January 6 Plus Four
The man who tried to prevent the vote from being counted last time is about to be certified President again.
President Biden‘s name appears on today’s Washington Post op-ed titled “What Americans should remember about Jan. 6.” The nut ‘graphs:
[W]e should not forget. We must remember the wisdom of the adage that any nation that forgets its past is doomed to repeat it. We cannot accept a repeat of what occurred four years ago.
An unrelenting effort has been underway to rewrite — even erase — the history of that day. To tell us we didn’t see what we all saw with our own eyes. To dismiss concerns about it as some kind of partisan obsession. To explain it away as a protest that just got out of hand.
The rest is a recitation of what pretty much everyone here believes about that day. Alas, it is a message that Biden, Vice President Harris, most Democratic politicians, and even a few erstwhile Republican politicians have ben hammering for four years. And, of course, the fellow who tried to foment an insurrection to steal that election is about to have his actual victory in the subsequent election certified with Harris in the humiliating position of presiding over the count.
Frustrating and dispiriting though that may be, I would not go so far as John Ganz, who proclaims, “January 6th was Successful.”
Today is January 6th and I feel a certain tedium and impatience about marking the anniversary of the Capitol Hill attack four years later. There seems to be a growing consensus that it, along with all of Trump’s other menaces to constitutional rule, is not worth taking seriously. The line on January 6th is that even if it was a coup or insurrection attempt, it was a farce and a failure. But this is wrong. In retrospect, it was a great political success for Trump. Not only because he got away with it, but because of how he could fracture and polarize the response. Attention paid to it is now considered sour grapes: part of a discredited political strategy and a remnant of liberal sentimentalism that is fast going out of style. He came back from it and rallied even those who initially condemned it or were frightened by it to his side. And he made the defense of the constitutional order a partisan issue.
We are accustomed to repeating now that Trump’s coalition is fragile or that there are intrinsic weaknesses in his governing style. True so far as it goes, but how fragile is a coalition that reformed and expanded after he attempted to overthrow the U.S. government? And how weak is someone who managed to suffuse the atmosphere with a sense of total credulity about himself and total cynicism about his opponents? This is an attitude now shared even among those who do not consider themselves his supporters. There is now a process of retrospective legitimation, as if the vote somehow wipes the slate clean, and makes lies the truth. There is a kind of spiritual Gleichsaltung going on: Trump is now the man and to continue one’s criticism forcefully makes you a sad deadender. Resistance liberalism is turning into Vichy liberalism and the NeverTrumpers suddenly discover they were AlwaysTrumpers. Some of that can be blamed on the failure of the media or the opposition party, but some credit has to be given to Trump himself. The great insult comic has landed his jibes: he has embarrassed the opposition, he has humiliated them. They are forced to laugh along now or look like spoilsports. Looking back in the 1960s, the Italian socialist Pietro Nenni remarked, “Everyone in Italy agreed in not taking Fascism seriously.” Not being taken seriously is probably the thing that helps Trump the most, on the one hand, it drives him, it torments him and everything he does can be read as a demand to be taken seriously, but it is also his greatest political gift and strength, it allows him to glide.
On January 6th Trump successfully broke the system: there is no neutral, recognized arbiter of the law and the constitutional order, there is just raw politics. That does not mean he will necessarily prevail in every political contest, but he should never be seen as the underdog. His political skills should not be underestimated. His appetite for risk has been rewarded. Why would he not be emboldened to try other desperate stratagems since he’s faced no repercussions thus far?
I would argue that insurrection was not successful in either a literal or figurative sense. Most obviously, because the system held and Trump was in fact ousted from office at the appointed hour. And, to the extent roughly half the country doesn’t care enough about a failed attempt to steal the election to punish the man who did it, it’s not a victory for the riot but simply a sign of an apathetic polity. Binary choices have that impact and the malaise predates Trump by decades.
In some sense, Trump’s re-election does “wipe the slate clean.” That Senate Republicans failed in their duty to vote guilty in the second impeachment trial is shameful, if not the least bit surprising. That the wheels of justice in the various federal investigations of Trump ground too slowly is frustrating but the nature of the system. But, the voters, with four years to absorb the findings of the January 6 Committee and relentless speechifying and advertising about the threat to democracy posed by Trump nonetheless chose him over Harris. He is, therefore, entitled to exercise the powers of the presidency for another four years absent new transgressions.
The last clause demonstrates that Ganz has a point. At this point, it is hard to imagine a transgression that would result in his departure from office.
Moreover, the existence of an “apathetic polity” is not mutually exclusive with the claim that the insurrection was successful. Rather, malaise, apathy, and ultimately, cynicism are useful, perhaps necessary, for authoritarians.
@Kurtz: If by “the insurrection was successful,” we mean “he got away with it,” then sure. But it wasn’t successful in the proximate goal of overturning the 2020 election. And I’m not sure his subsequently winning the 2024 election had anything to do with the insurrection.
No, a riot is not an insurrection. And the reason why nobody outside the far Left cares about this is everybody saw in 2020 when your party unleashed its paramilitaries onto numerous cities for weeks, including the violent siege of the White House. Not to mention all of the dirty tricks, spying, lawfare, etc….
And if Republican counties (in select areas) were; openly breaking election laws, slow walking the count, and then there was a statistically anomalous ballot surge ten hours after the polls closed there would be a (real) civil war.
I thought the Washington Post editorial board had gone full MAGA! How did such an editorial get published.
At least James said “President Biden’s name”. We’re starting to drop the lie about Biden being active and the Best Version of Biden Ever. The establishment media is finally admitting they didn’t do their job, at least a few of them. They’re only admitting it to make a pivot back to The Importance of the Adversarial Press though. These three weeks are going to be the hardest, they admitted they missed the Biden health story in their “Year in Review” segments but they still have to sit on their hands until Trump takes office.
“I’ve come to bury America, not to praise her.”
Even the climate in DC is over the Jan 6 insurrection hype. But then you keep using that word but it doesn’t mean what you think it means.
Yesterday the hyperbole by so-called professional writer was out in force.
Where is the massacre, where’s the slaughter?
But then what if you held an insurrection by the most heavily armed population in the world and no one brought any guns?
@James Joyner:
“…wasn’t successful in the proximate goal of overturning the 2020 election.” Are you serious?
At a societal/national level, proximate goals are unimportant. The US is approaching its 250th anniversary and you’re narrowing the focus to what happened over 14 days in January 2020.
Trump’s ultimate goals were to maintain power and to avoid accountability for his various corruptions. For all extents and purposes, he remained in power as Party Leader in Exile from Mar-a-Lago as soon as the GOP Senate acquitted him of the second impeachment. Now, he returns to the White House claiming mandate while SCOTUS has conferred on him “official duty” absolute immunity. He will never see a day of jail time despite indictment on felonies too numerous to list here and his donors will front him whatever he ultimately ends up paying in civil penalties. Of course, Trump and his GOP enablers won the day with J6.
Also, too…
If the system had held, it would have never come to “an apathetic polity” to save our country. As @Kurtz notes, any polity prone to life’s challenges is a weak safeguard against authoritarianism. The bread & circuses of the Romans has been updated to eggs & NFL for today, but otherwise the people are still too easily manipulated and distracted to stand against strong men and their oligarchic bankrollers.
That Trump won a 2024 election that somehow did not have EVERTHING to do with the insurrection is another indication that J6, 2020 was a resounding success.
Oh, goody. joe, Fortune, and JKB are already on this thread gloating that J6 has been proven inconsequential and that their Dear Leader is vindicated. Yet more evidence that John Ganz is right that January 6th was Successful.
@Scott F.: No, I made fun of the mainstream meda and this claim that the Washington Post is Trumpist.
“Oh, goody. joe, Fortune, and JKB are already on this thread gloating that J6 has been proven inconsequential and that their Dear Leader is vindicated.”
I’m not “gloating” at all. This babe in the woods routine is tough to take.
I fear America is a failing nation. Not because of all the puerile bullshit Trump vomits out of his festering gob, like his repeated lies about how bad the economy is and how bad crime is (neither of which is remotely true), but because of what you said right here. When someone as profoundly defective as Trump, someone who has repeatedly and manifestly demonstrated his unfitness to run a lemonade stand, let alone the United States of America, can defeat someone as qualified in both experience and demeanor as Kamala Harris, it makes me fear we are failing.
It’s not too late, people may wake up when Trump’s idiotic tariffs and brutal mass deportations and unqualified cabinet picks show him up for what he really is in a way even ardent supporters like our friends JKB and Fortune won’t be able to rationalize away. I’m nothing if not optimistic.
@Fortune:
It’s a longstanding qualification I make here and in the classroom: things signed by senior officials are almost always staff products with, at most, some input or light editing from the principal. That’s fine by me–POTUS is a busy guy–but mildly irksome at the same time as someone who occasionally tries to place op-eds.
@Fortune:
Yeah, you clearly have no idea how any of it works. (And by the way, set aside a few minutes and look into Pseudepigraphy. You will likely be shocked at the number of works attributed to a person who did not write it.)
Nor do you understand your opps.
In 2020, some, if not most of us, preferred other candidates to Biden. You see, pretty much all of us would prefer a president who oscillates between senility and catatonic to a an ignorant, malignant narcissist.
Just as @joe demonstrates his lack of knowledge about politics (James Joyner, far-left blogger–lol), your comment shows the same is true about you.
But it makes sense, in 2000, the analysis was about people preferring a President with whom they would like to have a beer.
But that wasn’t enough, was it? You all wanted a President as ignorant of politics, the job, and the world as you are.
Well, you got it. Congrats.
@Mikey: The vp has two jobs, presiding over the Senate and replacing the president if he’s impaired. Harris demonstrated her unfitness for the presidency by abdicating her duty. It’s funny, she should be president right now or impeached.
I’m somewhat worried about all three things you listed, but I don’t think the tariffs or the deportations wil llbe widespread, or that RFK will do much damage. He’s a bad pick though.
@Kurtz: You don’t understand your opps either I guess. I’m as disappointed by Trump’s 2024 nomination as you were by Biden’s 2020, but you and I are both in the minority.
@James Joyner:
Maybe.
But I think you’re underselling the impact of the big lie. Actually, I think you may be compartmentalizing issues that can only be analyzed if they are treated as inter-related.
But exploring that would exceed this format.
It’s easy to dismiss the stolen election narrative as something that only appeals to committed partisans. But those narratives impact less-engaged voters as well.
Those voters typically see partisans as unreasonable and both sides as equally guilty of every sin. So when they hear for four years that Democrats are treating Trump unfairly, and then they hear that there are ‘serious questions’ about the fairness of 2020, they accept that it could be true. All the hand-wringing about democracy and norms just looks like histrionics to them. The warnings about Trump become just another example of typical hyperbole.
Remember, these are not people who are going to spend a bunch of time and effort to sort through evidence. Nor are they inclined to think deeply about political theory.
@Fortune:
Who is “we”? Not black or gay voters, cohorts to which I belong, who continue to be one of the few American demographics, alongside Jews and sone others, that don’t vote like total lunatics.
The proof of the pudding is in the eating, and Biden’s fitness for the job is proven by his results. He inherited a catastrophe of terror, disease, and depression from the psychotic, fascist, rapist buffoon that a supermajority of America’s majority demographic continue to endorse, to their collective embarrassment. Biden turned our economy around serving with decency and distinction — great economic and social success considering the alternative.
America’s establishment and their easily-manipulated minions should be ashamed of their vicious and dishonest mistreatment of this great patriot. Not unlike their shamefully disgusting sexist smear campaign against Hillary Clinton, or earlier, the smearing of Jimmy Carter and Harry Truman.
And here we go again. A repetition of errors shows a lack of intelligence, in my view.
Biden is the best president of my lifetime. So not push certain Americans’ irrational hatred of the elderly onto me and mine. We support and applaud JOe Biden and think certain Americans are deeply disturbed, at least when it comes to judging job performance and resumés. Speak for your insane selves. Not all of us hear “Hillary’s emails” or “Biden’s age,” repeated in the press and online, and start salivating like good little obedient pet dogs — enslaved by Putin and our billionaire corporate overlords.
@joe:
A riot intended to overturn a constitution process, and thereby an election is very much an insurrection.
@Mikey:
The forces that brought Trump to power- racism and misogyny- have existed since the founding, and been succesfully beaten back several times.
Past performance no guarantee of future results of course, but what is in our favor is that Trumpism, like all fascist movements is utterly incapable of delivering prosperity, freedom or even happiness.
Like the USSR, MAGA. leaders are selected by loyalty not competenceand can be counted on to crap the bed.
@joe:
Yes, if J6 had perpetrated by a bunch of brown people named Muhammad instead of white Trump voters, it would be widely and rightly recognized as a terror attack. But the Amerikkkan part of America is congenitally incapable of holding the worst yt folk on the planet to the same standards they demand of everyone else.
Sellout Trumpers like our MAGA trolls think anyone who won’t join them in licking Epstein-bestie pedo Trump’s bloated rear end like is on the “far left.” They think Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger are “far left,” because Trump sycophants are not just pathological liars, they are mentally ill and often low IQ.
I don’t know how long it took all of Germany to recognize the Reichstag Fire as a terrorist stain. But kudos to the Germans who, even quietly, refused to accept the Third Reich’s bs, unlike our “conservative” losers who voted to help illegal immigrant African oligarch President Musk replace high-skilled American workers with H-1B indentured servants.
American normies who voted for Hillary, Biden, and Harris, and who reject J6 gaslighting from rightwing freaks, are to be similarly commended. And will be, soon enough.
@Scott F.:
People that are anti-democratic always try to explain away their actions and beliefs by a) trivializing them, and b) justifying them as necessary exceptions. But it doesn’t change the fact that Trump and his minions are traitors, and fascists. That he and his family and many of his inner circle were proven to have colluded with Russia and other enemies of our country. Or that he sold his office to the highest bidder, over and over. Or, that he is a crook and a rapist and a con man. Those who support him are either idiots or fellow travelers.
Ok, Fortune goes on my “do not bother to read” list. Probably overdue. This is the single stupidest thing I’ve read here.
@MarkedMan:
Another weakness is that MAGAs have defined their goals as essentially impossible to accomplish.
Like, they have no material grievances- no oppression, no poverty, no harms or injustice to claim whatsoever.
The goal is to inflict suffering and humiliation on their hated outgroups so as to raise themselves to the top of the social hierarchy.
But the social hierarchy is beyond the grasp of even the most determined government.
Elon and Trump are the embodiment of this- the richest man to ever exist and the most powerful yet both are tormented by their inability to be liked or well regarded.
The mere existence of a queer or non white person living freely and welcomed by society is a burning affront to the MAGA.
@JKB:
You’ve slavishly regurgitated your daddy Trump’s bold-faced “no guns” talking point many times, and it’s quickly falsified every time.
Texas Man Convicted of Carrying Firearm onto Capitol Grounds During Jan. 6 Capitol Breach
Prosecutors Charge Man With Firing Shots Outside the Capitol on Jan. 6
Missouri Man Sentenced on Felony Weapons Charge for Actions During Jan. 6 Capitol Breach
Fact check: RFK Jr. repeats, and then retracts, long-debunked claim that January 6 rioters ‘carried no weapons’
Oath Keepers jury hears about massive weapon cache on Jan. 6
Trump supporter charged with firing a gun during the Jan. 6 Capitol attack
Evidence of firearms in Jan. 6 crowd grows as arrests and trials mount
Don’t brainwashed MAGA zombies ever get tired of the constant lying? It eats away the soul.
@Scott F.:
Is this gloating? Seems more like crying on the inside. Like Trump and Musk, they crave validation from society’s non-losers. But they can’t get it.
@DK:
Oh how sad, you don’t want to drop the lie even now that it’s allowed. You’ve been trolling for so long you can’t even engage with reason any more. Womp womp.
@DK:
Oh, I know that one’s wrong in the first paragraph:
A member of the Oath Keepers who traveled to Washington before the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol testified Wednesday about a massive cache of weapons the far-right extremist group stashed in a Virginia hotel room.
@Fortune:
Oh lord with this lame “allowed” crying lol
You’ve always been “allowed” to say whatever you want, including attacking Joe Biden and Kamala Harris with the establishment’s talking points — just like the billionaires you stay perpetually on your knees for tell you to. No one has ever stopped you. So y’all can stop playing the victim. Joe Biden is not the reason you suck at life.
Try basic budgeting. Then maybe y’all will be able to afford a $2.79 carton of eggs, instead of blaming Biden’s age, the 0.1% of Americans that are trans, and South American migrants for your failure to launch.
@JKB:
@joe:
Evidently, the fact that on January 6th 2021 the Trump directed insurrectionist mob came very close to enabling Trump to steal the 2020 election means to you, that this was just a bit of DC Tourism gone wild. Amazing.
@DK: It’s apparently true that only a small number of J6 rioters were carrying firearms. And many more were cached outside DC. That’s not evidence of peaceful intent. It’s evidence of the effectiveness of DC firearms laws.
@Fortune:
Cool story.
There were guns and other weapons at the violent Jan 6 terror attack. The “no guns” bs pushed by bootlicking MAGA whackjobs is not true.
@DK: Reread my comments. I know I can say what I want. But you must not be able to if you’re still saying Biden is functional. How long will it take the mainstream media to convince you of what’s obvious to the rest of us?
@DK:
Potato – Potahto
I don’t care about their motives or personal justifications, frankly. That they’ve protested that I unfairly characterized them would suggest they are a little butt-hurt, so maybe validation is what they seek.
My point remains that since J6 apologists aren’t utterly ashamed to publish their BS into a public forum (OTB, with our hosts being GOP diaspora, no less), then the insurrectionists have won. Trump could curl into a fetal position on entering the WH and execute none of his agenda going forward, yet we will still be a country willing to obliviate an insurrection and re-seat the instigator with a clean slate. That stain ain’t washing out.
@Fortune: Again, who is “us”? It does not include me or people like me. I admire people who can afford eggs. So I see nothing in your “us” I wish to emulate.
Biden has “functioned” as the most results-positive president of my lifetime. So no, you’ll never convince most Democrats, educated Americans, or we who belong the ~90% of black voters and ~85% of LGT voters who support(ed) Joe Biden and Kamala Harris to join America’s worst in your anti-Hillary, anti-Biden, anti-Harris political stupidity. Why would we side against the proven wisdom of our people to agree with the types who continually f–k up in the voting booth?
We have zero respect or admiration for the collective political judgment of most (not all) of you. As far as Biden is concerned, it’s obvious to my us that y’all are brainwashed, unfocused, and gullible –and that your kind’s stubborn refusal to follow our lead politically is a proven disaster.
Great. So maybe you can stop the sad sack pretense that it’s only now you’re suddenly “allowed” to say this or that, the favorite cry of the modern American beta male, a.k.a. the reason a rapist and terrorist will return to the presidency, albeit to serve African oligarch Elon Musk.
@DK: 83%, not 90%. A smaller percentage every time. Womp womp.
@DK:
You still can’t understand. I’m using basic words.
The shameful acts of January 6th were committed by shameless individuals. And are defended by the ignorant, the stupid and the lying.
At least there’s the pleasant fact that the Trump administration is likely to hurt his own most die hard supporters.
Tariffs will be great for rural economies! Going after immigrant labor? Privatizing the post office? Pulling back on regulations, allowing greater consolidation in agriculture processors?
It’s like he ran on a slogan of “Fuck Farmers in 2024”
Meanwhile queer folks are resilient. We’ve only had a semblance of equal rights for a bit more than a decade, and we’re resilient. Same with most minorities. Individuals will suffer, but the communities with come together and help their own as best they can.
But, Trump’s base? They’re soft.
@Fortune: Trump lost the black vote horribly and it was not even close. 8+ of out 10 might as well be unanimous in politics. Because you’ll never convince black voters to be bootlicking sheep, like you and yours.
But congrats you got a sellout or two extra this time. They’ll be back home after Republicans leave a mess for Democrats to fix. Like clockwork, per usual.
@Fortune:
You used a whiny weasel word to position Biden haters as super special victims. I understand MAGA-fellating betas enjoy that mentality. Trump helps y’all scapegoat those who are better than you for your unhappiness and general failure in life:
Trans, blacks, Mexicans, feminists, “the elites” — whoever America’s obedient Pavlovian dogs are told to blame in any given year so your handlers can intiate another round of Republican tax cuts for billionaires, Republican corporate welfare, and Republican socialism-for-the-rich instead of public investment in healthcare, housing, safety, and transit.
@DK: What percentage of black or gay vote has to go Republican before you’ll start to use reason on your own?
First, with very rare exceptions, all polities are apathetic. Quoting Hacker and Pierson, “woefully ignorant”.
Second, the “malaise” is a symptom, not a cause. Some years ago the right wing “epistemic bubble”was something of a meme. The bubble started to grow long ago, but really cranked up in 1996 with the debut of Fox News. By now FOX/GOP has created a whole alternate universe in which tax cuts lower the deficit, global warming is a myth, Thomas Jefferson was a pious Christian, Blacks have had complete equality since Republicans passed the Civil Rights Act, immigrants eat pet cats, etc. Currently it adds crime is high, rising, and caused by illegal immigrants; inflation is high and prices can be brought down by imposing tariffs, or something; COVID was somehow not real, and in any case eliminated by Trump’s heroic efforts to create a vaccine that is a spawn of the deep state and shouldn’t be taken; Biden was a vegetable all along and he destroyed America; etc.; and the subject of this post, even if J6 happened it was a peaceful demonstration and Trump had every right to pressure voting officials and create fake electors ’cause he really won, ’cause photo IDs or something. This alternate reality, “American carnage”, is where the “malaise” comes from.
As I may have remarked before, it ain’t just Trump, it’s the Republicans. If Trump, and Vance, were to die tomorrow, and Revered Johnson ascend to the presidency, nothing important would change. FOX would still do what it does, the Billionaire Boys Club would still be in charge, the GOPs all learned they can lie with impunity. Trump also taught them they may not be able to shout ni*, ni*, ni* anymore, but they can shout immigrant, immigrant, immigrant or trans, trans, trans all they want, and it works.
Each successful violation of norms weakens the norms. Each time a populist authoritarian is elected it becomes easier for the next one. Each failure to enforce the law weakens the law. Each stupid SCOTUS decision weakens the laws. SCOTUS has opened to doors wide to the influence of money. Each lie accepted strengthens the epistemic bubble. Yeah, I’d say J6 succeeded.
Rant off. I feel better now.
@Fortune: How many times does the near-unanimous Democratic vote of your black and gay brothers and sisters have to be proven prescient for you to pushback when your friends and loved ones are enabling Republicans and/or dropping n-bombs and f-bombs, instead of going along with the stupidity and amorality like a cowardly little brownshirt?
How more many times does a Republican president need to crash the economy for y’all to get serious about real issues instead of getting distracted by emails and age and trans this or that? Three? Four?
How many more times does the “no guns at Jan 6” bs have to be debunked for y’all to stop lying? Six? Seven?
@DK: Don’t worry, your little fit didn’t embarrass all black or all gay people. Everyone’s smart enough to understand the embarrassment all falls on you, because we’re all individuals capable of making our own decisions even if you don’t want to be.
@Fortune: You well-trained slaves don’t know jack squat about black or gay people, about ~90% of whom would agree with me that you’re a dullard — exactly the type of limp-wristed, weak sucker who’d be obediently screeching “Sieg Heil” were this 1920s Germany and not 2020s America.
So of course I have nothing to worry about when it comes to my people, whose near-unanimous mental resilience in the face of today’s onslaught of fascist propaganda is deeply inspiring. My people — voting alongside supermajorities of Jews and educated whites among others — know there’s little inside the empty heads of you sheep other than what President Musk, podcast meatheads, and your rightwing oligarch masters “allow” you to robotically repeat.
@gVOR10:
Thank you for this rant. I especially appreciate that you’ve redirected blame from “apathetic voters” to the true agents of our current national predicament.
I feel better now too.
@DK:
I don’t know, I didn’t say it, I just pointed out one of your links which was obviously, painfully, embarrassingly wrong. So you tell me how many times are you going to copy and paste links without checking them and applying basic thought?
@Fortune:
Ha. Yes, all you have conspicuously declined to point out when fellow NPCs assert no guns at Jan 6, or that it was a day of love, or any of the other silly MAGA gaslighting about that day and the attempted coup antecedent.
Odd how they who “don’t support Trump” will break your necks running to attack a Democrat or nitpick one of a dozen links, yet you somehow don’t ever dare to contradict MAGA or utter a negative word in Trump’s direction.
Baaaaaaaa.
@DK: OK, so not reading, but maybe you have some other skill.
@Fortune: What possible innocent reason can you give for the Oath Keepers to bring a massive weapons cache to a hotel in Virginia, just a couple miles from the Capitol grounds?
Why did they do that? What purpose do you assign to it?
January 6th thoughts:
Biden’s Guest Op Ed today read like a eulogy for democracy.
I’m USA-born, of Lithuanian decent. My parents had green cards because they and their parents (my grandparents) were WWII refugees.
In the battleground between Fascists (GER) and Communists (RUS), they had no choice but to flee their homeland and abandoned generational wealth (farms, etc.) and everything that had made up their lives, living the last few years of the war in Displaced Peoples camps in Nazi Germany.
Clearly not as horrendous as a concentration camp… survivable, but not by much (and not by all).
I told you this so that I can say this to you with both conviction and credibility:
Remember that Hitler failed his first attempt at a coup d’état with the Beer Hall Putsch, and then was elected to office.
Deja vu.
Hitler wanted to expand territory. So, far Trump has stated that he wants Canada (shocking that Trudeau just resigned today, eh) and Greenland, specifically saying: ” Make Greenland Great Again!” which appears to be the US version of “lebensraum”
As I had mentioned before, I am finishing repatriation to LT. No departure date yet, but this is just too much a mess. None of this seems to be taken seriously by the 49-ish% that elected Trump.
I don’t think that expansionist Trump can handle a war on two fronts.
.
@Jay L Gischer: No good reason. I’d guess bravado for bringing them to Virginia and some brains for leaving them in the hotel.
Once again I’m astonished that battle-hardened OTB keyboard warriors can’t resist the temptation to screw up a thread by arguing with trolls who are bouncing up and down on their chairs in glee at being taken seriously.
The collective choice to use “January 6” as the label for a premeditated months-long project to overturn the result of the election was unfortunate. It took the violent protest that occurred on that date out of any narrative, and allowed MAGA apologists to distract and deflect, at which they are past masters. Ashli Babbitt didn’t deserve to be shot! How could it be an insurrection when nobody was armed? It’s a lie to say anyone apart from Babbitt was killed! Look at the videos of protesters being ushered into the Capitol by police! Why did Pelosi stop the National Guard from being deployed?
All these trivial arguments and more like them have swamped coverage of the true crime: beginning mid-2020, Trump quite deliberately betrayed his oath of office by planning and preparing to cling to power after an election polls showed he was probably going to lose. January 6 was merely the culmination of that long project. The House committee tried valiantly to keep attention focused on the main issue, but Republicans and a media greedy for clicks made sure tripe such as “TRUMP GRABBED FOR WHEEL TO GO TO CAPITOL!” got a lot more publicity than John Eastman giving written advice which he acknowledged meant breaking the law and the constitution.
Four years later, assured by the Supreme Court he can’t be prosecuted for any crimes he might commit, Trump will return to power determined to exact vengeance on his perceived enemies (who are legion) and to exploit the presidency to make some serious money for himself and his family. Americans should thank God that the man is closing on 80 and utterly detached from reality. He simply doesn’t have enough time left on earth to establish a permanent new order in Washington, and when he departs the scene, the internal brawling on the right will be epic.