Yesterday, Josh Kovensky at Talking Points Memo reported that the Trump allies who organized the rally at the Ellipse at 9:00 a.m. on January 6 also planned a second rally that day on the steps of the Supreme Court. To get from one to the other, rally-goers would have to walk past the Capitol building down Constitution Avenue, although neither had a permit for a march.
My stomach just did a flip when I read this: “… Peter Navarro’s claim that he, Trump, and Trump loyalist Steve Bannon had a peaceful plan to overturn the election and that the three of them were “the last three people on God’s good Earth who wanted to see violence erupt on Capitol Hill.”
As if having a peaceful plan to overturn the election makes it ok?? My god! And he has all but admitted to the scheme in writing! WTF more is it going to take to lock these guys up?
In the end, does it really matter whether a plan to overthrow an election is peaceful or violent? Why is that relevant if the election is found to be free of any fraud that would have changed the results? Navarro doth protest too much. In my personal and business life, I've encountered fast talkers like him. Typically, they think their rapid-fire cavalcade of words makes them superior. In fact, it usually means they're trying to obscure the truth.
Well, glory hallelujah, Stone has always been proud of his Miami caper and he basically elected W/Dickie to the WH, with James Baker saying blessings all the way. W was an ILLEGITIMATE president. Stone has left no stone unturned in his dirty tricks. He has been picking off competent Dems, one by one (precious little evidence, but our “free press” could prove it if they weren’t chasing the money -for their corporate bosses). BTW, Peter is wrong about one thing; chump has always egged on violence, from day one. He was in his glory during the insurrection. Who doubts that? And he will be again, if the cult isn’t stopped.
As the media covered the [Brooks Brothers] riot, the canvassing board voted to shut down the recount because of the public perception that the recount was not transparent, and because the interference meant the recount could not be completed before the deadline the court had established. “WE SCARED THE CRAP OUT OF THEM WHEN WE DESCENDED ON THEM,” Blakeman later told Michael E. Miller of the Washington Post. The chair of the county’s Democratic Party noted, “Violence, fear and physical intimidation affected the outcome of a lawful elections process.” Blakeman’s response? “WE GOT SOME BLOWBACK AFTERWARDS, BUT SO WHAT? WE WON.” – Excerpt from today's Letter. Emphasis mine.
So you see, my friends, for the Republican Party, then and now, it's not about the will of the people at all. It's about how succesful they can be using intimidation and force/violence to achieve their goals. Admissions such as the one above lay bare the awful truth about how far the Republican Party is willing to go. Their refusal to condemn the violence and resulting deaths on January 6 simply reinforces the "if neccesary, we will dominate through intimidation and force" strategy that's become baked into their philosophy.
Bull’s eye, Heather! Thank you for mentioning the “Brooks Brothers riot.” That was indeed when all this madness began, and that was when I dumped my television for good. I cut the cord and took it to an artist friend, who made a squirrel house out of the case. I’ve never looked back. Manipulation of media by instigating violence, and the attitude of “Yeah, there was some blowback, but so what, we won” got us to where we are. There are norms to civilized political behavior, and the GOP has been violating them increasingly in recent (post 1968) elections.
…”Peter Navarro’s claim that he, Trump, and Trump loyalist Steve Bannon had a peaceful plan to overturn the election…” Because they can’t win without cheating. Planning to overturn a free and fair election because you think you’re going to lose. They make me sick and they are dangerous.
That's politics taken lower, lower, lower than its Lowest Common Denominator, all the way down to the lowest Bolgias of Hell.
And, for millions of wretched human beings, the consequences were, are and for generations will continue to be hell on earth.
How? How? How to get the first, the vaguest notion of responsibility—the vast responsibility, the personal responsibility of every American voter, every citizen, for the immense power that is America's?
An unimaginable challenge.
Unimaginable. And yet for those who are aware, for those who are even half-awake to the task, to the scale of the task, to the obstacles, to the cost—measured in pain, in lives, and as for the cash people worship, that goes without saying—for those who are now awakening to the weight they must shoulder, THERE CAN BE NO CHOICE BUT TO IMAGINE... to take up the cry “I have a dream” that Martin Luther King proclaimed and dare to dream, dare to come together, dare to act together, dare to understand that, before all else, we must put our trust in ourselves, in all that lies deepest in us. THAT is where we shall find Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.
Yesterday, I watched a short BBC documentary I can recommend to all of you, The Man who Volunteered to be Imprisoned in Auschwitz. It tells of a Pole who did just that, beginning at a time when this was a huge concentration camp for Poles worked to death as slave labor. (When I was a student, I personally knew a man who had grown up in there.) Witold Pilecki let himself be taken to Auschwitz, where he set up a 5-a-cell information network of hundreds to piece together information on Auschwitz and all that was taking place there and to relay it to the Polish resistance. And when the camp was transformed into an extermination center, he reported all the details, begging that the Allies bomb the camp... Which they did not.
Escaping in time to join the resistance in the Warsaw uprising, he survived. Only to be shot by the Communists in 1947, for resisting them.
Readers will remember how the Red Army camped on the other side of the Vistula while the Nazis systematically destroyed Warsaw.
All this spiel now, leading up to the crucial last words of the film:
“Something that we take from the legacy of Pilecki is that he always refers to the organization... that you wouldn't be able to do anything in the organization without the cooperation of many different people, sometimes coming from many different political backgrounds and cultures. And all these people finally could understand, here in this extreme world created by Nazi Germans, that it is important to cooperate.”
In America today, party politics—together with all else—must be subordinated to the main task, that of saving the country. And the world.
No room, no time for hanging back, infighting becomes criminal dereliction of duty.
Ben Franklin said it clearly for us:
“We must all hang together, or most assuredly we shall all hang separately.”
WAKE UP TO THAT REALITY. AND LET US STAY AWAKE, CALM, READY.
An extraordinary Letter today, Professor Richardson, and given our history with you, something to take to heart.
As with many of the Letters, particularly those following the 2020 election, there is a sense of events of historical portent unveiling before our eyes. In today’s, the anticipation it creates is tangible: this reader feels the precipice just ahead, the shifting wind.
The ongoing Republican coup is both legal and in plain sight. No violence or secrecy required.
From The Guardian.
“And yet, Republicans exercised by the ex-president’s lies about electoral fraud are now systematically targeting elected offices across the US. But not any elected office – specifically positions that have oversight of elections. They are pursuing positions of high office, such as secretary of state, but also lower-ranking county-level offices across the states, from Michigan to Pennsylvania and from Texas to Georgia.
This is an entirely new threat. This is not voting suppression or gerrymandering (though those remain huge democratic obstacles which we continue to report on). What is now taking shape across America is the machinery necessary to steal an election.
Free and fair elections are under threat. Last week, Jocelyn Benson, the Democratic secretary of state in Michigan, said about Trumpists targeting official positions with electoral oversight: “This is a five-alarm fire. If people in general, leaders and citizens, aren’t taking this as the most important issue of our time and acting accordingly, then we may not be able to ensure democracy prevails again in 2024.”
As the writer and academic Lawrence Douglas wrote recently in the Guardian: “Republican state lawmakers have weaponized the lies about the 2020 election and the 6 January insurrection to gain control over the local administration of elections. By the time Congress tallies the electoral votes on 6 January 2025, the putsch could be complete.”
We MUST pass the voting rights legislation....NOW! That rethuglicans are maneuvering to take 2022 elections through cheating just points out the need to make sure EVERY vote is properly counter. Come on, Dems, do what's right and create a carve out for the filibuster, damn it!
Fascinating, simply fascinating. Stone authored the Brooks Brothers Riot. I did not know that. Thank-you Dr. Cox Richardson. It really is a small cabal of people causing all this enormous trouble.
I was wondering why I did not remember the Brooks Brothers riot. Then I remembered that in 2000 I did not have the internet or even cable TV, had school age kids and was working 2 full time jobs. There are a lot of people like me now, busy lives with limited access to information. People typically under served by their elected officials, public services (I had no garbage pick-up then), health care professionals, etc. I needed protection from the Roger Stones of the world then (still do), just as most people need protecting from Trump's cowardly craven cabal today. This is my animating principle.
Excellent as always, Prof. Richardson. I'm struck by Blakeman basically acknowledging that GW Bush stole the election in Florida and then GW filing a brief against Trump's efforts to do the same. If there had been justice in 2000 (and during Watergate), we could have avoided DJT altogether.
R Dooley and ScannyDo - I hope a precipice is near. Peter Navarro has quite a long history of running for office in capacities here in San Diego but was never successful. When I saw that the former president named him as advisor I was surprised but not surprised. He'd made it to the big time or so it seemed. The surprises are just endless. I don't understand where our government institutions began to NOT hold people responsible for their obvious misdeeds. Michael Bales sums it up for me - "peaceful plan to overthrow an election" ?? Really? How can there be such a thing?
When things get tough, people with integrity circle the wagons and fight for each other. In this case, we may see the conspirators split off in desperate attempts to save their own butts. Navarro throwing Stone under the bus may be just one example.
I suspect as this plays out, there will be more infighting. We have already seen members of those who were on the ground (Capitol grounds) claiming betrayal from Trump. But they were just the pawns. Now we are watching the knights and bishops turn on each other. Good.
Some of this blame game will be for personal survival - to avoid doing a long stretch in prison. But the egos of the Bannons and Stones will concern themselves with how they are painted in the historical portrait of this treasonous rebellion. Let the squirming begin.
To cement lies in the public mind, Republican officials need not resort to elaborate schemes. They just have to repeat the same lies over and over. They do it all the time, word by word. The Gingrich tactic. This includes Republican court officers.
Theme and variations. Verbatim repetition is in play in Trump lawyer arguments to Trump justices.
Imitation being the greatest form of flattery, in claiming the House has not proved legislative interest in Trump papers, Trump lawyers are betting on a sure thing. The claim comes right out of the Trump Supremes' playbook; it is the through the looking glass, catch 22 tactic they used to deny the House access to Trump's financial records.
The Nuremberg trials spotlighted lawyers and judges who bent German law to bow to Nazi bosses. The Allies wanted to spotlight the essential importance of an independent judiciary.
Younger voters needed to be made aware of the Brooks Brothers Riot and the excruciating time between Election Day 2000 and the Supreme Court installing its choice. Psychology was important in selling the decision in Bush’s favor. We should learn why it was different in 2020. Trump wasn’t branded a sore loser in the same way Al Gore was. Why not?
My stomach just did a flip when I read this: “… Peter Navarro’s claim that he, Trump, and Trump loyalist Steve Bannon had a peaceful plan to overturn the election and that the three of them were “the last three people on God’s good Earth who wanted to see violence erupt on Capitol Hill.”
As if having a peaceful plan to overturn the election makes it ok?? My god! And he has all but admitted to the scheme in writing! WTF more is it going to take to lock these guys up?
In the end, does it really matter whether a plan to overthrow an election is peaceful or violent? Why is that relevant if the election is found to be free of any fraud that would have changed the results? Navarro doth protest too much. In my personal and business life, I've encountered fast talkers like him. Typically, they think their rapid-fire cavalcade of words makes them superior. In fact, it usually means they're trying to obscure the truth.
Well, glory hallelujah, Stone has always been proud of his Miami caper and he basically elected W/Dickie to the WH, with James Baker saying blessings all the way. W was an ILLEGITIMATE president. Stone has left no stone unturned in his dirty tricks. He has been picking off competent Dems, one by one (precious little evidence, but our “free press” could prove it if they weren’t chasing the money -for their corporate bosses). BTW, Peter is wrong about one thing; chump has always egged on violence, from day one. He was in his glory during the insurrection. Who doubts that? And he will be again, if the cult isn’t stopped.
As the media covered the [Brooks Brothers] riot, the canvassing board voted to shut down the recount because of the public perception that the recount was not transparent, and because the interference meant the recount could not be completed before the deadline the court had established. “WE SCARED THE CRAP OUT OF THEM WHEN WE DESCENDED ON THEM,” Blakeman later told Michael E. Miller of the Washington Post. The chair of the county’s Democratic Party noted, “Violence, fear and physical intimidation affected the outcome of a lawful elections process.” Blakeman’s response? “WE GOT SOME BLOWBACK AFTERWARDS, BUT SO WHAT? WE WON.” – Excerpt from today's Letter. Emphasis mine.
So you see, my friends, for the Republican Party, then and now, it's not about the will of the people at all. It's about how succesful they can be using intimidation and force/violence to achieve their goals. Admissions such as the one above lay bare the awful truth about how far the Republican Party is willing to go. Their refusal to condemn the violence and resulting deaths on January 6 simply reinforces the "if neccesary, we will dominate through intimidation and force" strategy that's become baked into their philosophy.
Bull’s eye, Heather! Thank you for mentioning the “Brooks Brothers riot.” That was indeed when all this madness began, and that was when I dumped my television for good. I cut the cord and took it to an artist friend, who made a squirrel house out of the case. I’ve never looked back. Manipulation of media by instigating violence, and the attitude of “Yeah, there was some blowback, but so what, we won” got us to where we are. There are norms to civilized political behavior, and the GOP has been violating them increasingly in recent (post 1968) elections.
…”Peter Navarro’s claim that he, Trump, and Trump loyalist Steve Bannon had a peaceful plan to overturn the election…” Because they can’t win without cheating. Planning to overturn a free and fair election because you think you’re going to lose. They make me sick and they are dangerous.
“So what? We won.”
That's politics taken lower, lower, lower than its Lowest Common Denominator, all the way down to the lowest Bolgias of Hell.
And, for millions of wretched human beings, the consequences were, are and for generations will continue to be hell on earth.
How? How? How to get the first, the vaguest notion of responsibility—the vast responsibility, the personal responsibility of every American voter, every citizen, for the immense power that is America's?
An unimaginable challenge.
Unimaginable. And yet for those who are aware, for those who are even half-awake to the task, to the scale of the task, to the obstacles, to the cost—measured in pain, in lives, and as for the cash people worship, that goes without saying—for those who are now awakening to the weight they must shoulder, THERE CAN BE NO CHOICE BUT TO IMAGINE... to take up the cry “I have a dream” that Martin Luther King proclaimed and dare to dream, dare to come together, dare to act together, dare to understand that, before all else, we must put our trust in ourselves, in all that lies deepest in us. THAT is where we shall find Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.
Yesterday, I watched a short BBC documentary I can recommend to all of you, The Man who Volunteered to be Imprisoned in Auschwitz. It tells of a Pole who did just that, beginning at a time when this was a huge concentration camp for Poles worked to death as slave labor. (When I was a student, I personally knew a man who had grown up in there.) Witold Pilecki let himself be taken to Auschwitz, where he set up a 5-a-cell information network of hundreds to piece together information on Auschwitz and all that was taking place there and to relay it to the Polish resistance. And when the camp was transformed into an extermination center, he reported all the details, begging that the Allies bomb the camp... Which they did not.
Escaping in time to join the resistance in the Warsaw uprising, he survived. Only to be shot by the Communists in 1947, for resisting them.
Readers will remember how the Red Army camped on the other side of the Vistula while the Nazis systematically destroyed Warsaw.
All this spiel now, leading up to the crucial last words of the film:
“Something that we take from the legacy of Pilecki is that he always refers to the organization... that you wouldn't be able to do anything in the organization without the cooperation of many different people, sometimes coming from many different political backgrounds and cultures. And all these people finally could understand, here in this extreme world created by Nazi Germans, that it is important to cooperate.”
In America today, party politics—together with all else—must be subordinated to the main task, that of saving the country. And the world.
No room, no time for hanging back, infighting becomes criminal dereliction of duty.
Ben Franklin said it clearly for us:
“We must all hang together, or most assuredly we shall all hang separately.”
WAKE UP TO THAT REALITY. AND LET US STAY AWAKE, CALM, READY.
P.S. And do as Ellie Kona urges and read Robert Hubbell, who says it all far better than I could: https://roberthubbell.substack.com/p/enough-of-us-have-come-together-to
An extraordinary Letter today, Professor Richardson, and given our history with you, something to take to heart.
As with many of the Letters, particularly those following the 2020 election, there is a sense of events of historical portent unveiling before our eyes. In today’s, the anticipation it creates is tangible: this reader feels the precipice just ahead, the shifting wind.
The ongoing Republican coup is both legal and in plain sight. No violence or secrecy required.
From The Guardian.
“And yet, Republicans exercised by the ex-president’s lies about electoral fraud are now systematically targeting elected offices across the US. But not any elected office – specifically positions that have oversight of elections. They are pursuing positions of high office, such as secretary of state, but also lower-ranking county-level offices across the states, from Michigan to Pennsylvania and from Texas to Georgia.
This is an entirely new threat. This is not voting suppression or gerrymandering (though those remain huge democratic obstacles which we continue to report on). What is now taking shape across America is the machinery necessary to steal an election.
Free and fair elections are under threat. Last week, Jocelyn Benson, the Democratic secretary of state in Michigan, said about Trumpists targeting official positions with electoral oversight: “This is a five-alarm fire. If people in general, leaders and citizens, aren’t taking this as the most important issue of our time and acting accordingly, then we may not be able to ensure democracy prevails again in 2024.”
As the writer and academic Lawrence Douglas wrote recently in the Guardian: “Republican state lawmakers have weaponized the lies about the 2020 election and the 6 January insurrection to gain control over the local administration of elections. By the time Congress tallies the electoral votes on 6 January 2025, the putsch could be complete.”
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/dec/29/america-facing-ballot-box-coup-help-us-sound-alarm-2022
We MUST pass the voting rights legislation....NOW! That rethuglicans are maneuvering to take 2022 elections through cheating just points out the need to make sure EVERY vote is properly counter. Come on, Dems, do what's right and create a carve out for the filibuster, damn it!
Fascinating, simply fascinating. Stone authored the Brooks Brothers Riot. I did not know that. Thank-you Dr. Cox Richardson. It really is a small cabal of people causing all this enormous trouble.
I was wondering why I did not remember the Brooks Brothers riot. Then I remembered that in 2000 I did not have the internet or even cable TV, had school age kids and was working 2 full time jobs. There are a lot of people like me now, busy lives with limited access to information. People typically under served by their elected officials, public services (I had no garbage pick-up then), health care professionals, etc. I needed protection from the Roger Stones of the world then (still do), just as most people need protecting from Trump's cowardly craven cabal today. This is my animating principle.
Excellent as always, Prof. Richardson. I'm struck by Blakeman basically acknowledging that GW Bush stole the election in Florida and then GW filing a brief against Trump's efforts to do the same. If there had been justice in 2000 (and during Watergate), we could have avoided DJT altogether.
R Dooley and ScannyDo - I hope a precipice is near. Peter Navarro has quite a long history of running for office in capacities here in San Diego but was never successful. When I saw that the former president named him as advisor I was surprised but not surprised. He'd made it to the big time or so it seemed. The surprises are just endless. I don't understand where our government institutions began to NOT hold people responsible for their obvious misdeeds. Michael Bales sums it up for me - "peaceful plan to overthrow an election" ?? Really? How can there be such a thing?
When things get tough, people with integrity circle the wagons and fight for each other. In this case, we may see the conspirators split off in desperate attempts to save their own butts. Navarro throwing Stone under the bus may be just one example.
I suspect as this plays out, there will be more infighting. We have already seen members of those who were on the ground (Capitol grounds) claiming betrayal from Trump. But they were just the pawns. Now we are watching the knights and bishops turn on each other. Good.
Some of this blame game will be for personal survival - to avoid doing a long stretch in prison. But the egos of the Bannons and Stones will concern themselves with how they are painted in the historical portrait of this treasonous rebellion. Let the squirming begin.
To cement lies in the public mind, Republican officials need not resort to elaborate schemes. They just have to repeat the same lies over and over. They do it all the time, word by word. The Gingrich tactic. This includes Republican court officers.
Theme and variations. Verbatim repetition is in play in Trump lawyer arguments to Trump justices.
Imitation being the greatest form of flattery, in claiming the House has not proved legislative interest in Trump papers, Trump lawyers are betting on a sure thing. The claim comes right out of the Trump Supremes' playbook; it is the through the looking glass, catch 22 tactic they used to deny the House access to Trump's financial records.
The Nuremberg trials spotlighted lawyers and judges who bent German law to bow to Nazi bosses. The Allies wanted to spotlight the essential importance of an independent judiciary.
Younger voters needed to be made aware of the Brooks Brothers Riot and the excruciating time between Election Day 2000 and the Supreme Court installing its choice. Psychology was important in selling the decision in Bush’s favor. We should learn why it was different in 2020. Trump wasn’t branded a sore loser in the same way Al Gore was. Why not?