Don’t Count Us Out

“Hang Mike Pence! Hang Mike Pence!”  Mob chant at 1/6 Capitol Riot

“We have to make politicians scared again… If politicians do not fear the people they govern, that relationship is broken… People say … ‘Oh, man, those people at the Capitol, they were violent. That’s un-American,’ … I’m like, the most American thing they could have done is burn that f— down.” 

Carlos Zapata, a militia member and former Marine, who had attended a Shasta County Board of Supervisors, California meeting on January 5th. LA Times, January 10th.

“When the ballot box is gone, there is only the cartridge box. You have made bullets expensive. But luckily for you, ropes are reusable.… Democracy doesn’t die because people challenge the results of an election. Democracy dies when people don’t believe the results of the election and don’t believe what they’re being told by the government and the government mouthpieces like you [to an LA Times reporter]. No one believes the media…"

Timothy Fairfield, who also had attended the above meeting. LA Times, January 10th.

When Mike Pence correctly announced that he had no legal power to ignore the tabulation of electoral votes, notwithstanding the President’s inflammatory statement to the contrary, this was enough for the insurrectionists at the Capitol to demand Pence’s execution. Even at a state level, like the Board of Supervisors’ meeting noted above (which was supposed to be virtual), conspiracy theorists – bolstered by the President and key GOP leaders in Congress – vented their anger at their purported disenfranchisement. As historians consistently and uniformly tell us, no good ever comes from mobs acting in accordance with conspiracy theories… EVER.

There are new social media postings from pro-Trump extremists that should be taken seriously. Calls like “REFUSE TO BE SILENCED…  ARMED MARCH ON CAPITOL HILL & ALL STATE CAPITOLS” for Jan. 17, Trump’s last weekend in office. The tsunami of online postings was not subtle before January 6th, easily predicting what happened at the Capitol, but they obviously were ignored. Why? There are still plans, again flooding social media, to smuggle weapons into Washington, D.C., which has fairly strict gun laws, encircle Congress and “citizen” arrest Democrats and “disloyal” Republicans. State houses are also clear targets. Sound and fury… or a real threat? Governments must prepare. Trump loyalists truly believe that the President wants them to revolt and take over the government to install him for a second term. The President has done little to suggest otherwise; he has yet to retract his notion that the election was stolen from him.

The January 6th insurrection? Five people died, many were injured, and now we are informed that the evacuation of congress people from the congressional chambers on January 6th exposed all of them to persons who had tested positive for COVID-19. For those unwilling to let go of those conspiracy theories, typified by that rather massive QAnon following (based on a bizarre theory of a Democratic cabal of child sex traffickers and pedophiles) – heavily represented among those rioters who invaded the Capitol – there is a mixture of retrenchment, a notion of betrayal and a questioning of “what happened?” and “where was the Storm of Trump loyalists that were supposed to save us?”

“The belief that Trump is locked in a good-versus-evil battle to save America from a nefarious cabal of ‘global elites' and ‘deep state’ government officials has been QAnon’s core narrative since its early days on the internet fringes. Also central to the QAnon belief system is both an apocalyptic faith in the imminence of ‘the Storm,’ a day of reckoning in which members of this non-existent cabal will be arrested en masse, and an almost limitless ability to rationalize repeated failed predictions for when the ‘Storm’ will take place.

“It is unsurprising that QAnon followers would be receptive to Trump’s efforts to delegitimize the outcome of the presidential election, and also largely undeterred by the failure of that effort. In the hours and days since the Capitol Hill riot, many have been vacillating between devotion and disillusionment, particularly following the release of a video Thursday night in which Trump appeared to finally acknowledge that he would soon be leaving the White House, albeit stopping short of an admission that most Americans had, actually, voted for Joe Biden.

“While some interpreted Trump’s pre-recorded comments as a concession, others divined a more hopeful message in his ambiguous promise to supporters that ‘our incredible journey is only just beginning’ and resolved to continue to ‘trust the plan.’

“Dave Hayes, a popular QAnon influencer known as ‘Praying Medic,’ suggested on Twitter that while Biden might be inaugurated despite ‘stealing an election and getting caught,’ there’s nothing to stop Trump’s supporters from ‘physically removing’ Biden from the White House. (Hayes’ Twitter account has since been suspended).

“Many others refused to believe that Biden will even be sworn in, noting that Trump’s video never mentioned the president-elect by name, and suggesting that the ‘new administration’ he was referring to was actually a new Trump administration, perhaps replacing the suddenly out-of-favor Mike Pence with a more accommodating vice president, such as Michael Flynn… ‘Wording is key… he never said biden… period,’ read one comment on the QAnon message board, the Great Awakening.” Yahoo News, January 9th. Some have even touted the possibility that it was a Trump look-alike who made that pseudo-concession speech, not the President. Domestic terrorism has long since replaced foreign terrorism as one of this nation’s most existential threats, according to the FBI.

It doesn’t take a lawyer, although I am one, to figure out that Donald Trump incited a riot and directed his followers to head to the Capitol, fully supported by fighting words from his politically ambitious son, Don, Jr., and Rudy Giuliani (who demanded “trial by combat”), understanding the high probability of violence. Sedition. Probably. And so much more. The move to remove the President before the inauguration is unlikely, but watching many Republicans join Democratic voices is nothing short of amazing. 

Can Trump pardon himself from crimes that sought, effectively, to overthrow the government? We cannot be sure, but one has to believe that the Supreme Court, even with three Trump appointees, is unlikely to be sympathetic… if they ever get to review this matter. But all those responsible for the attempt illegally to reverse a legitimate election, by intimidation, incitement and then by violence, must be held responsible. Americans know who was responsible. “Fifty-seven percent of Americans want Republican President Donald Trump to be immediately removed from office after he encouraged a protest this week that escalated into a deadly riot inside the U.S. Capitol, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll.” Reuters, January 9th.

So, what should President-elect Biden do? My advice? Let Congress and the Department of Justice deal with Trump and his enablers… Stay clear. Focus on leadership. Deal first with the pandemic. Get the vaccine into full deployment by all reasonable means. Fast. Now. Deal with the economic pain faced by so many Americans by encouraging Congress to pass appropriate legislation. Propose a viable program of universal healthcare. Begin repairing our tattered relationships with traditional allies. Drill down into infrastructure and climate change solutions. Focus on immigration anomalies. Deal with our failing educational system, from public primary and secondary schools to over-priced and over-leveraged higher education. In short, do your job. But more importantly, make democracy work again! 

I’m Peter Dekom, and the only way for us to begin to restore any semblance of internal and external credibility is to ignore those anti-democratic factions (right and left) and get to work to show the world how resilient we can and will be.