*Updated 1/10/2021 1:10pm
President-elect Joe Biden believes that the January 6th violence makes bringing the country back together easier. Indeed, according to polls (cited on MSN News, January 8th): “Just 8% of Americans supported the pro-Trump insurrection, according to the PBS NewsHour-Marist poll of some 875 US adults.
“At the same time, nearly two-thirds of those surveyed - 63% - say President Trump is responsible for what happened on Wednesday [1/6], when five people died, including a US Capitol police officer, and lawmakers were forced to flee for safety, delaying the recognition of President-elect Joe Biden's victory in what many have termed an attempted coup d'etat.” While those numbers reflect 96% Trump-blame from Democrats, only 30% of Republicans place significant blame on the President. For those insurrectionists who made it home, even for those arrested, they were hailed as local heroes and patriots. Several state Capitol and governmental buildings also faced a breaking and entering mob. More criminals or “patriots”?
Add “aiding and abetting” and “conspiracy” to a litany of potential federal crimes committed by the Capitol insurrectionists, which includes: sedition, insurrection, breaking and entering (violent entry), burglary, trespassing, looting and theft (federal and personal), vandalism, damaging federal property, rioting, disorderly conduct, transportation of arms and explosives knowing or having reason to believe that they will be used for unlawful purposes, possessing a firearm or other dangerous weapon at a federal facility, assaulting a member of Congress, assault and battery, assault with a deadly weapon, resisting arrest, crossing state lines to commit a crime, attempted murder, murder, felony-murder (where several people join in a felonious act in which someone is killed, regardless of who actually killed the victim), treason, prevention of a lawful federal official from holding office, entering a restricted federal facility without authorization, etc. If the insurrectionists can be linked into a unitary criminal enterprise, many of these crimes can be charged against all of those who broke into the Capitol on January 6th.
Can Donald Trump indeed pardon himself from having rather clearly incited the above? Will Joe Biden issue his own pardons or clemency and truly counter the wishes of the liberal wing of his own party? The sentences for so many of the above crimes are twenty years to life in prison. Note that under the federal system, while there is probation (determined at sentencing), there is no parole. Convicted federal felons will serve their full sentences, reduced (by not more than 15%) for good behavior. They will be incarcerated in federal penitentiaries, from minimum, medium and maximum (including “super-max” prisons), based on the length of their sentences.
Republican and Democratic Congress people, who lived in fear for their lives on January 6th, seem overwhelmingly in support of severe prosecution of the offenders, who are being traced by the FBI through their self-incriminating social media posts, cell phone tracing, information from the general public and facial recognition software. We need to keep in mind that those pro-Trumpers who remained outside the Capitol, unarmed and who made no threats, were probably within their legal First Amendment rights, protesting peacefully. They are not the problem, whether you agree with their reasons for being there or not.
We are watching efforts to cause Donald Trump, whom his own staff calls mentally unstable, to be removed from office, voluntarily or by force. There are only days left before Joe Biden assumes the mantle of the Presidency at an inauguration that will probably be the most heavily guarded peacetime event in American history. Some want an impeachment and conviction of the President, even if the trial continues after the transition, to enable a Senate vote to ban Trump from holding any federal office… for life. The impeachment requires only a majority House vote (which can be given even without a formal trial), conviction by a two-thirds Senate vote (of those present in the chamber when the vote is taken) and the ban by a simple Senate majority vote.
Looking at international headlines and statements from the highest levels of international leadership, it does seem as if the United States has lost its claim to be the leader of the free world. That we elected a President who tore us down, who undid treaties and lambasted our allies while embracing our most traditional enemies, is seen as evidence that the United States cannot be trusted; it is just too easy to undo democratic rule. We have to try, but it is an uphill battle that could be reflected in the standing of the dollar as well.
But as difficult as the international make-good effort might be, the domestic challenge is that much greater. So many in this country still believe that Trump did a very good job. But as the FBI has warned long before January 6th, the United States no longer faces foreign terrorists as its greatest violent threat. The threat now comes from within. If these right-wing populist groups continue, even after many of their leaders are arrested, how many new “lone wolves” will take it upon themselves to attack our institutions and leaders… with violence.
As much as Republican populism has left a horrific scar on this nation, one that might not heal, the failure of the Democrats to listen and appreciate the pain of so many working class Americans – initially displaced by global outsourcing and now decimated by a combination of industrial obsolescence, artificial intelligence and robotic automation (destroying jobs at unprecedented rates), rising educational requirements for most well-paying jobs and a flood of opioid addiction rendering vast swaths of American unable to work – creates equal culpability. The rust belt. Coal country. Manufacturing upgrades to eliminate jobs. Big companies using the pandemic to layoff droves of employees… never to be recalled. Add the impact of the pandemic, made so much worse by populist conspiracy theories led by Donald John Trump, and the decimation of so many small businesses… and Houston (and every other city, town and rural community in the United States), we have a problem.
We also need to reexamine our social media and Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996. Simple Twitter and Facebook suspensions are clearly not enough. Isn’t “permanently suspended” an oxymoron? No First Amendment rights on non-governmental or quasi-governmental private sites, by the way. But toxic conspiracy theories have popped up on other platforms. See my December 7th Parler (par-lur) Vous blog for an example.
There is about to be Democratic presidency and majority in both houses of Congress (not enough in the Senate to overcome that 60% cloture margin). They have their work cut out for them, and we shall see how effective they are in reaching across the aisle. But one reality that they face is the proclivity of too many Republicans to misuse the “socialism” label to stop anything they oppose. First, those who do not know should learn what word means. Not sure? See my December 17th Socialism, Communism and Social Programs blog for rather clear definitions.
Did FDR resort to what many today would call “socialism” with his massive public works projects (the New Deal), employing and feeding millions in the Great Depression? That he overbuilt our electrical power generating capacity (TVA, Hoover Dam, etc.) enabled us to provide the munitions (ships, planes, tanks, guns, ammunition, etc.) without which the Allies could not have won World War II. We still speak English! We need solutions, not slogans. We need jobs and education, not conspiracy theories. We need solid leadership, not polarizing divisiveness. We need unity or this nation will unravel even more.
I’m Peter Dekom, and each American has to ask him or herself whether or not they want this country to work, to continue or break apart… and what each is prepared to do in support of his or her decision.
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