skewer truth. "And then that allows the powerful person to actually exact revenge, like it's a promise for the future."
Snyder points to Hitler's original definition of the "big lie" in his manifesto, Mein Kampf, and the ways he used it to blame Jews for all of Germany's woes.
"The lie is so big that it reorders the world," Snyder says. "And so part of telling the big lie is that you immediately say it's the other side that tells the big lie. Sadly, but it's just a matter of record, all of that is in Mein Kampf."
(Melissa Block. “The clear and present danger of Trump's enduring 'Big Lie.'” NPR. December 23, 2021.)
Here's how Trump propagated his own Big Lie.
In a story from 2018. Trump falsely claimed after the 2016 election, which he won, that millions of people had illegally voted for his opponent, Hillary Clinton.
Then, leading up to the 2020 election, Trump again routinely asserted that voting in the U.S. would be rigged against him, and afterward, when he denied his loss, critics began using the term "the Big Lie" to describe his rejection of the factual world.
Trump seized the term from his critics and then routinely used it to claim it was he who was the victim of untruths and conspiracies. "The Fraudulent Presidential Election of 2020 will be, from this day forth, known as THE BIG LIE! " he said in a statement issued by his PAC on May 3.
Since then, Trump's use of the phrase to claim his own persecution has arguably eclipsed its use to warn about his lies as a form of propaganda.
What are the elements of Trump's big lie?
1. The election was stolen because it's not possible Trump didn't win.
2. There was a massive technological conspiracy to rig the election.
3. Theories and wild claims pushed on the internet find their way into lawsuits and are then pushed by Trump.
4. Investigators are biased, too.
5. Trump supporters questioning the results are just being good citizens.
(Zachary B. Wolf. “The 5 key elements of Trump's Big Lie and how it came to be.” CNN. May 19, 2021.)
The Big Lie has grown more entrenched and more dangerous over the year. It has metastasized and shows no signs of going away. The criminal rioters at the Capitol have actually become heroes to many gullible and misguided Americans.
Calvin Woodward, Colleen Long, and David Klepper of the Los Angeles Times write …
“A cocktail of propaganda, conspiracy theory and disinformation — of the kind intoxicating to the masses in the darkest turns of history — is fueling straight-up delusion over the agonies of Jan. 6.
“Hate is 'love.' Violence is 'peace.' The pro-Donald Trump attackers are patriots.
“Months after the then-president’s supporters stormed the Capitol that winter day, Trump and his acolytes are taking this revisionism to a new and dangerous place – one of martyrs and warlike heroes, and of revenge. It’s a place where cries of 'blue lives matter' have transformed into shouts of 'f— the blue.'
“The fact inversion about the siege is the latest in Trump’s contorted oeuvre of the “Big Lie” compendium, the most specious of which is that the election was stolen from him. It was not.”
(Calvin Woodward, Colleen Long, and David Klepper. “In Trump’s Jan. 6 recast, attackers become martyrs and heroes.” Los Angeles Times. July 18, 2021.)
Oh sure, Trump and many Republicans have cycled through various characterizations of the insurrection – the attackers were leftist antifa and Black Lives Matter followers in disguise; they were overexcited tourists; Nancy Pelosi was to blame. And, now they are heralded as “foot soldiers for freedom.”
“Nothing close to this loss of faith in democracy has happened here before. Even Confederates recognized Lincoln’s election; they tried to secede because they knew they had lost.”
– Barton David Gellman, American author known for his reports on September 11 attacks and on the global surveillance disclosure
And, finally, here is the sad truth: To those who believe, nothing can invalidate the conspiracy theories. To this large group of malcontents, you using facts and trying to refute the theories, to them proves the theories and signals you as a conspirator. In other words, the belief contains a device that protects it.
Attacking the institution that spouts a Big Lie is part of what true believers consider “the conspiracy.” They don’t trust the institutions in the first place, and, therefore, any ideas that come out of those institutions are invalid to them. Such it is with their beliefs in the Deep State, Qanon, and Trump's contention of election fraud. If you have ever tried to use facts to dissuade others from crazy beliefs, you understand. Those who feel psychologically and sociopolitically dis-empowered and those who deal with anxiety are stubborn and single-minded … and, unfortunately, many of them are prone to violence.
“What is demanded is a kind of ultimate proof, which there cannot be. Trying to disprove a conspiracy theory by rational argument will not work because the premise is not based on rational argument, but on a very intense emotional need to see the world in this way.”
– Dr David Bell, psychoanalyst and consultant psychiatrist at the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust
God damn those responsible for January 6 and for the Big Lie. Damn Donald Trump for encouraging and aiding his followers to commit violence, destruction, and permanent damage to American democracy. He must be held responsible.
The next attempted coup is on the horizon. Trump is busy planning revenge. Barton Gellman of The Atlantic says the foundation has been set – “a dauntingly large number of Americans have been coerced to believe that the essential workings of democracy are corrupt, that made-up claims of fraud are true, that only cheating can thwart their victory at the polls, that tyranny has usurped their government, and that violence is a legitimate response.”
Gellman continues …
“For more than a year now, with tacit and explicit support from their party’s national leaders, state Republican operatives have been building an apparatus of election theft. Elected officials in Arizona, Texas, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, and other states have studied Donald Trump’s crusade to overturn the 2020 election. They have noted the points of failure and have taken concrete steps to avoid failure next time.
“Some of them have rewritten statutes to seize partisan control of decisions about which ballots to count and which to discard, which results to certify and which to reject. They are driving out or stripping power from election officials who refused to go along with the plot last November, aiming to replace them with exponents of the Big Lie. They are fine-tuning a legal argument that purports to allow state legislators to override the choice of the voters.”
(Barton Gellman. “Trump's next big coup has already begun.” The Atlantic. December 06, 2021.)
So, to close, I must tell express my belief that the future is up to us, the voting public. Those kind of willing felons who stormed the Capitol are rallying forces to insure their will will be done, one way or another. The proof – who they are and what they do – is before us. Already the far-right has proven they will gladly, openly, and forcefully take risks to defend their beliefs.
They are unfurling their Trump banners, grabbing their “Fuck Biden and Fuck You For Voting For Him” signs, shouldering their constitutionally protected assault rifles, and planning revenge, even if it means insurrection. We must never let this happen.
Fable for a War
By Thomas Merton (1915-1968)
The old Roman sow
Bears a new litter now
To fatten for a while
On the same imperial swill.
The cannibal wolf will dig
And root out Spanish bones beside the pig.
Germany has reared
A rare ugly bird
To screech a sour song
In the German tongue:
Tell me if there be
A sparrowhawk for such birds as he?
The parrots lift their beaks
And fill the air with shrieks.
Ambassador is sent
From the parrots’ parliament:
“Oh see how fine I fly
And nibble crackers got in Germany.”
Europe is a feast
For every bloody beast:
Jackals will grow fat
On the bones after that.
But in the end of all
None but the crows can sing the funeral.
Germany has reared
A rare ugly bird,
But crows ate Roman pig
Before this bird was egg.
And in the end of all
Crows will come back and sing the funeral.
Thomas Merton, “Fable for a War” from The Collected Poems of Thomas Merton. Copyright © 1977 by The Trustees of the Merton Legacy Trust. Reprinted by permission of New Directions Publishing Corporation.
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