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I have to say that never in my life did I ever expect to see the sort of disrespect for the Constitution by Americans than what I witnessed on January 6 2021.

As things stand now, five people died as a result of the actions taken by trump supporters on this day. One Capitol police officer was hit in the head by fire extinguisher and that caused him to have an anurism and later died.

Since November, Trump and his henchman Giuliani and others have been carrying on unfounded assertions that the election was ‘stolen’, and after every single one of the court cases were thrown out for lack of evidence and the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear the case due to no evidence, he kept on inflaming hissupporters with consistant tweets and statements about the 'stolen election', etc. and giving encouragement to ‘stop the steal’, etc. etc.

For weeks Trump had been encouraging his supporters to rally in Washington on the day the electoral votes were to be certified in Congress. Since the states run their own elections, they had already certified their vote count and assigned the electors to vote. All that was supposed to happen on January 6th was the formal recognition of the election results by a ceremonial counting of each state's electoral votes.

On January 6th with the tens of thousands of his supporters gathered. Trump makes a speech where he again enflames his followers with claims of the election being stolen etc. and got the ‘stop the steal’ chant going. Then you have Guiliani going off that the election will be settled by 'trial by combat'. At some point the idea of marching on Congress to 'stop the steal' was made and there is buko video evidence of what happened. Some of the phone videos that are still coming out are absolutely scary!

So I've been dealing with trump supporters, some who are my family, and most were once friends back in the day. Their tactics are to post deflective commentary and try to equate the 'minor' tussle on the 6th with the BLM protests over the summer. The fact they have no idea, which is giving them the benefit of the doubt as I suspect they really don't care about black lives, is really disturbing. Here is an articulate piece presented on a non-USA source, the Australian Broadcasting Corp.

Others ask when referring to the current movement for impeachment, they say there is no evidence that Trump ordered the protest to move on Congress, and cry that it's liberal censorship that Trump had his social media accounts shut down. These diehard trump supporters are asking for evidence when it is clearly everywhere. Yet they cry 'fake news' and 'mainstream Media Consiracy, etc. etc., and this evidence has been since at least December 14th when the states certified their vote counts for the Electoral College.

If anyone can’t see there was and is something wrong here with all that has and is happening and still feel the need to support their man, well good on ya I say. it's good to know who you are. The evidence is all over the place and the test would be if prosecutors decide if they have enough of it to file charges. Only a person with earplugs, eye covering, and lacking the ability to critically and objectively think would ask “Where’s the evidence?”

As the days pass, more and more disturbing information is being discovered by investigators. The question of why the Capitol Police were so ill-prepared to deal with an armed assault on Congress, the chain of command to add resources was unfortunately controlled by... the Trump administration. If the Vice President Mike Pence didn't break from the president and make the call to get the Virginia National Guard to come in, things could have gotten ugly. I still dont have much respect for the guy, but at least he did what was right and he carried out his duties as Vice President in the vote certification process.

Another alarming finding is the fact there were quite a few police officers from across the country in the mob. Seattle Police have suspended three officers for taking part in the coup. There were scenes where it seemed the Capitol Police 'just let it happen'... well, the police brotherhood is quite strong, so there was clearly a sedated response to the mob. Compare this to what was done to a peaceful BLM protest in Washington D.C. to clear them out for a photoshoot for Trump, and you can see that the whole point BLM has is quite valid.

Then there are some who take issue with me sayying this was a coup. It was when you have social media statements that some intended to 'take Pence prisoner and be tried as a traitor' and others like Nancy Pelosi, etc. I call it for what it was. It was a coup encouraged by inplication and inflection of words by a desperate man who still thinks he won a landslide victory. Did he actually 'say' it directly? no, but the build up and his speech triggered it.

One of the most horrorfying scenes was the security officers baracading the Senate doors and having their guns drawn as the rioters broke the windows.

I'm welcome to debate any of this if anyone wishes to try and prove me wrong with actual objective facts and not by doctored crap from Parler, QAnon, fringe right wing media, etc. My tolerance of what I see as tratiorous behavior and supporting what happened, is quite low, but I will remain measured here per the site rules.

I will likely add posts here as more information becomes available.

Edit: I had to share this detailed summary written up by Heather Cox Richardson...

By Heather Cox Richardson
January 8, 2021 (Friday)

More information continues to emerge about the events of Wednesday. They point to a broader conspiracy than it first appeared. Calls for Trump’s removal from office are growing. The Republican Party is tearing apart. Power in the nation is shifting almost by the minute.

[Please note that information from the January 6 riot is changing almost hourly, and it is virtually certain that something I have written will be incorrect. I have tried to stay exactly on what we know to be facts, but those could change.]

More footage from inside the attack on the Capitol is coming out and it is horrific. Blood on statues and feces spread through the building are vile; mob attacks on police officers are bone-chilling.

Reuters photographer Jim Bourg, who was inside the building, told reporters he overheard three rioters in “Make America Great Again” caps plotting to find Vice President Mike Pence and hang him as a “traitor”; other insurrectionists were shouting the same. Pictures have emerged of one of the rioters in military gear carrying flex cuffs—handcuffs made of zip ties—suggesting he was planning to take prisoners. Two lawmakers have suggested the rioters knew how to find obscure offices.

New scrutiny of Trump’s “Stop the Steal” rally before the attack shows Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani, Representative Mo Brooks (R-AL), Don Jr., and Trump himself urging the crowd to go to the Capitol and fight. Trump warned that Pence was not doing what he needed to. Trump promised to lead them to the Capitol himself.

There are also questions about law enforcement. While exactly what happened remains unclear, it has emerged that the Pentagon limited the Washington D.C. National Guard to managing traffic. D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser requested support before Trump’s rally, but the Department of Defense said that the National Guard could not have ammunition or riot gear, interact with protesters except in self-defense, or otherwise function in a protective capacity without the explicit permission of acting Secretary Christopher Miller, whom Trump put into office shortly after the election after firing Defense Secretary Mark Esper.

When Capitol Police requested aid early Wednesday afternoon, the request was denied. Defense officials held back the National Guard for about three hours before sending it to support the Capitol Police. Maryland Governor Larry Hogan, a Republican, tried repeatedly to send his state’s National Guard, but the Pentagon would not authorize it. Virginia’s National Guard was mobilized when House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called the governor, Ralph Northam, herself.

Defense officials said they were sensitive to the criticism they received in June when federal troops cleared Lafayette Square of peaceful protesters so Trump could walk across it. But it sounds like there might be a personal angle: Bowser was harshly critical of Trump then, and it would be like him to take revenge on her by denying help when it was imperative.

Refusing to stop the attack on the Capitol might have been more nefarious, though. A White House adviser told New York Magazine’s Washington correspondent Olivia Nuzzi that Trump was watching television coverage of the siege and was enthusiastic, although he didn’t like that the rioters looked “low class.” While the insurrectionists were in the Capitol, he tweeted: “Mike Pence didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our Country and our Constitution, giving States a chance to certify a corrected set of facts, not the fraudulent or inaccurate ones which they were asked to previously certify. USA demands the truth!” Even as lawmakers were under siege, both Trump and his lawyer Rudy Giuliani were making phone calls to brand-new Senator Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) urging him to slow down the electoral count.

After Trump on Wednesday night tweeted that there would be an “orderly” transition of power, on Thursday he began again to urge on his supporters.

With the details and the potential depth of this event becoming clearer over the past two days—Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’s wife, Virginia, tweeted her support, and state lawmakers as well as Republican attorneys general were actually involved—Americans are recoiling from how bad this attempted coup was… and how much worse it could have been. The crazed rioters were terrifyingly close to our elected representatives, all gathered together on that special day, and they were actively talking about harming the vice president.

By Friday night, 57% of Americans told Reuters they wanted Trump removed from office immediately. Nearly 70% of Americans disapprove of Trump’s actions before the riot. Only 12% of Americans approved of the rioters; 79% of Americans described the rioters as “criminals” or “fools.” Five percent called them “patriots.”

Pelosi tonight said that she hoped the president would resign, but if not, the House of Representatives will move forward with impeachment on Monday, as well as with legislation to enable Congress to remove Trump under the 25th Amendment. The most recent draft of the impeachment resolution has just one article: “incitement of insurrection.” As a privileged resolution, it can go directly to the House without committee approval.

In the Senate, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has no interest in further splitting the Republicans over another impeachment, or forcing them onto the record as either for or against it. Timing is on his side: the Senate is not in session for substantive business until January 19, so cannot act on an impeachment resolution without the approval of all senators. It can take up the resolution then, but more likely it will wait until Biden is sworn in, at which point the measure would be managed not by McConnell, but by the new House majority leader, Chuck Schumer (D-NY). A trial can indeed take place after Trump is no longer president, enabling Congress to make sure he can never again hold office.

Whether or not the Senate would convict is unclear, but it’s not impossible. Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), for one, is so furious she is talking of switching parties. “I want him out,” she says. Still, Trump supporters are now insisting that it would “further divide the country” to try to remove Trump now, and that we need to unify. Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX), who led the Senate effort to challenge Biden’s election, today tweeted that Biden was not working hard enough to “bring us together or promote healing” and that “vicious partisan rhetoric only tears our country apart.”

Trump, meanwhile, has continued to agitate his followers, and today began to call for more resistance, while users on Parler, the new right-wing social media hangout, are talking of another, bigger attack on Washington.

Tonight, Twitter banned Trump, stating: “we have permanently suspended the account due to the risk of further incitement of violence.” As evidence, it cited both his claim that his supporters would “have a GIANT VOICE long into the future,” and his tweet that he would not be going to Biden’s inauguration on January 20. Twitter says that Trump’s followers see these two new tweets as proof that the election was invalid and that the Inauguration is a good target, since he won’t be there. The Twitter moderators say that “plans for future armed protests have already begun proliferating on and off-Twitter, including a proposed secondary attack on the US Capitol and state capitol buildings on January 17, 2021.”

Twitter also took down popular QAnon accounts, including those of Trump’s former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn and his former lawyer Sidney Powell, who is having quite a bad day: the company that makes election machines, Dominion Voting Systems, announced it is suing her for defamation and asking $1.3 billion in damages. After taking down 7,000 QAnon accounts in July, Twitter continued by today taking down the account of the man who hosts the posts from “Q.”

While Twitter officials might well be horrified by the insurrection, the ban is also a sign of a changing government. With the election of two Democratic senators from Georgia this week, the majority goes to the Democrats, and McConnell will no longer be Majority Leader, killing bills. Social media giants know regulation of some sort is around the corner, and they are trying to look compliant fast. When Twitter banned Trump, so did Reddit, and Facebook and Instagram already had. Google Play Store removed Parler, warning it to clean up its content moderation.

Trump evidently couldn’t stand the Twitter ban, and tried at least five different accounts to get back onto the platform. He and his supporters are howling that he is being silenced by big tech, but of course he has an entire press corps he could use whenever he wished. Losing his access to Twitter simply cuts off his ability to drum up both support and money by lying to his supporters. Another platform that has dumped Trump is one of those that handled his emails. The San Francisco correspondent of the Financial Times, Dave Lee, noted that for more than 48 hours there had been no Trump emails: in the previous six days he sent out 33.

This has been a horrific week. If it has a silver lining, it is that the lines are now clear between our democracy and its enemies. The election in Georgia, which swung the Senate away from the Republicans and opens up some avenues to slow down misinformation, is a momentous victory.



Heather Cox Richardson

Heather Cox Richardson
Occupation Professor of History at Boston College
Academic background
Alma mater Harvard University (B.A., Ph.D)
Heather Cox Richardson is an American historian and Professor of History at Boston College, where she teaches courses on the American Civil War, the Reconstruction Era, the American West, and the Plains Indians.[1] She previously taught history at MIT and the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
A great piece on the horrific coup attempt (this is exactly what it was), as well as the included article about the comparison between BLM and what happened last week. One thing really stuck out to me:
Rogue-Scribe wrote:
Others ask when referring to the current movement for impeachment, they say there is no evidence that Trump ordered the protest to move on Congress, and cry that it's liberal censorship that Trump had his social media accounts shut down. These diehard trump supporters are asking for evidence when it is clearly everywhere. Yet they cry 'fake news' and 'mainstream Media Consiracy, etc. etc., and this evidence has been since at least December 14th when the states certified their vote counts for the Electoral College.

If anyone can’t see there was and is something wrong here with all that has and is happening and still feel the need to support their man, well good on ya I say. it's good to know who you are. The evidence is all over the place and the test would be if prosecutors decide if they have enough of it to file charges. Only a person with earplugs, eye covering, and lacking the ability to critically and objectively think would ask “Where’s the evidence?”

This is why attempting to aid others to see reason is difficult. Trump began shouting 'fake news' at the beginning of his campaign, and when he did I predicted something like this was going to happen. I agree that one must be skeptical of the media, but this has gone too far. Fact check, sure! I encourage people to! But when there's a pattern and it doesn't make you at least question what you know then you know something is wrong.

People just refuse to see any other way, or even entertain the notion that their views might be incorrect.

I fully blame Trump (and his administration, but mostly him) for the state of this country and the way it will continue to go for years to come. I've never hated anybody, but I do now.

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