Date: 2024-11-22 Page is: DBtxt003.php txt00022580 | |||||||||
US POLITICS
JANUARY 6TH The Jan 6 Committee Is Making Democracy Great Again ... Yes, Trump Tried to Kill American Democracy. The J6C is Telling the Story in Dramatic, Explosive Detail. Image Credit: Forbes Screenshot Original article: Peter Burgess COMMENTARY Peter Burgess | |||||||||
The Jan 6 Committee Is Making Democracy Great Again
Yes, Trump Tried to Kill American Democracy. The J6C is Telling the Story in Dramatic, Explosive Detail. Umair Haque ... Published in Eudaimonia and Co Jun 17. 2022 We’re all used, by now, to American politics being one dismal, giant exercise in fail. So it’s remarkable. Each January 6th Committee hearing is more incendiary and dramatic than the last one. I’ve covered each of them — and yesterday’s was the most explosive yet. It’s funny, because as a procedure, it was calm, almost boring, veritably dull. Unless you were listening. And what was being spoken was…boom. Fireworks. This hearing focused on the role of the Vice President. And while he himself didn’t testify, his counsellors did — his lawyer, and a judge who advised him. And what they had to say was like a bomb going off at the heart of American politics. Pence’s counsellors testified that Trump wanted to overturn the election — badly, maniacally. He repeatedly pressured Pence, using the arcane “theory” of a fellow called John Eastman, a who’s a law professor, but in actuality is such a crackpot his colleagues have been trying to drum him out of his university. Eastman and Trump demanded that Pence, as Vice President, reject Biden’s electoral college votes, because one of the gaping loopholes in American democracy is that the sitting Vice President certifies the electoral college votes for the incoming President. In a last-ditch Hail Mary, Trump and what was left of his inner circle wanted Pence to interfere with the electoral college. All that is what the violence on Jan 6th was really about. Pence wasn’t playing ball. He was fence-sitting, not giving in to the pressure. He seemed, to Trump, to be either confused, or stonewalling. What he wasn’t doing was acting like one of Trump’s typical lackeys — immediately saying yes, and approving today’s latest escalation of the pattern of abuse of power. Trump was stymied. And so was his hardcore base, and his fragmenting inner circle. How were they going to get this election overturned? Storm the Capitol. Hunt down Pence. Make him do what they wanted him to do. When we say that Jan 6th was an attempted coup — I’ve been using that terminology far longer than the Commitee, and I wonder if they got it from me sometimes — what does it mean? It’s subtler than many, maybe most people, understand yet. It wasn’t just that the violence itself was the coup. It’s that the violence had a point. That point was to intimidate the VP into altering the electoral college, and overturning the election. The coup was all that. And in that sense, it was part of a larger, “sophisticated plan” — those are also words I’ve been using longer than the Commitee. The plan was to overturn the election by any means necessary. If it came to it, right down to stopping the certification of electoral college votes. All this was backed up by the abstruse, arcane, and frankly nonsensical “theories” of figures like Eastman, who provided Trump a thin veneer of legitimacy that served as an excuse for attempting these flagrant abuses of power. In later hearings, we’re probably going to learn more about other elements of that plan — we’ve already learned about several, like the Big Lie that “the election was stolen,” justifying Pence’s ostensible role in rejecting electoral votes — later, we’re likely to hear about declaring martial law to recount the “stolen” election and even more insane, outrageous components of the plan. Think about how explosive that really is. A President tried to intimidate a Vice President into overturning an election. We knew that had happened — and people like me even predicted it was going to happen. And yet it’s another thing still to have so much, vivid, copious evidence, details. Pence’s team testified how Trump called him everything from a “wimp” to a “p*ssy,” screaming at him, demanding his cooperation. They detailed the bizarre legal arguments they had with Eastman, about how, no, it wasn’t OK to overturn an election. They talked about how Pence understood not counting and certifying electoral college results would be illegal. Does that make Mike Pence…LOL…a hero? Of course not. Don’t be ridiculous. Pence was fine, even gleeful, about all the abuses of power that led to that very moment. Kids in cages, minorities hunted down in the streets, people disappeared and violently beaten when they protested, bans on religions and ethnicities, the demonization of everyone not part of the Trumpist movement as not a “real” American, the escalating calls for violence, Trump’s dramatic approval and legitimization of it, lending support to every kind of lunatic paramilitary organization under the sun. Pence didn’t say, “Hey, guys, actually don’t stand back and stand by. We’re American, goddamit. You’re the kind of scumbags who are out to destroy everything we ever hoped to stand for, from freedom to democracy to peace to justice for all.” LOL. Pence is no hero. He only acted at the very, very, very last minute, when the final, final, final red line was to be crossed. And he found he couldn’t cross that one. Why? Probably because he knew he’d go down one day for it, too. Want to face RICO charges? They’ll seriously destroy your life. Pence probably thought twice, not because he’d suddenly grown a conscience and become Saint Mike Pence of the Hated Subhumans, but because he suddenly realized he could end up in deep, deep trouble, too. Heroes act out of courage. Pence? LOL. He has all the courage of a person who finally stops someone from beating up a defenseless kid, when they’re half dead, and the attacker’s about to slit their throat. Hey, you can beat the hell out of them, sure. Go right ahead! Here, have another kick to the solar plexus. Good job!! But killing them? Oh, that’s too much. Pence doesn’t come out of this smelling like roses, as some think. He’s disgraced on both sides. The obvious question is: well, why was this too much? How come, I don’t know, putting kids in cages was OK? Demonizing gay people? Hating everyone that didn’t also want America to be basically a fascist country? Oh, I see. Killing democracy is going too far — but bigotry, spite, hate, cruelty, indifference …totally cool! Being Mike Pence right about now is not a good look. He’s exonerated, maybe, in some thin, tenuous sense, legally. But his name will live in infamy. The man who only acted when it was almost too late. The Vice President who let it get this bad, because, well, he liked it until fascism and authoritarianism as a final solution to slit democracy’s throat suddenly got real. That’s not good character, it’s humiliation. So why do it? Because being humiliated is better than possibly being behind bars. Would you want to be Donald Trump’s fall guy? Everyone knows he’s legendary for having them, and there seem to be an endless line of idiots willing to take the job. In this case, the only credit Mike Pence really deserves is being smart enough not to be Trump’s latest fall guy. He listened to his lawyers, and said, no thanks, I don’t want to spend my life in jail and bankrupted by RICO charges because of you. You’re no Godfather, the Don. Oh come on, that one was funny. Who was dumb enough to accept the job of Trump’s fall guy? Well, the remarkable thing the J6C has done is scare everyone into not wanting to be Trump’s fall guys. Nobody wants to take the heat for the Don, because he’s no Godfather. Attorney General Bill Barr? Hell no. Campaign Manager Bill Stepien? No thanks. Advisor Jason Miller? Nope. Vice President Mike Pence? Sorry, thanks, but no. Even Trump’s own daughter doesn’t want to be the fall guy. Think about that for a second. In mafias, which is what this is, it’s usually the kids who are the first one to take the heat, because, well, blood. But the Don is no G…you know. There are only two figures left, so far, who are still willing to be Trump’s fall guys. This whacko Eastman — and the other figure discussed in the hearing Rudy Giuliani, who advised Trump to continue this effort to overturn the election, it seems. That’s hardly a stellar list, because these two guys are the feeblest minds of the bunch. LOL — you can see how this fall guy thing works. It’s the biggest chumps who end up being the fall guys as the rest scurry for cover as fast as they can. Everyone so far is scurrying for cover. That’s a bit premature though, because there’s still a lot more to come. What about Trump’s various Press Secretaries? How about the rest of his weird kids? What about the rest of all the hangers-on? The next part of the hearing that was explosive was the revelation that the FBI has an informant who testified to the fact that if the fascist paramilitaries Trump had egged on had found Pence, they would have killed him. And if they’d found Pelosi, they would have killed her, too. The FBI does not say such things lightly. If it has an informant testifying to all that, you can be sure that it has mountains of evidence to back up the claim. There is surely much more to come on this score, proving it in painful, grim detail. Think about that for a second. A President may have incited literal neo Nazi paramilitaries to the point they were aiming to kill the leader of the opposition and the Vice President…in order to overturn an election. The Committee is saying part of the “attempted” in “attempted coup” was…attempted assassinations. It doesn’t get more serious than that. So the question becomes: is the Committee saying that a President…played a role…in the attempted assassination of a Vice President and the Head of the Opposition as part of an attempted coup? This was by far the most serious part of the hearing — and yet this point seems to have flown under the radar. So let’s connect a few dots. The J6C spent a lot of time and effort establishing the claim and making the case that Trump himself was the “center” of the “conspiracy” to “overturn an election.” Remember the “sophisticated plan?” One part was Mike Pence rejecting the electoral college count. But another, the Committee appears to be saying, was that Pelosi and Pence would be targeted with violence, maybe even assassination, by paramilitaries who were incited to hunt them down at the Capitol on the day of the vote count. Think about how insane that is for a moment. Really think. Is the Committee, again, saying that a President played a role in the attempted assassinations to foment a coup, and drive it home? Not yet, maybe. But they’re sure as hell implying it. Remember way back when all this happened? I used to literally say that “if they’d succeeded, there would have been a massacre in the Capitol. They were hoping to kill Pence and Pelosi.” You agreed with me — some of you, many of you. What else were the gallows there for? Even symbolically? What, do you take gallows to..a wedding? Of course not. Some of you used to reject my description. “Come on. Massacre?” And that was the position of big media — “it wasn’t that bad.” It was just a “riot.” It wasn’t a “riot.” Now we know it was an attempted assassination. As part of an attempted coup. We know that indeed there would have been a massacre. That was the goal. If the paramilitaries had found the politicians. We know that actually it was just a handful of brave officers, many of whom suffered terribly in the months after, who prevented all that. Still think I was kidding around when I used to say all that? For me, it’s like the Committee is reading from my posts. It’s almost funny, if it weren’t tragic. They’re almost verbatim saying what I say, using precisely the same language and terminology. They’v confirmed the gory details I used to discuss and predict. Remember what we talked about in the months leading up to the election — you, survivors and scholars of authoritarianism like me, thoughtful people in general? A hard coup attempt. Remember how we used to discuss that there’d almost been a massacre? That yes, they really were trying to overturn the election at the electoral college level? With violence, if need be? That story was dismissed as fantastical even after it happened, by big media, pundits, people. But it was true. It was obviously true then, and it remains so now, which is why the effort to undo democracy from within has only gained steam. Media failed to tell this story, badly, pundits failed to grasp it, as usual, and, predictably, attacked those of us who did tell this story properly, well, and truthfully as “alarmists” and so forth. So people failed to understand it. And that’s why these J6C findings come as revelations to many. But they shouldn’t be. Being shocked or surprised is only because, well, you weren’t paying attention. Explosive, incendiary, dramatic — yes. Surprising? No. There is surely more to come. But for now, many things should be said. The Committee is trying to make the strongest possible case for criminal prosecution it can. The ball is now in the AG’s court. The Committee has shown that the Don is no Godfather — his accomplices in what it seems to be saying is the greatest crime in American history…they’re scurrying to cover their own asses faster than rats on a burning, sinking ship. And the Committee has told us too, beyond the legalisms, that yes, it really was that bad. Much, much, much worse than the story that was being told, that was allowed to be told, by media, pundits, lobbyists, and so forth. The true story of Jan 6th was far, far worse than the everyday narratives suggested. And it still is. That is why justice must be done. Umair June 2022 |