I was here for the Kennedy assassination, Nixon resignation, Reagan attempted assassination (which only angered me that Brady was collateral), but this attempted coup as a finale to a wannabe dictators horrid rule is the most disturbing political event of my life.
And now it is coming out that those sinister things we suspected of this …
I was here for the Kennedy assassination, Nixon resignation, Reagan attempted assassination (which only angered me that Brady was collateral), but this attempted coup as a finale to a wannabe dictators horrid rule is the most disturbing political event of my life.
And now it is coming out that those sinister things we suspected of this “regime” are true. It was a real coup attempt, run by naive idiots who could not sustain it but now we are finding how high in the government was involvement. The police are suspect, the military is suspect and elected legislators along with oligarchs behind the scene are known accomplices. Conspiracy theories of a right-wing takeover of the U.S. took a turn toward reality this week.
And the madman in the Oval Office is still there. Ppl involved are getting arrested but being charged with misdemeanor “breaking & entering” or “unlawful trespassing.” We need to see real felony charges of INSURRECTION, SEDITION, AGGRAVATED ASSAULT/’BATTERY & FELONY MURDER where the perps sit behind bars until arraigned and then held without bond.
All caps are neither required nor appreciated. This isn't FB or Tweeter."
Apparently Bill & Susan decided that arbiters of style are neither required or appreciated and deleted their comment. But, I will still reply that Bold, Italics, and Underlines are sometimes required for emfasis none of which I can do on this forum, SO ALL CAPS ARE REQUIRED, WHETHER APPRECIATED OR NOT.
And yes, I also replace the useless "ph" when I writing an "f" sound as do so many fonetic languages.
If you had used ALL caps throughout, that is one thing; however, resorting to all caps as our simplest way of creating emfasis (I like your fonetix!) is completely reasonable.
We didn't delete our comment. Substack barfed under the load. Resorting to all caps is the habit of a lazy mind. Not arguing with your points, because as soon as we see that we don't read the post. We simply move on to look for more intelligent commentary.
Each of us has our style and always considerate of the other. Language and emphasis are personal. Passion can be expressed here just as well as clinical analysis and both are understood, discussed and enjoyed. Tolerance is not a word that I would use in the circumstances as it would suggest a norm over and above my first phrase from which someone was deviating. We are here because we wanted a calm, intelligent forum, far away from the FB agressivity and condemnation , while making a contribution through ideas, opinions and discussion.
I agreed with Nixon's pardon thinking that we need not be like other countries that have to jail our former leaders. That just makes politics rougher, or so I thought. Trump's presidency has sorely tested that belief but I held onto that belief. The attempted coup on Jan 6th was more than the last straw. An attempt to use force to install a president is short said an attempted coup. A president who tries that needs to be impeached and convicted--even if the conviction happens after he has already left office. The people who broke into the capitol building need to be given more than misdemeanor convictions. Yes, the impeachment may just be symbolic but it is a symbolism we need. Yes an impeachment and some felony convictions will make some people mad but it will also make them think twice before trying something similar.
American exceptionalism ("we're different; it can't happen here") is a self-delusion. I'm glad you came around at last, but I hope you'll take a good hard look at what took you so long. Because plenty of us have been here waiting for decades.
I can see why you are stereotyping me that way but, allthough I grew up in Nebraska, I have degrees from schools in both Denmark and Canada. I know from first hand experience the U.S. is not exactly a paradigm for other countries to imitate. Am I also a Danish and Canadian exceptionalist because I don't expect to see a coup attempt in either of those countries during my lifetime? Come to think of it I'm rather surprised that you have been expecting to see one here.
yes.. we must be in the same graduating class... and I remember my parent's reactions to each of these events as well...and the Bay of Pigs! This has been the most horrifying of all.. perhaps 'tied' with the Kennedy Assassinations and Martin Luther King.. but this is so massive! The scale of this..the complicity...as horrified as I am...and have been for days... I still thinkI am in shock to some degree and as more is learned the more distressing it becomes... and if Heather is not allowed back on Facebook..whoa! That truly concerns me!
May be this has already been answered. Here is Heather's FB post from about 1 PM today:
Hi Folks:
My January 8, 2021 post has been taken down. Usually this happens when someone complains about it. The post then goes to Facebook jail until a moderator reviews it. At that point, until now, anyway, it has always come back up. I expect the same will happen this time, eventually.
I also expect that this will happen frequently for awhile, as far-right activists try to reclaim the public platforms that have now been denied them. Their panic at being kicked off Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, and so on illustrates exactly what I've been trying to say about the importance of reclaiming public debate. If they didn't think taking up oxygen was important, they would not be fighting so hard to make sure they dominate public spaces.
Do remember, though, that my posts are always available-- for free-- at heathercoxrichardson.substack.com under the title "Letters from an American." You don't have to subscribe or get them through email if you don't want to; you can just go to the site and read them there. If you DO want to get them through email, you can sign up through the free option. You don't have to worry that I will use advertising or harvest emails (who am I kidding? I don't even know how! 🙂 )
These are frightening times, and we're all tired and on edge-- me, included. It means a lot to have so many people here who care.
BTW, here is something a friend sent me in an e-mail. Some ppl are monitoring FB and turns out it is an insidious influencer in its practices. But it did fail in GA.
Moot for me since I am no longer on that platform and will soon be off twitter, having likely been targeted by some right-winger who did not like my anti-tRumper tweet. I refuse to delete the tweet (FB always did it for me) and it is still languishing in appeal 2 days later.
It’ll happen. The serious crimes will put plenty of people in jail. The judicial system grinds slowly, I know, it’s hard to be patient.
But here’s why I am responding:
You wrote:
“this attempted coup as a finale to a wannabe dictators horrid rule is the most disturbing political event of my life.”
Like you, I was here for JFK‘s assassination and the others you list. My wife and I have been comparing this event to JFK in Dallas. These two events, JFK in Dallas and 1/6/21, are the two most disturbing political events of our lives.
Here is also a text exchange on HCR 1/7/21, Ted Keyes asking the question and me responding:
What are the historical parallels to other Coup attempts or snatch and grab elections to secure first power, then consolidate it and transition to authoritarianism. It has never happened here, so where do we look for parallels to make sense of Jan 6th, 2021?
Adolf Hitler and his storm troopers, the brown shirts, for one. There are many other examples of course. What makes us different than most of history: this wannabe dictator doesn’t have control of (1) the military and doesn’t have control of (2) national police. Our system, our Constitution, is specifically designed to prevent dictatorship. That’s why the military is not allowed to intervene domestically. That’s why we don’t have a national police force that can lock people up. That’s why Congress (legislative branch) is separate and independent from the judiciary (legal system) is separate and independent from the executive branch, so that the attempted power-grab by the executive branch, which is Trump, can still be contained and prevented by the other branches.
We have a unique system, custom-designed to prevent exactly the types of things that DT is trying to pull off.
Trump has tried every way possible to be a dictator. He has been probably our only real test of the system. His attempts to change the vote to invalidate Biden’s win and keep himself as President, guess what, that’s exactly what Putin does and Stalin did. It happens in countries all over the world, all the time. But here he is unable to pull it off, because people are legally bound to follow the Constitution. Many guard rails.
Controlling the vote, that’s also what that jerk Lukashenko does to stay in power in Belarus. If you control the vote count, as Stalin said, you control your position on top. Putin is Exhibit A.
The historic parallel I know the best is Hitler’s Germany. The US Capitol riot is watered down, unofficial version of what Hitler did to the German parliament in the 1930s, it’s called the Reichstag. He ordered his brown shirts in there, his thugs (they are very similar to this MAGA crowd except they were paid and wore matching uniforms), and they trashed and looted the place and burned it. It’s the house of the people, just like here.
I recommend the book, How Democracies Die, by Levitsky and Ziblatt. Short and readable, and based on a study of numerous modern democracies around the world that have failed.
The book has a few eye-openers (for the politically naïve, like myself), one of them being how much we must rely upon the powerful to keep their own sandbox clean. The authors have an interesting take on both the Electoral College, and the necessity of "back room power-brokers."
In particular, the back-room deals have an essential role in prejudicially weeding out people like Trump, and others who threaten the system. Trump should have been quietly but firmly disqualified from even being allowed to join the 2016 Republican slate: he should have been forced to form his own new party with no national recognition at all. But -- and this is a typical failure mode, according to L & Z -- the weaker party (the Republicans) got desperate and fell for the shiny thing, thinking they could control this useful idiot. They found that they could not control him, and in the process, lost control of their own party and a large portion of their electorate.
The normal outcome of this blunder would have been a corrupted election -- which almost happened -- that made the useful idiot "president for life," supported by a popular minority of fanatics and an increasingly captive electoral process.
What was remarkable was not that we almost lost our democracy, but that we DIDN'T lose our democracy. We should have. It's like we walked down Muggers' Lane, where 99.9% of everyone who walks down that road gets robbed and killed, and somehow -- somehow -- the US strolled down that road whistling, and got out the other end, a little bruised and short a wallet and watch, but still alive.
I'm sure that a large part of Trump's ire over the 2020 election is that he KNOWS this. He thinks he should still be president, and really, he should be.
I can only speculate as to why this failed. A large part of it, I think, was that the states ran such a clean national election. I suspect Trump was too drunk on his popularity among his cultists to take sufficient measures to corrupt the election, and as a television celebrity, he mistook popularity polls for votes. He thought he was in for an easy win, and when the people rejected him, I think he was completely unprepared.
The January 6 insurrection looks entirely like a desperate Hail Mary fling. All of those post-November shake-ups in the executive branch, particularly in the military, should have been in-place at least a year earlier. Every one of the crackpot schemes cooked up by the lawyers should have been thoroughly vetted and prioritized before the election took place. He should not have relied upon a rag-tag mob of right-wing extremists and civilian cultists: in four years' time, he could have had trained private military forces ready.
The REAL failure in this whole process goes back to 2015, when the Republican Party sold out and let Trump get on stage.
“The states running a clean election” is also part of that juggernaut analogy. For over 250 years, those elections have been operating basically seamlessly, if you discount voter suppression of non-whites. But even if you take voter suppression into consideration, the mechanics of those elections are clean. It takes work to corrupt something that’s working well, automatically, for a long period of time.
Another consideration: what happens at a national level is truly governed, wants to be governed, by what the majority wants. Biden knows this. Most politicians know this. They are very careful about keeping close tabs on what the majority wants. Now if the majority wants something different than a white male politician personally wishes for, then a conflict happens. Voting them out of office is the eventual, natural consequence.
Bottom line: the majority of America no longer wants the racist (whites first) and sexist (males in charge) system. Hence the desperation move of voting in such a corrupt and flawed individual.
“They found that they could not control him, and in the process, lost control of their own party and a large portion of their electorate.” Their time has come and gone. They are on the way out. This is part of their disintegration process. The Republican Party as we know it will never be the same. Exactly what they will look like is anybody’s guess, but at a minimum they are splintering into (1) racists that still adhere to the U.S. democratic system (Kinzinger, Cheney, Republican judges, ...) and (2) racists with some integrity and ideology, old Republican Party (Lincoln Project, George Will,...) and (3) flagrant racist extremists who just want to keep it white, no matter what it takes (everyone in the Trump camp, insurrectionists).
Hi Joseph. I agree with your assessment, all of it, of what happened re: the Republican Party and Trump’s drunk-on-adulation hangover and his last ditch, too-late efforts to stay president. We saw some of that “back room power brokers” activity when Clyburn and Obama jumped in to endorse Biden. As you noted, nothing similar to that on the Republican side in 2016.
I hear you about being politically naive. If it weren’t for the time spent here on HCR’s site, I’d still be that person. DJT forced me to understand politics.
What I don’t see mentioned in your excellent analysis is the foundation of our society, the basis of “politics.” Based on what I’ve learned just paying close attention these last few years here, and my knowledge of my own father and the truck drivers in my life, I am now convinced that people fall into 2 camps: either (1) they want to maintain some or all of the old society, no changes allowed, or (2) they are embracing the change to a new society of diversity. The populace which the Republican Party represents, the racist and sexist et al segment of society, is desperate to maintain control of society so that it reflects their vision. They will lie cheat and steal, and do whatever it takes, to keep the whites-first males-first society dominant. So they fight tooth and nail against every non-white non-straight person, especially if it’s a she, who gets into a position of authority, and they fight every person (Biden, Pelosi, ...) and policy which supports a power-sharing diverse populace.
That is the crux of American politics. It looks polarized because it is.
Trump did not factor in the strength of the democratic element. He and his cohorts and admirers call it “the deep state.” When Kelly and other White House officials and Pentagon chiefs “managed” Trump, for example by preventing him from having easy access to various choices like nuclear options, they were providing guard rails. When Jim Mattis and other military chiefs loudly chastised the secretary of defense and others for being present during that Bible raising photo op, and the military action which proceeded it, again the structure of this democracy was making itself felt.
The American democracy is the oldest democracy in the world. Tradition can be a powerful thing. Institutional inertia, is what I call it. When an ocean liner has to change direction, it’s a time-consuming and laborious process. The ocean liner wants to keep going in the same direction, it doesn’t turn easily or readily.
Instead of the Muggers Ln. analogy, may I offer the picture of a pirate vessel which got in front of the ocean liner and was rammed, run over.
The German democracy under Hitler was brand new, you could argue that Russia since the czars still is not a democracy, although it may have been one briefly under Gorbachev, so having a circa 250-year-old democracy provides some small measure of momentum, of inertia. All those laws and rules and traditions have a deep impact because of their longevity, if nothing else. They become part of our DNA. The entire military elite of our country was trained to stay the hell out of domestic politics. All of that training in those elite military schools, impressing itself on young minds, has an effect.
Am I surprised that our democracy survived Trump? No. Am I nervous that it got close to being severely damaged? Hell yes.
Unless we discuss what keeps the democracy intact with a 2-bit, 2nd-class criminal in the Oval Office, part of the story is missing. Also we have to keep in mind that it is the less educated amongst us who are strenuously advocating for a whites-first society. The people who are ignorantly trying to keep all whites and men in charge (and non-whites and women only if they support the old whites-first males-first society), and keep our society operating as racist and sexist, are now probably in the minority but nevertheless savagely resisting change and savagely insisting on keeping whites, men and straights in charge. Probably most of their behavior is subconscious. Most of them are in denial that they are racist and sexist, insults and dirty words to them. Intelligent people examine. Ignorant people just accept cultural conditioning, they don’t want to examine.
Hello SC. I did a double-take when I saw your post in my email. It took several minutes to register that you are posting way back on a day just after 1/6/21.
O! how much more we still had to learn about the extent and depth of this coup conspiracy.
I understand your fear and concern. So many people feel like you do. The Christian Taliban is certainly making a play for control of society, and so are the other members of the unholy alliance of MAGA-ts containing white supremacists, male supremacists, antisemites and gay persecutors / deniers that has become the Republican Party.
Maybe I’m just a marshmallow fluff idealist. But I see the trend of society, which has moved inexorably towards more and more freedom for and acceptance of voices of diversity. The overall trend of global society is towards inclusion of all people, towards diversity. Slavery is dying. Women’s rights are improving (Roe threat and Afghanistan regression notwithstanding). Gay pride is on the rise. Hollywood gets battered with criticism when it disappoints. I see the Trump administration, and the society which supports it, like a cornered rat just before it gets caught by animal control. They are getting a last hurrah, a last chance to be seen, before they are assimilated by the Borg.
It’s the long view. Gay pride and rainbow flags and Obergefell did not exist when I was born, and certainly not in Africa and Asia. Loving was still waiting to happen. LBJ’s Voting Rights Act had yet to doom segregation and lynching.
America stinks. Discrimination and persecution is rampant. But notice that it now makes headlines every day. The trend is in the right direction.
Does it mean that we are not under threat? No, on the contrary, the threat is very real. However, it now makes headlines, where in the past it was swept under the rug.
I think racism is dying. I think sexism is dying. I think gender persecution is on the wane. But your concern, and the concern of so many of us, is so well warranted and so absolutely essential.
Keep being scared. That’s what ends up holding the degenerates to account. It is apathy and complacency that is the true enemy of freedom and progress. Think Nazi Germany, where the entire society just ended up going with the racist program. At least the US is not making that mistake. The concern and alarm is huge. Thank goodness for that.
Thank you Roland for filling in the gaps of history about coups. I have not studied the details, just skimmed over events of my life that I have seen first-hand or in movies of the era in which I was born (1944 – the day after FDR won his 4th term).
I made an allusion to that on the HCR Jan 6 letter:
“However, (the coup attempt) was anti-climactic and not surprising at all, considering what we have been enduring for the past 4 years with this stochastic terrorist in the White House fomenting his cult base to do just this kind of outrageous stuff with the silent complicity of the Repugnant Party. To a lesser degree it had already been done in Michigan with death threats to their governor and taking over the statehouse. Add to that the past 4 years of an autocrat basking in the power of the presidency directing his Red Hat MAGATS from the podium to do just such despicable violence under the guise of his protection. I mentioned to my sister that we grew up with black & white film of Hitler ranting to the masses just like that and we never knew what he was saying because it was in German, but now we know. And now the attack on the Reichstag suggests such comparison was not hyperbole.”
No, not at all, no hyperbole. On Greg Olear, a poster calls Tя☭mp "Shitler." Tя☭mp actually studied Hitler's tactics, he was given a 1941 book of Hitler's analysis of his speeches and methods and studied it in the 1980s, contact me if you want the source reference for that.
Because people in this country are allergic to Hitler and Nazi Germany, just uttering the words freaks out most people, there's a lot of valuable history not being brought to bear on this Administration. My parents were both born in Germany and grew up in that era, plus our family lived in Frankfurt when I was in my teens. So I know exactly what Hitler is saying in those speeches, the speechs that DT has studied.
We are lucky we have the guardrails that the Constitution and the U.S. system provide, they are saving us right now. In most countries and most eras of history, what happened this week could have turned into a coup or a putsch or regime change if any planning had gone into it. Really it was just Tя☭mp directing a mob at the Capitol, I don't think that constitutes a real challenge to the U.S. govt., which is incredibly strong and resilient, no real threat of regime change. But not everyone I know agrees with me, that's just my faith in the system.
I lived and worked in the Golden Triangle of lower SE Texas during the Bay of Pigs/USSR nuclear threat. This area was full of petroleum and chemical plants. My husband worked at DuPont Chemical. Our area and Houston’s were determined to be key areas for attacks and everyone was told to have emergency supplies in the trunks of cars and an evacuation plan. My husband told me he would have to stay at the plant and I was to go north to a relative’s home if the alarm of pending attack was sounded. The thought of those days is now making my heart beat faster. I imagine that fear was much like what some of our congresspersons and staff felt Wednesday. Though concerned when JFK was killed and 9/11 occurred, I didn’t feel afraid for myself and my husband as I did when I thought the upper Texas coast might be bombed; back then I was too close to the reality.
The comment I saw on NBC I think was a woman interviewed who said something like “going to see President Trump speak is like going to church”. Now he’s some kind of “savior”.
I was here for the Kennedy assassination, Nixon resignation, Reagan attempted assassination (which only angered me that Brady was collateral), but this attempted coup as a finale to a wannabe dictators horrid rule is the most disturbing political event of my life.
And now it is coming out that those sinister things we suspected of this “regime” are true. It was a real coup attempt, run by naive idiots who could not sustain it but now we are finding how high in the government was involvement. The police are suspect, the military is suspect and elected legislators along with oligarchs behind the scene are known accomplices. Conspiracy theories of a right-wing takeover of the U.S. took a turn toward reality this week.
And the madman in the Oval Office is still there. Ppl involved are getting arrested but being charged with misdemeanor “breaking & entering” or “unlawful trespassing.” We need to see real felony charges of INSURRECTION, SEDITION, AGGRAVATED ASSAULT/’BATTERY & FELONY MURDER where the perps sit behind bars until arraigned and then held without bond.
"Bill & Susan replied to your comment
All caps are neither required nor appreciated. This isn't FB or Tweeter."
Apparently Bill & Susan decided that arbiters of style are neither required or appreciated and deleted their comment. But, I will still reply that Bold, Italics, and Underlines are sometimes required for emfasis none of which I can do on this forum, SO ALL CAPS ARE REQUIRED, WHETHER APPRECIATED OR NOT.
And yes, I also replace the useless "ph" when I writing an "f" sound as do so many fonetic languages.
If you had used ALL caps throughout, that is one thing; however, resorting to all caps as our simplest way of creating emfasis (I like your fonetix!) is completely reasonable.
Yes, that was unfortunate. More power to them for having reconsidered
"Tweeter"? That's a tiny speaker designed to enhance high-frequency sound reproduction.
Love it! And "Twitter"....the chatter of bird brains. Natural for the flying variety of course.
We didn't delete our comment. Substack barfed under the load. Resorting to all caps is the habit of a lazy mind. Not arguing with your points, because as soon as we see that we don't read the post. We simply move on to look for more intelligent commentary.
Each of us has our style and always considerate of the other. Language and emphasis are personal. Passion can be expressed here just as well as clinical analysis and both are understood, discussed and enjoyed. Tolerance is not a word that I would use in the circumstances as it would suggest a norm over and above my first phrase from which someone was deviating. We are here because we wanted a calm, intelligent forum, far away from the FB agressivity and condemnation , while making a contribution through ideas, opinions and discussion.
Dang.
And yet, here you are. I suppose you read where I disagree with your opinion.
I agreed with Nixon's pardon thinking that we need not be like other countries that have to jail our former leaders. That just makes politics rougher, or so I thought. Trump's presidency has sorely tested that belief but I held onto that belief. The attempted coup on Jan 6th was more than the last straw. An attempt to use force to install a president is short said an attempted coup. A president who tries that needs to be impeached and convicted--even if the conviction happens after he has already left office. The people who broke into the capitol building need to be given more than misdemeanor convictions. Yes, the impeachment may just be symbolic but it is a symbolism we need. Yes an impeachment and some felony convictions will make some people mad but it will also make them think twice before trying something similar.
American exceptionalism ("we're different; it can't happen here") is a self-delusion. I'm glad you came around at last, but I hope you'll take a good hard look at what took you so long. Because plenty of us have been here waiting for decades.
I can see why you are stereotyping me that way but, allthough I grew up in Nebraska, I have degrees from schools in both Denmark and Canada. I know from first hand experience the U.S. is not exactly a paradigm for other countries to imitate. Am I also a Danish and Canadian exceptionalist because I don't expect to see a coup attempt in either of those countries during my lifetime? Come to think of it I'm rather surprised that you have been expecting to see one here.
Yes!
yes.. we must be in the same graduating class... and I remember my parent's reactions to each of these events as well...and the Bay of Pigs! This has been the most horrifying of all.. perhaps 'tied' with the Kennedy Assassinations and Martin Luther King.. but this is so massive! The scale of this..the complicity...as horrified as I am...and have been for days... I still thinkI am in shock to some degree and as more is learned the more distressing it becomes... and if Heather is not allowed back on Facebook..whoa! That truly concerns me!
What? Heather not on Facebook?
May be this has already been answered. Here is Heather's FB post from about 1 PM today:
Hi Folks:
My January 8, 2021 post has been taken down. Usually this happens when someone complains about it. The post then goes to Facebook jail until a moderator reviews it. At that point, until now, anyway, it has always come back up. I expect the same will happen this time, eventually.
I also expect that this will happen frequently for awhile, as far-right activists try to reclaim the public platforms that have now been denied them. Their panic at being kicked off Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, and so on illustrates exactly what I've been trying to say about the importance of reclaiming public debate. If they didn't think taking up oxygen was important, they would not be fighting so hard to make sure they dominate public spaces.
Do remember, though, that my posts are always available-- for free-- at heathercoxrichardson.substack.com under the title "Letters from an American." You don't have to subscribe or get them through email if you don't want to; you can just go to the site and read them there. If you DO want to get them through email, you can sign up through the free option. You don't have to worry that I will use advertising or harvest emails (who am I kidding? I don't even know how! 🙂 )
These are frightening times, and we're all tired and on edge-- me, included. It means a lot to have so many people here who care.
So thanks, yet again.
Heather
Thank you Bob, this is good to know.
HCR’s Jan 8 post was restored to FB a few hours later.
BTW, here is something a friend sent me in an e-mail. Some ppl are monitoring FB and turns out it is an insidious influencer in its practices. But it did fail in GA.
https://themarkup.org/citizen-browser/2021/01/05/in-georgia-facebooks-changes-brought-back-a-partisan-news-feed
Moot for me since I am no longer on that platform and will soon be off twitter, having likely been targeted by some right-winger who did not like my anti-tRumper tweet. I refuse to delete the tweet (FB always did it for me) and it is still languishing in appeal 2 days later.
Thank you, Rob, and good luck with Twitter.
It’ll happen. The serious crimes will put plenty of people in jail. The judicial system grinds slowly, I know, it’s hard to be patient.
But here’s why I am responding:
You wrote:
“this attempted coup as a finale to a wannabe dictators horrid rule is the most disturbing political event of my life.”
Like you, I was here for JFK‘s assassination and the others you list. My wife and I have been comparing this event to JFK in Dallas. These two events, JFK in Dallas and 1/6/21, are the two most disturbing political events of our lives.
*takes a deep breath*
*now tears want to come*
This is hard to process.
Here is also a text exchange on HCR 1/7/21, Ted Keyes asking the question and me responding:
What are the historical parallels to other Coup attempts or snatch and grab elections to secure first power, then consolidate it and transition to authoritarianism. It has never happened here, so where do we look for parallels to make sense of Jan 6th, 2021?
Adolf Hitler and his storm troopers, the brown shirts, for one. There are many other examples of course. What makes us different than most of history: this wannabe dictator doesn’t have control of (1) the military and doesn’t have control of (2) national police. Our system, our Constitution, is specifically designed to prevent dictatorship. That’s why the military is not allowed to intervene domestically. That’s why we don’t have a national police force that can lock people up. That’s why Congress (legislative branch) is separate and independent from the judiciary (legal system) is separate and independent from the executive branch, so that the attempted power-grab by the executive branch, which is Trump, can still be contained and prevented by the other branches.
We have a unique system, custom-designed to prevent exactly the types of things that DT is trying to pull off.
Trump has tried every way possible to be a dictator. He has been probably our only real test of the system. His attempts to change the vote to invalidate Biden’s win and keep himself as President, guess what, that’s exactly what Putin does and Stalin did. It happens in countries all over the world, all the time. But here he is unable to pull it off, because people are legally bound to follow the Constitution. Many guard rails.
Controlling the vote, that’s also what that jerk Lukashenko does to stay in power in Belarus. If you control the vote count, as Stalin said, you control your position on top. Putin is Exhibit A.
The historic parallel I know the best is Hitler’s Germany. The US Capitol riot is watered down, unofficial version of what Hitler did to the German parliament in the 1930s, it’s called the Reichstag. He ordered his brown shirts in there, his thugs (they are very similar to this MAGA crowd except they were paid and wore matching uniforms), and they trashed and looted the place and burned it. It’s the house of the people, just like here.
I recommend the book, How Democracies Die, by Levitsky and Ziblatt. Short and readable, and based on a study of numerous modern democracies around the world that have failed.
The book has a few eye-openers (for the politically naïve, like myself), one of them being how much we must rely upon the powerful to keep their own sandbox clean. The authors have an interesting take on both the Electoral College, and the necessity of "back room power-brokers."
In particular, the back-room deals have an essential role in prejudicially weeding out people like Trump, and others who threaten the system. Trump should have been quietly but firmly disqualified from even being allowed to join the 2016 Republican slate: he should have been forced to form his own new party with no national recognition at all. But -- and this is a typical failure mode, according to L & Z -- the weaker party (the Republicans) got desperate and fell for the shiny thing, thinking they could control this useful idiot. They found that they could not control him, and in the process, lost control of their own party and a large portion of their electorate.
The normal outcome of this blunder would have been a corrupted election -- which almost happened -- that made the useful idiot "president for life," supported by a popular minority of fanatics and an increasingly captive electoral process.
What was remarkable was not that we almost lost our democracy, but that we DIDN'T lose our democracy. We should have. It's like we walked down Muggers' Lane, where 99.9% of everyone who walks down that road gets robbed and killed, and somehow -- somehow -- the US strolled down that road whistling, and got out the other end, a little bruised and short a wallet and watch, but still alive.
I'm sure that a large part of Trump's ire over the 2020 election is that he KNOWS this. He thinks he should still be president, and really, he should be.
I can only speculate as to why this failed. A large part of it, I think, was that the states ran such a clean national election. I suspect Trump was too drunk on his popularity among his cultists to take sufficient measures to corrupt the election, and as a television celebrity, he mistook popularity polls for votes. He thought he was in for an easy win, and when the people rejected him, I think he was completely unprepared.
The January 6 insurrection looks entirely like a desperate Hail Mary fling. All of those post-November shake-ups in the executive branch, particularly in the military, should have been in-place at least a year earlier. Every one of the crackpot schemes cooked up by the lawyers should have been thoroughly vetted and prioritized before the election took place. He should not have relied upon a rag-tag mob of right-wing extremists and civilian cultists: in four years' time, he could have had trained private military forces ready.
The REAL failure in this whole process goes back to 2015, when the Republican Party sold out and let Trump get on stage.
“The states running a clean election” is also part of that juggernaut analogy. For over 250 years, those elections have been operating basically seamlessly, if you discount voter suppression of non-whites. But even if you take voter suppression into consideration, the mechanics of those elections are clean. It takes work to corrupt something that’s working well, automatically, for a long period of time.
Another consideration: what happens at a national level is truly governed, wants to be governed, by what the majority wants. Biden knows this. Most politicians know this. They are very careful about keeping close tabs on what the majority wants. Now if the majority wants something different than a white male politician personally wishes for, then a conflict happens. Voting them out of office is the eventual, natural consequence.
Bottom line: the majority of America no longer wants the racist (whites first) and sexist (males in charge) system. Hence the desperation move of voting in such a corrupt and flawed individual.
“They found that they could not control him, and in the process, lost control of their own party and a large portion of their electorate.” Their time has come and gone. They are on the way out. This is part of their disintegration process. The Republican Party as we know it will never be the same. Exactly what they will look like is anybody’s guess, but at a minimum they are splintering into (1) racists that still adhere to the U.S. democratic system (Kinzinger, Cheney, Republican judges, ...) and (2) racists with some integrity and ideology, old Republican Party (Lincoln Project, George Will,...) and (3) flagrant racist extremists who just want to keep it white, no matter what it takes (everyone in the Trump camp, insurrectionists).
Hi Joseph. I agree with your assessment, all of it, of what happened re: the Republican Party and Trump’s drunk-on-adulation hangover and his last ditch, too-late efforts to stay president. We saw some of that “back room power brokers” activity when Clyburn and Obama jumped in to endorse Biden. As you noted, nothing similar to that on the Republican side in 2016.
I hear you about being politically naive. If it weren’t for the time spent here on HCR’s site, I’d still be that person. DJT forced me to understand politics.
What I don’t see mentioned in your excellent analysis is the foundation of our society, the basis of “politics.” Based on what I’ve learned just paying close attention these last few years here, and my knowledge of my own father and the truck drivers in my life, I am now convinced that people fall into 2 camps: either (1) they want to maintain some or all of the old society, no changes allowed, or (2) they are embracing the change to a new society of diversity. The populace which the Republican Party represents, the racist and sexist et al segment of society, is desperate to maintain control of society so that it reflects their vision. They will lie cheat and steal, and do whatever it takes, to keep the whites-first males-first society dominant. So they fight tooth and nail against every non-white non-straight person, especially if it’s a she, who gets into a position of authority, and they fight every person (Biden, Pelosi, ...) and policy which supports a power-sharing diverse populace.
That is the crux of American politics. It looks polarized because it is.
Trump did not factor in the strength of the democratic element. He and his cohorts and admirers call it “the deep state.” When Kelly and other White House officials and Pentagon chiefs “managed” Trump, for example by preventing him from having easy access to various choices like nuclear options, they were providing guard rails. When Jim Mattis and other military chiefs loudly chastised the secretary of defense and others for being present during that Bible raising photo op, and the military action which proceeded it, again the structure of this democracy was making itself felt.
The American democracy is the oldest democracy in the world. Tradition can be a powerful thing. Institutional inertia, is what I call it. When an ocean liner has to change direction, it’s a time-consuming and laborious process. The ocean liner wants to keep going in the same direction, it doesn’t turn easily or readily.
Instead of the Muggers Ln. analogy, may I offer the picture of a pirate vessel which got in front of the ocean liner and was rammed, run over.
The German democracy under Hitler was brand new, you could argue that Russia since the czars still is not a democracy, although it may have been one briefly under Gorbachev, so having a circa 250-year-old democracy provides some small measure of momentum, of inertia. All those laws and rules and traditions have a deep impact because of their longevity, if nothing else. They become part of our DNA. The entire military elite of our country was trained to stay the hell out of domestic politics. All of that training in those elite military schools, impressing itself on young minds, has an effect.
Am I surprised that our democracy survived Trump? No. Am I nervous that it got close to being severely damaged? Hell yes.
Unless we discuss what keeps the democracy intact with a 2-bit, 2nd-class criminal in the Oval Office, part of the story is missing. Also we have to keep in mind that it is the less educated amongst us who are strenuously advocating for a whites-first society. The people who are ignorantly trying to keep all whites and men in charge (and non-whites and women only if they support the old whites-first males-first society), and keep our society operating as racist and sexist, are now probably in the minority but nevertheless savagely resisting change and savagely insisting on keeping whites, men and straights in charge. Probably most of their behavior is subconscious. Most of them are in denial that they are racist and sexist, insults and dirty words to them. Intelligent people examine. Ignorant people just accept cultural conditioning, they don’t want to examine.
Hello SC. I did a double-take when I saw your post in my email. It took several minutes to register that you are posting way back on a day just after 1/6/21.
O! how much more we still had to learn about the extent and depth of this coup conspiracy.
I understand your fear and concern. So many people feel like you do. The Christian Taliban is certainly making a play for control of society, and so are the other members of the unholy alliance of MAGA-ts containing white supremacists, male supremacists, antisemites and gay persecutors / deniers that has become the Republican Party.
Maybe I’m just a marshmallow fluff idealist. But I see the trend of society, which has moved inexorably towards more and more freedom for and acceptance of voices of diversity. The overall trend of global society is towards inclusion of all people, towards diversity. Slavery is dying. Women’s rights are improving (Roe threat and Afghanistan regression notwithstanding). Gay pride is on the rise. Hollywood gets battered with criticism when it disappoints. I see the Trump administration, and the society which supports it, like a cornered rat just before it gets caught by animal control. They are getting a last hurrah, a last chance to be seen, before they are assimilated by the Borg.
It’s the long view. Gay pride and rainbow flags and Obergefell did not exist when I was born, and certainly not in Africa and Asia. Loving was still waiting to happen. LBJ’s Voting Rights Act had yet to doom segregation and lynching.
America stinks. Discrimination and persecution is rampant. But notice that it now makes headlines every day. The trend is in the right direction.
Does it mean that we are not under threat? No, on the contrary, the threat is very real. However, it now makes headlines, where in the past it was swept under the rug.
I think racism is dying. I think sexism is dying. I think gender persecution is on the wane. But your concern, and the concern of so many of us, is so well warranted and so absolutely essential.
Keep being scared. That’s what ends up holding the degenerates to account. It is apathy and complacency that is the true enemy of freedom and progress. Think Nazi Germany, where the entire society just ended up going with the racist program. At least the US is not making that mistake. The concern and alarm is huge. Thank goodness for that.
Thank you Roland for filling in the gaps of history about coups. I have not studied the details, just skimmed over events of my life that I have seen first-hand or in movies of the era in which I was born (1944 – the day after FDR won his 4th term).
I made an allusion to that on the HCR Jan 6 letter:
“However, (the coup attempt) was anti-climactic and not surprising at all, considering what we have been enduring for the past 4 years with this stochastic terrorist in the White House fomenting his cult base to do just this kind of outrageous stuff with the silent complicity of the Repugnant Party. To a lesser degree it had already been done in Michigan with death threats to their governor and taking over the statehouse. Add to that the past 4 years of an autocrat basking in the power of the presidency directing his Red Hat MAGATS from the podium to do just such despicable violence under the guise of his protection. I mentioned to my sister that we grew up with black & white film of Hitler ranting to the masses just like that and we never knew what he was saying because it was in German, but now we know. And now the attack on the Reichstag suggests such comparison was not hyperbole.”
No, not at all, no hyperbole. On Greg Olear, a poster calls Tя☭mp "Shitler." Tя☭mp actually studied Hitler's tactics, he was given a 1941 book of Hitler's analysis of his speeches and methods and studied it in the 1980s, contact me if you want the source reference for that.
Because people in this country are allergic to Hitler and Nazi Germany, just uttering the words freaks out most people, there's a lot of valuable history not being brought to bear on this Administration. My parents were both born in Germany and grew up in that era, plus our family lived in Frankfurt when I was in my teens. So I know exactly what Hitler is saying in those speeches, the speechs that DT has studied.
We are lucky we have the guardrails that the Constitution and the U.S. system provide, they are saving us right now. In most countries and most eras of history, what happened this week could have turned into a coup or a putsch or regime change if any planning had gone into it. Really it was just Tя☭mp directing a mob at the Capitol, I don't think that constitutes a real challenge to the U.S. govt., which is incredibly strong and resilient, no real threat of regime change. But not everyone I know agrees with me, that's just my faith in the system.
This is a very good explanation. Thanks!
I lived and worked in the Golden Triangle of lower SE Texas during the Bay of Pigs/USSR nuclear threat. This area was full of petroleum and chemical plants. My husband worked at DuPont Chemical. Our area and Houston’s were determined to be key areas for attacks and everyone was told to have emergency supplies in the trunks of cars and an evacuation plan. My husband told me he would have to stay at the plant and I was to go north to a relative’s home if the alarm of pending attack was sounded. The thought of those days is now making my heart beat faster. I imagine that fear was much like what some of our congresspersons and staff felt Wednesday. Though concerned when JFK was killed and 9/11 occurred, I didn’t feel afraid for myself and my husband as I did when I thought the upper Texas coast might be bombed; back then I was too close to the reality.
Did you buy a ticket? And yes, Bill and Susan have a point. We can read even small letters.
I agree Rob.
The comment I saw on NBC I think was a woman interviewed who said something like “going to see President Trump speak is like going to church”. Now he’s some kind of “savior”.