The Storming of the Capitol!

Let freedom ring!

W.J. Astore

It wasn’t exactly the storming of the Bastille or the sack of Rome, but yesterday’s scenes from the Capitol were disturbing enough to the self-avowed “most exceptional nation.”

If only the mob of protesters had shouted “We want affordable health care for all!” or “Racial equality!” or “Peace now!” or “Money for the poor!” instead of “USA! USA!” and “Trump! Trump!” as they marched through the Capitol on Wednesday.

But I suppose protesters who shout for health care, racial equity, and peace get clubbed and gassed, whereas Trump supporters by comparison get handled with kid gloves.

Trump, the law and order man, has always been unlawful, a man of disorder. As I wrote early in 2016, Trump disqualified himself from the presidency with his empty and dictatorial boasting. That he would incite a mob to gather at the Capitol to contest the election result was hardly surprising. What is surprising is how the Trump mob so easily breached the Capitol’s defenses, such as they were. In at least one case, it appears the police removed a barricade and let the pro-Trumpers in. Someone should be fired for this national humiliation.

It’s a small miracle that only one person was killed, an Air Force veteran who was reportedly shot in the neck as she tried to break into an inner chamber room. An avid Trump supporter who’d traveled from California, she’d be alive today if not for Trump’s selfish and reckless call for a protest at the Capitol.

Of course, predictable calls for Trump’s impeachment are coming from Squad members like AOC and Rashida Tlaib. Really. In two weeks, Trump leaves office. And you want to squander energy and time in yet another unsuccessful attempt to impeach him. At the same time, you won’t even fight for a vote on Medicare for all.

Once again, America will likely take the wrong lessons from these riots. The Capitol police will likely call for more money, more resources, more officers, more guns, more security cameras, more barricades, etc. There are already calls for more Internet censorship. Homeland Security funding will surely get a boost. And certain people will dismiss too easily the alienation and indignation of Trump supporters.

What I mean is this: Americans are upset. Angry. Alienated. Confused. And rightly so. And until our government serves the people instead of corporate, financial, and similar lobbyists and special interests, the potential for future mobs will remain. Donald Trump is a total buffoon, a shell of a man, a narcissist with ambitions centered always on himself and his self-image. But imagine a more skilled manipulator, one less narrowly focused on himself, one with a stronger work ethic, one with boundless ambition for power. Such a person could truly lead an insurrection or coup, and yesterday’s scenes suggest such a takeover would be easier than we think.

The answer is not more guns, more security, more police, nor is it impeachment. The answer is a government accountable to the people and for the people. If we don’t want our government to perish from this earth, it needs to be of the people, by the people, for the people. But it’s not, and until it is, a repeat of yesterday’s scenes, but on a much larger and more violent scale, will remain a possibility.

Who wouldn’t want a “Speaker of the House” podium?

161 thoughts on “The Storming of the Capitol!”

    1. Well, yes and no. Spoiled by the benefit of white skin privilege, which shielded them from being clubbed by cops yesterday for the most part, but not exactly from the financially privileged segment of society. We may have finally discovered who the devil are the “lumpen proletariat” Karl Marx spoke of!!

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  2. The outgoing incumbent surely incited the mob violence yesterday. I don’t think there’s any debate, although Mitt Romney is the only GOP member thus far to say as much. However, the woman who was shot yesterday would be alive today if she had NOT taken it upon herself to invade the Capitol and threaten lawmakers. That was her personal choice. Yes, there is a segment of the population that is alienated and confused. We’re all (the 99%, that is) frustrated. But none of that justifies what happened. As you said, Professor Astore, the mob who violated the Capitol did not do so for the sake of healthcare or equality, but rather, for the sake of supporting a madman, for their own aggrandizement, and for the sheer thrill of destruction. Their cause is neither sacred nor justified.

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    1. I need to know who fired the fatal shot. (And I’ve heard total body count was four, though that may be revised down.) It’s possible LEOs inside Capitol Bldg. panicked initially, then got the orders to treat this mob with kid gloves. On the subject of fascist demagogues, I think “Meet John Doe” is a pretty terrific movie, despite a tendency among film critics to try to trash director Frank Capra’s reputation in recent years. Yes, a pack, a mob, of IDIOTS certainly voluntarily placed themselves in harm’s way for an insane, guaranteed to fail “cause.”

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      1. On the other hand, their cause hasn’t failed, in a larger sense. Yes, the Odious One is on his way out, even if they have to carry him, or Melania has to drag him by the ear. But these bad actors succeeded in 1) attracting the attention of the world; 2) making the nation, particularly Congress, come to a halt, even for a few hours; 3) striking fear into the powers that be. I’m betting that these various miscreants are considering yesterday a good day’s work. Plus which, they’re laughing at and sharing the footage of their daring exploits.

        To your point about the woman who was shot, I’m actually surprised that the Capitol police inside the barricaded Congressional chamber didn’t fire into the rampaging mob outside. They must have feared for their own safety and that of their charges, but, imho, showed uncommon restraint.

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        1. Is use of deadly force justified if a perp is destroying property? In general, no–though skin color of the perp, unfortunately, we know is a crucial factor in this society. But standard excuse for a LEO opening fire is “I felt my own life was in danger.” Or, yesterday they could’ve argued “I thought the lives of the Members of Congress were in danger.” There should be surveillance video available for a thorough investigation of just who was brandishing a firearm inside House or Senate chamber, and what the response by authorities was (or, more alarmingly, WASN’T).

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  4. No sympathy here for the female AF Veteran who went Rogue… She deserves nothing as does anyone who sympathizes & bears ill will combined with Riotous, Unlawful, Destructive, Violent Criminal actions against the United States Gov’t. I was just hoping she isn’t a Sky-Cop like I was… What an unholy black day yesterday was for the “Feast of Epiphany” And.., I bet you thought I wasn’t such a hard liner. I have my limits & standards –yesterday was one of them!

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    1. What should trouble every US citizen who is still somewhat SANE is that these Trumpites so EAGERLY swallow all the BS shoveled in their direction.

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        1. I think it was Eric Fromm who wrote a book about how a society can de-evolve to the point where many people want to flee FROM freedom, rather than struggle toward it. Certainly our contemporary US citizens have demonstrated outright hostility toward intellectual endeavor. I guess they’d tar and feather, at the least, the Founding Fathers if the latter could be resurrected today!!

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  5. On November 8/9th 1923, Adolf Hitler led his supporters in a Beer Hall Putch, and a naive and gullible Weimar Republic obliged him enjoy a few months in jail where he resided in relative comfort to compose “Mein Kampf”. It was a poor read, later to be sub-edited for the hoi poloi by Dr Goebbels’ propaganda machine, and so, the “elitist” Nazi state gifted it to schools and wedding partners (two copies). It became a crucial tool of fascist propaganda, denying science and reality. Donald Trump is said to keep a copy for night time perusal by his bedside.

    If we ignore, or fail to learn, the lessons Mother History offers, we may remain a species forced to live a Ground Hog Day existence until we do so. It is clear the two century experiment in bi-cameral representative democracy is due for negation into a new and improved real democracy. Humanity’s transition to a more profound democratic and inclusive expression of society’s human/social needs has become an urgent priority.

    How human thought (both individually, and collectively as social culture) examines socio-political events will determine how well and completely we might come to understand them and their implications, and guide our future actions. For almost a century now, the majority of official historians have minimalised objective scientific methodology in the assessment of social history, and much else. They have reduced the dialectical and contradictory natural flow of history into a series of apparently disconnected events. This is a nonsensical approach, and academia – particularly US academia which plays such a leadership role globally, urgently needs to look again at reality as it really is transforming today.

    There has been a war on scientific method which has left large sections of human society bereft of understanding, as exemplified by casual dismissal of the calamitous moment to which US history has been delivered this week. This is not just about Dems and GOPs and business as usual. Systemic viability itself, rendered, by an economic mode collapsing under real debt for individuals, corporates, nation states, and the fiction of global finance, demands we find new solutions for the new puzzles of social existence which we face. There will be no going back to pre-Bretton Woods Collapse approaches.

    The complex and nuanced dialectically interpenetrative motion of current developments in social, economic, political, and ecological evolution have been reduced by establishment worldview to a disconnected set of separated occurrences, thus blocking intelligent, cohesive, and coherent cognition of the rapid changes now wrought daily by a largely hidden class war. Sober and thorough scientific analysis is demanded immediately, to construct a viable exit from the dead end street of a collapsed economic system and disintegrating political structure.

    In 1923, many naïve Bavarians also dismissed Herr Hitler as “a total buffoon, a shell of a man, a narcissist with ambitions centered always on himself and his self-image.” They failed to understand that it was not the individual – but the ideology which he personified which posed such a deadly threat to their comfort in the fragile Weimar state. They paid a heavy price. And so did the rest of the world. We do not need another century of murder by a failed state determined to implement a failed system!

    John Robert Colombo, the Canadian author and poet once wrote:
    “ ‘History does not repeat itself, but it rhymes,’ said Mark Twain”.

    January 6 2020 marks an American event which rhymes with November 1923 in so many ways. It we fail to understand that, we will fail to remedy the pernicious and inhuman philosophical disposition which routinely perpetrates savagery on humanity. Or to explore the alternative!

    There is, of course, the farcical aspect: a dumber than dumb egotist elected by an uninformed and (to a large extent) uneducated electorate. But there was nothing funny about the millions murdered by the Beer Hall ignorati – nor is there, about Trump and the institutionally racist US police and militia mentality, clearly in sympathy with that most poisonous eugenic prejudice which sadly seems to dominate US philosophy today.

    Many of us “off shore” in unimportant little countries are looking with great fear towards the intellectual vacuum which the US has become, hoping that some of those capable of theoretical thought will be brave enough to challenge conventional complacency, and learn from history – discarding the positivist stupidities to which formal thinking has reduced human intellectual vigour. These are very dangerous days.

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      1. I feel compelled to respond to Greenwald’s article. First, I agree with him that the response to 9/11 was wildly inappropriate. Not necessarily too severe, but woefully misguided (e.g. the Patriot Act). However, Greenwald’s reasoning seems to posit cause-and-effect between the attacks of 9/11 and the wars in the Middle East, when we know that such is not actually the case. The horrific events of that September day 19 years ago were merely a convenient excuse for plans that Cheney, Rumsfeld, et. al. had long since formulated. That war-mongering cabal used the attacks to push their own agenda, and Congress—although not the entire country—went along with the rationale. It took much ginned-up evidence in addition to the attacks, however, to accomplish the invasion of Iraq. Perhaps a fine distinction, but historical fact nevertheless; it was the VP and Sec Def who were calling the shots (no pun intended).

        As for the First Amendment question, certainly, people are free to say what they want. They should not be able to escape the consequences of doing so, though. If I, anonymous citizen, would remark in passing in some obscure thread somewhere that the President deserves to be taken out [which, btw, I’d never do], and someone coincidentally does indeed commit that crime within, say, a few days, does that mean I’m complicit? I would say, “no,” especially as the doer likely never had access to my post. But if a person in a position of ultimate power, worldwide fame, and enormous influence—say, in the Oval Office—repeatedly exhorts his followers on several forms of social media, all for public consumption, to descend on Washington, D.C., and then in a public forum, verbally calls upon them to march on the U.S. Capitol, and they do so, accomplishing damage and terrorizing fellow citizens, is that person complicit? Damn straight. It’s a difference of both degree and qualiity. So, to Greenwald’s repetition of the rhetorical question about some speech being inherently evil, incendiary, and destructive, I’d say, “yes, there is such a thing.” And as such, it should indeed be prohibited, the same as the divulging of state or military secrets is prohibited, because in both cases, there is danger to the country at large. Therefore, I have no problem whatsoever with the suspension of the Dumpster’s FB, Twitter, and other social media accounts. And I have no problem with calling him out as guilty of inciting a riot, encouraging sedition, and so on. He was complicit, unequivocally so. I’d say the same if the person in question were Bernie Sanders.

        As for Greenwald’s casual dismissal of an attempted coup or an insurrection, the stated goal of the mob was to “stop the steal,” which refers to overturning a certified election, which translates into subverting a legal government. Perhaps these individuals did not want to literally take over the country themselves, but they were acting on behalf of the one who does want to do so. No, it wasn’t the storming of the Bastille (which was, at most, symbolic, anyway, as the prison was falling into disuse), but in spirit, the actions of the perpetrators yesterday were precisely the same. The definition of “insurrection,” according to the American Heritage Dictionary, is, ” n. The act or an instance of open revolt against civil authority or a constituted government. n. A rising up; uprising.” If what the mob did yesterday wasn’t an insurrection, I don’t know what else it would be.

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        1. Despite the remarkably twisted state of Trump’s mind, do we believe he ever thought he could successfully stage an actual coup? I predicted the Military Establishment, on the whole, would not stand with him and would, in fact, oppose him. A gaggle of former Secretaries of “Defense” signed a joint statement just a few days prior to the riot urging Trump to give up on his idiotic plans to contest the election outcome. No coup could possibly succeed without the backing of a significant chunk of the military, with the other chunk willing to be complacent. I reject calling this “an attempted coup.” It was an outlet for the rage of the frighteningly large segment of our society that loves Trump, and exercise some rage they did, successfully delaying but not undoing, the formal completion of the electoral process. And now we’re assured the military will be making an “impregnable” fortress of the Capitol! Yes, interesting times we are certainly living in!

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          1. Trump wanted to overturn the election. The mob tried to help him do it. Regardless of the inevitable outcome, the attempt was made, irrespective of the military’s stance. After all, there are comments that the police were at best not interfering with, and at worst, aiding the attempt. And it wasn’t exactly bloodless, unfortunately.

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            1. Despite the militarization of local police departments around the nation, police alone could not successfully execute a coup WITHOUT support (or a pledge of inaction) from the Military.

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            2. Oh, and I should add that DESPITE some of the outrageous remarks Trump has made about the military, he still has a lot of support in its ranks. I guess they dismissed those reports as “fake news” from MSNBC, CNN, NY Times and other “Enemies of the People”!

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    2. I’d be interested to know what you think of Biden’s election relative to the “rhyming” of the Beer Hall Putsch and yesterday’s Capitol invasion. That is, it would seem that what at this moment appears to be a return to sanity may just be the same calm before the storm that occurred in Germany. If the two
      sequences of events really do parallel, then next time there’s chaos, it will build directly to an autocratic takeover in the U.S. I take it that’s what you’re predicting, absent the intervention of a completely changed societal mindset?

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      1. We are already ruled by autocratic oligarchs, nothing new there. Their grip on society has only tightened in the post-Reagan “Greed is good” age. Trump’s particular mental pathologies are a special case, as he appears to genuinely believe he is untouchable. And I firmly predict he will leave town on Jan. 20 (likely before that) having faced no actual consequences for his actions. Even BoJo denounced him today. But inside his personal Reality Bubble, inhabited also by 70 million other Americans it seems, he can do no wrong. What’s saddest is that he succeeded in gaining the presidency in the first place. I’ll soon be posting on Facebook a comment to this effect: “Somewhere in the USA there’s a factory cranking out morons at an alarming pace. Your mission, if you choose to accept it: Find that factory and shut it down ASAP!”

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    3. I think what you’re politely hinting at is the dreaded, verboten-in-USA notion of an actual socialist revolution. Such cannot possibly be carried out peacefully. But the mob in D.C. represented the scores of millions of my fellow citizens who still support Fascist (I don’t toss the word around carelessly) Trump, even while being plug ignorant of what Fascism even is. Of course, BY DESIGN, they’re more ignorant of Socialism. All they “know” is that “it’s bad,” and they must fear it, oppose it, drown it in its own blood if possible.

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  6. I receive daily tidbits from those whom, in my estimation, are living aware and enlightening lives. These words come offering help to keep me focused on being and becoming a better quality human being; and they strengthen my ability in my struggles to make this world a better place. Here’s one of today’s offerings from a very wise soul.
    He talks about inner engineering a great deal. (For me that comes from a committed relationship with the undefinable presence ….that nameless absolute.) It is from that pure wellspring that empowerment comes. So I believe that this is the “empowered” we should all aim to comprehend and apply in our action of creation.

    “As human beings become more empowered, there is a fundamental need for us to become more conscious and responsible, rather than reactive and compulsive. “

    He seems to have a way for us to proceed and find our way out of this heartless dark space; using a wiser approach that has wisdom as it’s basis for constructing inclusive governing systems. I truly believe we were born for these moments and are here to serve the purpose of a loving peaceful perspective; stay diligent to the principles of this anti war cause and reach an empowered grip to those who have been led so foolishly astray.

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  7. Normally, I see these things when they are over the horizon. This took me by surprise. I gather from articles I have read FOX News is spreading the word Anti-Fa had a lead role in the sacking of the Capitol Building. Like many things on FOX News they have no verifiable proof.

    Hard to deny the fact the mob that broke into the Capital Building were decked out in Trump Gear of one sort or another.

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    1. Intriguing you’d bring up the idea of an organized plot of some sort in relation to yesterday’s mayhem. I immediately considered the idea and rejected it as improbable. Quite literally, too many moving parts and variables. The Orange One had only called for supporters to come to D.C. a few days ago, and there could only have been a handful of people, if any, who knew he’d urge those followers to march to the Capitol. It seems that law enforcement efforts were concentrated around the White House. Leaving aside that “Antifa” is not a formal, cohesive group, I find it unlikely that any outside cabal could acquire/manufacture so many custom signs and banners that quickly. Then there are the stories of where the mob members came from. Our local news last night documented a crew that came from this area. Is it possible there were subversive elements planted in the crowd by some hugely powerful, nameless outside organization? Sure. But I don’t think such a scheme was necessary to achieve yesterday’s results. Dumpf + maniacs = mass mayhem.

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      1. Well, I guess we didn’t expect Trump to personally direct foot traffic to the Capitol. But the stated intent of this mob was, from the outset, to “STOP THE STEAL!” and they in fact succeeded in DELAYING Congress from completing the certification of Trump’s defeat. That’s why members of the mob were high-fiving one another, congratulating themselves on a successful mission.

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    2. Ha-ha, “antifa” in a false flag operation, decked out as Trump supporters!! Priceless! Since I have no truck with Fox “News,” I hadn’t heard of this. But am I surprised? Nope!

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  8. I just listened to an NPR report from a Malcolm Nance, a Security expert of some sort. He said that ISIS was kicking themselves after seeing how easy it would have been to infiltrate the Capitol, just disguise as a Trump lover and get friendly response from the law enforcement. He went on to say just imagine if there had been a small dedicated assassination squad imbedded in those groups who broke into the building. They could have executed every law maker in there along with the VP. He went on to just absolutely torch the failure of the Capitol Police and others responsible for the security of the Capitol, especially during a joint session of Congress along with the VP. Interesting interview. He noted that the police were initially complicit with the mob because they thought they were on their side, his words. As a retired LEO, I know that law enforcement is overwhelmingly and disgustingly in Trump’s camp. I’ve lost friends over the last few months because I refuse to keep quiet when they start going off about shit. I’m the outsider in a group 6 or 8 of us retirees, friends for 40 years, but I’m no longer welcome in the group.

    I also hears one lawmaker, can’t remember who, that said he’s known Pence for decades and never saw him so angry at Trump for “putting him in danger”. Thanks Pence, only get upset when your own skin is at risk.

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    2. I have to say Pence seems to have performed honorably, under all the pressure from above to ram thru this absurd effort to negate the election. Even Trump calling the “reality” of his “victory” “SACRED” (!!) didn’t win Pence over. But these GOP figures now resigning are “a little late” coming to recognize the VILENESS of their boss. They are simply rats abandoning a ship whose sinking is accelerating alarmingly.

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      1. You bring up an issue I was wondering about, watching some of the reporting from both houses of Congress last night. Obviously, Hawley is all-in on the side of chaos and insanity; his nonsensical rant would seem to indicate an actual, literal disconnect with reality. Graham is simply turning his coat yet again, as the wind blows; SOP for him, although I did enjoy his remarks. But there was a small handful of others who seemed genuinely shaken and chagrined. Could there be some changes of heart? I hope so.

        Pence….looked magisterial. He spoke firmly and eloquently, totally in command of the situation. Do I believe for a minute he’s sorry for anything he’s done? Not a chance. A truly deplorable hypocrite.

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        1. Well, Denise, at risk of startling you…allow me to say that (some) people actually are capable of changing for the better!! I saw it in the 4 1/2 years I worked in a substance-abuse recovery program. The large majority always relapses, but there are exceptions. That said, I have always despised Pence’s Bible-thumping, because I have a special enmity for that kind of hypocrisy. But, who knows? As a monkey (if I’m not mistaken) once stated in an old, old cartoon, “People are the craaaa-zee-est monkeys!” Had the monkey been better informed, of course, he would’ve known that people are actually APES, but no one’s perfect, right?

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  9. Here is my takeaway from the Siege of the Capitol Building: It has never been plainer that we now have two major political parties: the RRIP, Reasonably Rational Imperialist Party; and the BCIP, the Batshit Crazy Imperialist Party. Popular support for these is split nearly 50-50, just like the US Senate will now be. Neither is for our interests, we of “the 99%.” But we are eternally trapped in the Lesser Evil quagmire. Even the most Benign Trillionaire (and we’ll have some of those fairly soon I think–Trillionaires, that is, not Benign ones) could not manufacture and “impose” on the nation a viable alternative, a Green Party or Workers Party or such-like. “The System” is simply beyond reform or repair.

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    1. Assuming the truth of your last sentence (and I fear it’s accurate), what do you see as the alternative or the consequences? Do you foresee anarchy? Stalin-esque rule? A formal end to the USA as we know it? The farther downward the country spirals, the more I simply can’t see a positive outcome on any terms. I don’t see the nation as a whole coming to its senses before the edge of the cliff is behind us.

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      1. I found Biden’s statement Wed. afternoon calling for Trump to call off his dogs pretty impressive. It was written, in consultation with professional speechwriters no doubt. I think he was reading from a folder on the dais he stood behind, rather than teleprompter. But I squirmed when he wrapped himself in the flag–the same flag many of the mob were sporting–and I get impression he will conclude all his speeches with the mandatory “God bless America” and his personal addendum of “And may God protect our troops.” Well, Joe, it would help to not place the troops in harm’s way overseas, but that’s a criticism we know we’ll be raising of the new administration as time passes. The problem with appealing to “Patriotism” is that BOTH sides claim to be the “real Patriots”!! Will launching a NEW, widespread war “bring us together again”? That is a very real threat, and absolutely NOT the kind of national unity I would favor. The planet that is our home, everyone’s only home, is desperately in need of rehabilitation–it’s beyond actual “repair” already, tragically–but is appealing for a new Civilian Conservation Corps “sexy” for Americans? I think not. So where does this society go next? I’m afraid I can envision nothing down the road as far as I can see but WORSENING divisiveness and ESCALATING insanity. It all ties in to the Global Crisis of Capitalism that I think “REALDEMOCRACYINIRELAND” was getting at. Global economic and ecological collapse is looming on the horizon. Yes, that will certainly bring anarchy in its powerful wake. Sorry I can’t bring any cheerful “news,” but I have this terrible habit of being completely honest. As individuals, what can we do? We can strive to live morally/ethically–we are each ultimately responsible for our personal conduct–and look for constructive outlets, joining with likeminded people, to try to ameliorate the inevitable suffering to the extent possible.

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        2. mentations from the perspective of an avowed pyrrhonist: the only role of any govt i would subscribe to is one that is empowered to sterilize every fe/male at birth. end of invidious governance. end of species. end of gaia’s ravagement. ‘she’ will then have a few more billion years to recrudesce quondam to her own demise… hopefully w/out an evolutionary repetend of us, the subspecies of ‘Homo sapiens’, i.e. ‘Homo sapiens sapiens’; we are in fact the only subspecies remaining in the Homo genera [praise the equipollent spirits!].

          given that 99.8% of all species which have occupied our planet these billennia have devolved into extinction status, so shall we. the hardy holdouts will be the 4.2 billion-yr-old archaebacteria and cyanobacteria… the architects of simplicity and, in concinnity w/ virions, the engineers of evolution.

          this long-term view is less-unsettling for us tired, indolent donnards-of-doom than the short-term view of socio-politicos, particularly when we have struggled our entire beleaguered lives battling corporate-owned dysfunctional govts who incorporate practices that impede our planet’s more sane and beneficent governance.

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          1. It is a fundamental precept of Buddhism that all entities are IMPERMANENT. Whether this will apply to the Universe as a whole ultimately, we humans will never ever know. And that does not bother me in the least.

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            1. i suspect it would depend on one’s definition of the universe/multiverse/ionic energies of fundamental particles in a time~space continuua that expand w/out limits or boundaries into never-neverland. as you so presciently postulated, greglaxer, “we humans will never ever know”, no matter the deformation or reformation of our denitrified molecules.

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              1. Personally, I think all this “omniverse” stuff is invented by folks with too much time on their hands. No evidence can be elicited for such phenomena, it’s all just theoretical. Ditto for “superstring theory.” That was a “thing” for a while, then was largely discarded. Like Trump, I guess it still has some hardcore supporters, though!

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  10. Will Trump soon pardon himself? From the Guardian:

    Donald Trump has discussed the possibility of pre-emptively pardoning himself before he leaves office on January 20, according to a new report.

    The New York Times reports:

    In several conversations since Election Day, Mr. Trump has told advisers that he is considering giving himself a pardon and, in other instances, asked whether he should and what the effect would be on him legally and politically, according to the two people. It was not clear whether he had broached the topic since he incited his supporters on Wednesday to march on the Capitol, where some stormed the building in a mob attack.

    Mr. Trump has shown signs that his level of interest in pardoning himself goes beyond idle musings. He has long maintained he has the power to pardon himself, and his polling of aides’ views is typically a sign that he is preparing to follow through on his aims. He has also become increasingly convinced that his perceived enemies will use the levers of law enforcement to target him after he leaves office.

    No US president has ever pardoned himself, so it’s unclear whether the order would hold up to legal challenges, but experts told the Times that it could set a very dangerous precedent.

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    1. That’s funny, I remember back when he was running in 2016, the subject of asking for forgiveness came up. The interviewer asked Trump if he believed in asking for forgiveness. Trump replied yes but he’s never had to since he’s never done anything wrong. At that time I still thought he had no chance at the nomination so it was funny to watch.

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      1. Yeah, and I can guarantee to the world that this guy will leave office without admitting to ever having been wrong. Apologize?? Donald J. Trump? Perish the thought!!

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        1. No reason for him to admit culpability. Especially when he has the likes of Ohio’s governor refusing to place any blame on his head. In an interview last night, even when hard-pressed by the interviewer, DeWine repeatedly failed to condemn the incumbent in any terms whatsoever, merely acknowledging that the “call to arms” was a [tactical] mistake.

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        2. Yes. He’ll pardon himself while saying everything he’s ever done as president is “perfect.” And his base will believe him.

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          1. What is the cure for mass insanity? In the “Twilight Zone” episode I cited, the space aliens didn’t high-five one another (that practice was still largely confined to the black community when the story was filmed), but one of them assured the others that (slight paraphrase) “Yes, this is how they [humans] behave everywhere. We just need to move [our operation] from one community to another. One to another, one to another.”

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          2. Interesting language I just heard in a radio news summary: “TROOPS will be moved into the Nation’s Capital to ensure the PEACEFUL transition of power is completed.” ‘Cuz that’s what troops are for, right?

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    2. Yes, Trump believes he has the power to pardon himself. Likewise he believes he won on Nov. 3! IF he goes thru with this new insane action, I picture SCOTUS deciding the case ultimately (i.e. does POTUS have such a power?). And Trump might be in for another unpleasant surprise at SCOTUS, despite the two to one majority of far rightwingers there currently.

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  11. I was in DC and at Mt. Rushmore not long after 9/11. Armed men with rifles were everywhere. At the Capitol Building they were on the roof and at the wall that we saw people climbing yesterday. It was disconcerting to me to be walking past these guys as I went on a tour inside the building.

    Would anyone at the time have been able to predict that it would not be the kind of terrorists planned for at the time, but Americans who would be storming the building and that it would be the president that would have urged them on?

    I highly recommend the book I just finished reading, Strangers in Their Own Land by Arlie Hochschild, a professor from UC Berkeley, who went to Louisiana in an attempt to understand the thinking of the people there. She wanted to jump over the cultural divide in an attempt to bring Americans together. A sociologist, she does an excellent job of building trust with those she meets. They open up to her. She gives them full opportunity to express their thoughts and even constructs what she thinks (and they agree) is a good analogy to their situation, that of people standing in line while seeing others jump in ahead of them.

    By chance the book was completed just after Trump had taken office, over which she found the Louisianans she had lived with over the course of writing the book ecstatic.

    While the author goes all out to try to see the viewpoints of those with whom she disagrees, my take on the book is that is shows a psychopathology, one of people squarely in an environment that contradicts their views but holding to those views regardless. The people are living amid toxic waste producing industries seeing themselves and family members coming down with cancer all around, seeing jobs leave as the factories become automated and in the face of it calling for less regulation of business while cheering on the 1% as capitalist success stories that they might join if only the opportunities were available.

    The guiding principle and it deserves to be in all caps is RESENTMENT. The fantasy persists of black welfare mothers having the easy life on the dole though everyone has either taken welfare payments or has family members who do. As the petrochemical industry destroys Louisiana’s wetlands and causes “Cancer Alley” along the Mississippi between Baton Rouge and New Orleans, the people say that the companies couldn’t have foreseen this and are taking the blame . Everyone makes mistakes, so we can’t blame them because surely the companies didn’t want spills or explosions, or often both at once, to happen.

    When you have reality right before your eyes creating a host of problems yet you insist on imaginative enemies (the government and minorities) with whom you have no contact being out to destroy you and your family and your way of life…what could be better evidence of insanity? Insanity that is sustained by a group of people who share it and a media outlet that feeds it daily for profit. These Louisianan’s hate the idea of victimhood and like to point out how many groups are claiming it: women, blacks, gays. Yet those doing the denouncing are indisputably victims who excuse and support those who make them so!

    This book is Trumpism on full display and it is something that only enlightenment, a change of mindset, can overcome. I wish I could see how people who are so defiantly blind can be helped to see. For all her empathy, the author had no real impact. She even pointed out to them that the “liberal elite” they can’t stand are the real beneficiaries of the attitude in Louisiana. People on the coasts get all the petrochemical products and profits while living far from the toxic waste.

    Maybe the assault on the Capitol will shock some into recognition of Trumpism, but I doubt it. It runs broad and deep.

    Liked by 3 people

    1. Yes, astutely observed. I plan to comment on my own website about this pathology of the White American Working Class. I recommended people check out the classic “Twilight Zone” episode “The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street” (spelling this out for those too young to have ever seen it) because it’s an essay on how easily people can be divided, even next-door neighbors of many years’ duration. But we don’t need malevolent space aliens to work the levers of paranoia, fear and hatred. That’s been quite nicely taken care of internally in our society.

      Liked by 2 people

    2. Resentment, yes. But sometimes resentment is caused by real actions — or inaction — by the government. So, for example, I resent a state of permanent war, I resent that the richest country in the world can’t provide affordable health care for all, etc. I truly resent all of the legalized corruption in our government: the extent to which our elected representatives aren’t “ours” in any meaningful way.

      People need help, and when the government provides them with $600 checks during a global pandemic and a national crisis, a figurative slap in the face, resentment is truly understandable.

      Liked by 2 people

      1. Yes, the Fed. response to the pandemic is shaping up as a classic trainwreck. But I think you’ll find a very large segment of the Trump-favoring public STILL DENIES that it’s even REAL!! Yes, this is how far downhill our nation has slid. There is no easy remedy!!

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  13. No president has ever pardoned himself. Has a Governor ever tried to pardon themselves??? We had some Illinois Governors that went to the slammer I believe the Feds caught them. No law degree for me, past practice seems to carry a lot of weight with the law.

    Like

  14. You know this is a bit laughable in a gallows humor way. Novelists and Film Makers devise all these complex plots for some nefarious sorts to enter into some building to “take out” the leaders. WOW, all that thinking and writing and filming and all they need to do is dress-up in MAGA Gear to get in the front door.

    Think of the casting call for the movie – We need a bunch of fat asses and people who call yell and slobber all over themselves.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. I believe a chief has stepped down, either Chief of Capitol or D.C. Police. Betsy DeVos calling it quits, too. But she had her jollies taking a wrecking ball to Dept. of “Education.” I guess she deserves a break!! [insert very sarcastic emoji here!]

      Like

    2. NY Times columnist Paul Krugman usually writes about economic matters, and has been a lightning rod for the right for many years because they view him as a Keynesian (boo!), [In a nutshell, he’s accused of advocating spending lots of tax dollars to try to stimulate an ailing national economy. As if gov’t doesn’t already provide “welfare” to corporations, especially in the “defense” field, right? But don’t remind Krugman’s critics of that!] Cutting to the chase, his column of Jan. 7 addresses what happened at the Capitol, and urges it’s time to stop trying to appease the rabid mad-dog (my language there) Trumpites among us.

      Like

  16. A few brief notes from someone who has not yet had his Twitter account cancelled for actually reporting on observed reality. This in response to someone who considered President Trump a “fighter”:

    Michael Tracey @mtracey
    “Gave up on Syria withdrawal (after bombing it twice). Gave up on Afghanistan withdrawal. Gave up on infrastructure. I don’t think there’s a wall with Mexico either. Gave up on “getting along with Russia” — did the opposite. Gave up on formally ending Korean War. ‘But he fights’.”

    Michael Tracey @mtracey
    “Also what does “fighting” even mean. All-caps tweets? Trump caved repeatedly throughout his presidency, usually after media/GOP outrage. 2018-9 government shutdown. Claimed he “Misspoke” at the Helsinki summit. 2020 riots. COVID relief bill. You can also train monkeys to ‘fight’.”

    Michael Tracey @mtracey
    “His election fraud “fight” was an epic fiasco. Made the most deranged Russiagate fanatics look sane by comparison. All it achieved was marginalizing and humiliating himself and his supporters (whom he abandoned). It’s like “fighting” by punching yourself repeatedly in the face”

    Michael Tracey @mtracey
    “One lesson of the Trump era is that Republican officials would passionately support a Ham Sandwich for president if the Sandwich was guaranteed to deliver them judges and tax cuts”

    Michael Tracey @mtracey
    “Imagine the psychological state of the mob participants. You (apparently) thought you were helping Trump retain power and save America by doing the intrusion. Instead you cemented his defeat. The next day he denounces you and concedes. And now you are probably going to prison”

    . . .

    Now for the Democrats who cannot wait to get into power so they can cravenly “reach across the aisle” and do what the Republicans demand before losing the House and Senate two years from now as they normally do after “winning” the presidency but doing nothing for the people who elected them. AOC already slipping into the weasel-word euphemisms: “healthcare” instead of “Medicare for All,” “climate justice” instead of Green New Deal, etc. Looking forward to the Dems “in control” of the U.S. Senate by not abolishing the filibuster so that any Republican or Joe Manchin can stymie President Biden/Harris’s “agenda” should it wander anywhere near anti-war or “socialist” progressivism.

    Last but not least, I caught two brief-but-typically nauseous segments on CNN International the other day: one featuring a lady “political analyst” waxing apocalyptic about President Trump “failing to ‘stand up’ to the Russians” (again) about something to do with computers (again), and the other with Mr Moustache Mouth himself, John Bolton, who warned the world about something awful regarding President Trump and a “coup.” This from the guy who led a mob of Republican Congressional staffers down to Florida during the Y2000 election, bursting in upon the poll workers counting ballots, imperiously announcing: “I’m with the Bush campaign, and I’m here to stop the count.” No one knows more about US electoral coups than this motherless cretin who helped orchestrate probably the worst one in US history. CNN really does suck at their “political” coverage. At least Donald J. Trump got that right, not that it did him much good.

    Like

      1. Meanwhile, on Planet Earth, Joe Lauria of Consortium News (January 7, 2021) offers a reasonably sane appraisal of what I prefer to call The Cosplay Coup: Capitol Incident a Dress Rehearsal: The storming of the Capitol may just be a harbinger of things to come.

        [begin quote — bold font for emphasis added]

        With the normalization of mass shootings in the United States it is more than understandable that members of Congress feared for their lives when they learned protestors had forced their way into the Capitol in unknown numbers and were roaming around at will.

        But by the time it was over we knew that: only five weapons were seized by police so most of the intruders were probably unarmed; the only shots fired were by police who killed an unarmed female protestor; video and photos showed the demonstrators taking pictures of chambers and art work like they were tourists; and the occupiers were peacefully led out of the Capitol six hours later. (Had they been anti-racism protestors one wonders how differently it would have ended.)

        A dramatic event such as this is an old-time reporter’s dream, to just describe the facts and details as they emerged, painting a picture in words in print or on the radio. With so many mobile phone pictures and video as well as TV cameras everywhere, that journalistic function has been greatly diminished if not extinguished. In its place are preaching, partisan, editorialists masquerading as mainstream journalists.

        By the time it was over it was clear what had not happened: it wasn’t a “coup,” it wasn’t an “insurrection,” it had nothing to do with Putin, or China or Iran and it wasn’t like Pearl Harbor, as Sen. Chuck Schumer ridiculously tried to call it .

        It wasn’t the storming of a “temple of democracy,” interrupting Congress’ “sacred duty,” or “desecrating” the “hallowed halls” of the Capitol. Such quasi-religious rhetoric inflates the self-importance of officials elevating themselves above the people they are supposed to serve.

        It was not the storming and occupation of the Japanese Embassy in Lima, Peru in 1996 or the 1985 seizure of the Palace of Justice in Bogota, Colombia.

        It was in some ways the downtrodden forcing their existence into the faces of an elitist Congress who serve very powerful interests instead.

        But it was also the delusive manipulation of desperate people by Donald Trump, a master manipulator who for his own interests has somehow convinced millions of Americans that he is their champion whose re-election was stolen from them, even when it is doubtful their lives were much improved over the past four years.

        What this event did is send a message, which went beyond claims of a stolen election, a message that no one in Congress or the media will openly acknowledge, if they’ve gotten the message at all, namely, that as long as Congress and the rest of the Establishment continue to ignore ordinary Americans’ interests and serve only their own, the anger and the desperation in the land will explode, rendering Wednesday’s events merely a dress rehearsal for what may well turn into a full-blown insurrection. Congress must understand this before it’s too late.

        [end quote]

        I think that about covers things.

        Liked by 1 person

        1. Will establishment Democrats get the message and make meaningful changes for the working classes? Or will they continue to serve their corporate masters?

          Time to put people first instead of profit and greed.

          Liked by 1 person

          1. As we used to say, Bill A., “To ask the question is to answer it”! We already know Biden will not be “a new FDR.” If we look at the new Covid-19 stats, seem to definitely be new spikes from holiday gatherings–which was entirely predictable, and WAS predicted. The vaccination program needs to be set aright, and I think Biden will focus on that right upfront. And we peons certainly need more than $600 in assistance. Is it too much to hope for that such issues will keep the new regime from launching any major military aggression? Probably–but there’s a little hope! Wow, how often do I say that??

            Like

      2. I’m still puzzling over what the dude in the buffalo skin getup (or whatever the hell it was supposed to be!) considered himself to be representing!! A little late for Halloween, eh?

        Liked by 1 person

          1. QAnon…buffalo chips! Some kind of connection there. I understand Trump wants to set up his own social media platform, now that finally–FINALLY!–Twitter, etc. decided he’d overstepped the bounds. If Donald isn’t satisfied with the degree of Fascist rhetoric/agitation already available online, can we imagine how vile his own network will be? Surprise, surprise, he doesn’t plan to “go away quietly” post-Jan. 20, or whatever proves to be his actual exit date.

            Liked by 1 person

          2. His own media network to keep his con game going … I’m sure it’s coming. Every other minute will be an ad or commercial for Trump and a call for more donations to take back America.

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            1. I try to remain a realist. But I think there is a glimmer of hope of my wish being granted that, in order to avoid prosecution for tax hanky-panky that preceded his entry into office of POTUS, Donald will pack his whole family and good buddies like Rudy G. and Roger Stone on a private jet and flee our country forever. Since I’ve predicted all along Trump will never do actual prison time, I’ll settle for just getting him and his cronies the hell out of here!!

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                1. If Donald J. Trump ever has to wear a jumpsuit, even for one overnight stay behind bars, I will have to find a nicely edible hat and consume it in public.

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                3. Thanks, pal, you’re a real help!! Should I put a dab of salsa on the hat, will that lubricate it on way down?? Bad enuf I owe Mr. Astore a beer on a prior wager, now look what I might get myself into! But seriously, I don’t think I’m in danger. We don’t know what level of wealth Trump really possesses, but surely he can muster what it would take to flee US soil!!

                  Liked by 1 person

                4. Actually, I think you’ll escape consuming your fedora because the Orange One will escape conviction, if indeed he’s ever charged. I doubt it will even come to the necessity of fleeing the country. He’ll most likely be quite secure from prosecution, and be able to hold court among his various establishments. I hope Cy Vance proves me wrong!

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            2. NY Times says the Confederate flag inside Capitol dome Jan. 6 was a historic first! Yep, leave it to Trumpites to set a precedent like that!

              Like

    1. When it comes to the murder of any LEO, gov’t tends to move swiftly. I hope there is good video of the incident(s) in question.

      Like

  18. Pingback: The Capitol! Storm it, Take What You Want; Real Justice! - LA Progressive

  19. I am a little tired of hearing how the people who stormed the Capitol are the poor and downtrodden. I work with people who are really poor. They don’t have the money to travel anywhere, let alone to another city, pay for hotel bills, and pay for food from restaurants.

    So I would like to see some evidence on the income range of the people who were storming the Capitol.

    Liked by 4 people

      1. Likely all 50 states were “represented,” and I think I heard two residents of my own state have been ID’d and arrested (for property damage, I’m guessing). Reports stated some notorious White Supremacists were ID’d as having penetrated the Capitol. They have the funds to travel and agitate, yes. Certainly I have no sympathy with these yahoos, but in fairness we should bear in mind that some may have lost their relatively well-paid jobs due to the pandemic * (yeah, the pandemic so many of them have called “fake”!). So they may have spent their last cash on hand to travel to D.C.! Then again, maybe they’ll take out some more cash against their credit cards to donate to Trump’s legal defense fund!!

        * And, reportedly, some who were still working have been fired due to their participation Wednesday! I wonder if they’d called out sick to try to cover their tracks? And then livestreamed themselves from the riot, huh? We know these folks are largely not the brightest lightbulbs in the carton!! Else they wouldn’t be such easy prey for fascist demagogues.

        Liked by 1 person

    2. What inspiring commentaries, and what hopeful prospects they imply!

      Aha! The question of economic interest! Or to put it another way, the real class interest expressing itself as the content of any given behaviour?

      Yes, not too many poor people were seen acting as ignorant thugs in the Capitol Invasion, I reckon. This question of class (as a scientific category) is at the root of the confusion dominating The American Ideology which has, unfortunately, become the US’ biggest and most rancid export. I was born in 1947 in Dublin – a city which had not long before, experienced a failed revolution in 1922. My father, a clever man, hadn’t yet realised his respected work as a journalist and newspaper contributor had also rendered him downwards into the ranks of the working class as a salaried toiler.

      20 years later, together we explored the work of the Irish Marxist leader James Connolly whom he had known briefly and admired. But he had never seriously examined or understood the intellectual disposition of the author of “Labour In Irish History”. Now together, we both began to understand why the revolution in which he had participated had been so easily defeated by class treachery to produce one of the most backward societies in Europe for 50 years.

      His comfortable childhood had begun in 1898 as the child of a small but successful businessman – an artisan manufacturer. It proved to be a very busy half century! But not as hectic as the second one in which I was to grow up. And how should we grasp the first fifth of C21? Human technology and economic practice has yet again altered the fundamentals of socio-economic function in ways beyond any likely anticipation. As it always does!

      Each individual human life occurs in the context of social existence, even if the the great and the good rigidly choose not to “believe” all that. They control – and have diluted – the great potential of education and creative training so as to dumb down the rest of us, whom they regard as the hoi poloi. We must exceed their stupid and insulting characterisation.

      Thus they deny the actual practical and theoretical historic developmental which is the content of collective human advancement – our culture. Supposing instead, an unchanging human nature which is an ignorant fiction. Hence their infatuation with Qanon hysterical individualism – substituting objective conditions with an unmediated mess of subjective experience. This is the route to disaster, as well exemplified by Herr Hitler and his gang, and the whole awful living heritage of Fascism – nowadays disguising itself in ever-new hysterical forms and false identities. But it still serves only the the oligarchy of theft.

      We must learn to apply critical thinking to all these weird and unwonderful eminences which the ruling class conjures up from time to time to distract rational consideration. We must name them for what they are t expose their vile purpose.

      Truth is not a matter of subjective opinion. It is the verifiable outcome of honest objective analysis which produces a new theory which may be verified in practice, – until it too is superseded by deeper understandings achieved through further critical contemplation and pragmatic activity.

      The US as a society is beginning to grow up now, for the first time in my long life, and it is wonderful to witness this. I lived to oppose the Viet Nam War Crime, and the many sad adventures since, but even the brave home-grown US opposition to this savagery failed to develop the theoretical cognition necessary to overcome these instances of class warfare.

      But now, to my delight, BLM and the as yet disorganised tendencies which self-identify as Antifa, are learning to use scientific method, and seemingly without lapsing into static scientism! Thinking at last, about what they do for the first time since Malcolm X tried to think outside the box of conventional wisdom to try to create real reflections of the objective external.

      A new generation is now working to produce ever-more authentic understandings of this living movement (and their own best contribution within it) of our own social development. And hopefully, perhaps even while I am still around to happily see it, they will seize the moment and transform Imagined America from a nightmare into a worthy and real dream. Observing real events, and attempting to correctly analyse their potentials, I am very sure such a revolutionary transformation is already under way.

      Our role must be to encourage, guide, and support their interventions. Carpe diem.

      Liked by 1 person

      1. As I have observed here in the past, the “educational” system in US is practically dedicated to obliterating awareness of the class nature of this and basically all other societies. It seems like those college professors who’ve been accused by the far right of being overwhelmingly “Marxists” (ha! ha! ha!) have been performing splendidly on behalf of the Ruling Class. Hmm.

        Liked by 2 people

  20. I don’t know. I feel “torn” by two strangely compelling impulses. On the one hand I feel the irresistible oratory of Donald Trump “agitating” and “instigating” me to “do stuff” (“wittingly or unwittingly”) with barely coherent mouth noises or spell-marks approximating them emanating from his cell phone. On the other hand, I feel the sway of Russian President Vladimir Putin “hacking” not just my country’s wide-open computer systems but “hacking my mind” (thank you Fareed Zakaria) as well. In response, I can hardly decide whom I want my draconian government to censor first or which of my few remaining freedoms I wish Big Brother tech firms to take from me at the insistence of my own “elected representatives” (and even some deluded fellow citizens). Decisions, decisions.

    Liked by 2 people

    1. Or, in a less sarcastic manner, Jimmy Dore converses with Glenn Greenwald (The Jimmy Dore Show, November 23, 2020) on the subject of American citizens begging their government to “protect” them from hearing, seeing, and reading stuff from an apprentice cable-tv con man putting on a ludicrous comedy act (sort of like the hapless comedian/president of Ukraine) as “Leader of the Free World,” or some such idiotic conceit:

      [Begin transcript excerpt]

      Jimmy Dore: “Now, Glenn, ever since the hysteria over Russia-gate, there’s been a culture developing that calls for Internet censorship. We even see figures on the corporate left calling for censorship, pleading for the unaccountable authority of faceless Silicon Valley employees to protect us from our own thoughts and the thoughts of others. Can you tell me, how did we get here?”

      [1:01] Glenn Greenwald: “What’s so interesting, Jimmy, is that Facebook and Google and Twitter never wanted the power and the responsibility to regulate our discourse or censor, not because they’re good, benevolent people who believe in freedom, but because it wasn’t in their interest to take on this responsibility. The model they wanted to implement was the one that AT&T has, which is, we’re just a content neutral platform. We have no responsibility for the information or the ideas that go over our wire. Nobody, for example, expects that if Alex Jones calls Milo Yanopoulos and they have a conference call and AT&T is going to intervene and cut off their service, because AT&T is a content-neutral platform. That’s what Facebook and Google and Twitter wanted to be. Because that way they would make more money and they wouldn’t have this responsibility.”

      [1:53] “The reason they started having to censor is because journalists — journalists — began demanding that they do so. They have employees at the New York Times and CNN and NBC whose only job is to troll the Internet looking for people who violate the rules. They’re like little middle-school tattle-tail hall monitors and they say why if Facebook giving voice to this person. Why is twitter not yet banning this person? And they’ve created this public demand that has foisted upon these companies not just the duty to censor. And just last week that had a bunch of tech executives like Mark Zuckerberg and Jack Dorsey, the CEO of Alphabet, the parent company of Google in before a Senate committee and Ed Markey, the Democrat from Massachusetts who the Left — the actual, like, Left — like the little Sunrise Movement kids and all those like got behind to defeat Joe Kennedy III said to Mark Zuckerberg: ‘Our problem with you is not that you’re censoring too much. It is that you’re NOT censoring ENOUGH’.”

      [2:57] “Here’s a post we think you should take off the Internet. And here’s another one we think you should ban. This is what they’re going to do in power. They’re going to pressure these social media companies even more. And if people on the left think that this is only going to be aimed at the right, you’re fucking stupid. The whole idea of censorship is to eliminate any dissenting voices that challenge institutions of power. And they hate the Left every bit as much as they hate the right.”

      [3:24] “They convince people to support this on the Left by saying, Oh, look. We’re only going to do it against Alex Jones. And it’s already starting against the Left and it’s only going to get worse.”

      Jimmy Dore: “It’s amazing that the people on the Left, still to this day, I just had a confrontation on Twitter with a lefty journalist who still stands by calling for censorship, with no adversarial process, just letting Mark Zuckerberg censor someone without anything. And even to this day, as they’re being censored, they’ll still stand by their call to censor someone else. Like the problem is: Do they really not understand, Glenn, that you don’t get to choose, pick and choose who gets censored once you start censoring? It’s out of your hands and that it’s going to come back on you, especially if you’re on the Left and you challenge the status quo. That’s who they’re going to use censorship against. How is it that people on the Left don’t understand this?”

      [4:21] Glenn Greenwald: “You know, that’s always the amazing thing to me about censorship advocates is this idea that they’re going to have this imaginary world where institutions of authority are going to censor benevolently in order to defend the marginalized. It’s such a radical misunderstanding of how power operates. Say to a leftist: What do you think of the U.S. government? And they’ll say, Oh, the US government is authoritarian and fascist. And if you ask: What do you think of the federal judiciary? And they’ll say, Oh, it’s filled with right-wing, law-and-order judges, because that’s who Reagan and Bush and Trump appointed, which is true. And then it’s like, What do you think of tech executives, billionaires in Silicon Valley? And they’ll say they’re hideous, they’re horrible, they’re right wing oligarchs, which is true. And then you say, like, Are you in favor of giving those institutions, the ones you just condemned and denounced as fascist authoritarian oligarchs, the power to control the Internet and regulate? — ‘Oh, yes. Absolutely. We need to protect the marginalized.’ Why would you think that that is how they are going to do it?”

      [5:21] “Censorship is always aimed, always aimed, at the marginalized. Not the powerful. That’s the nature of it. It’s a minoritarian right, free speech, because it’s always people with minority views who are aimed at by censorship. . . .”

      [End transcript excerpt]

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      1. Short and sweet warning of yet another cosplay “crisis” that the Imperial Oligarchy will lose no time in exploiting.

        Michael Tracey @mtracey
        “By the way, Trump totally cucked — didn’t join the march as promised, quickly told the mob to go home, and then conceded sheepishly the next day. It’s over. It was a farce. The real “threat” at this point is crazed oligarchs + politicians using the “crisis” to consolidate power”

        Michael Tracey @mtracey
        “I’ll always be against exploiting “crises” with corporate propaganda tactics designed to justify the suppression of speech and curtailment of civil liberties, thus making society more authoritarian and stunted. In the moment, counteracting hysteria tends to make people mad. Good”

        Like

        1. Have been seeing quite a few articles in the last couple days regarding “censorship.” Despite the slippery slope arguments, I still think there’s nothing wrong with reining in incitements to violence and physical harm to people and property. If someone tries to post, “Calling on all true patriots to break into, take over, and vandalize the Capitol on Wednesday, January 6th. Bring your guns. Here’s what to do…..” l have no problem with a platform’s refusal to publish it. Or with deletion of the post. If a leader stands in front of a rowdy crowd and urges them to be strong and march down the Mall to the Capitol to “stop the steal,” I have no problem with that person’s being muzzled and charged with inciting a riot. Such things can’t be undone, and once the called-for action is set in motion, it’s too late.

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          1. Got an email from AOC asking me to sign a petition that all sitting lawmakers who encouraged the violence at the Capitol be expelled! How would that even work? I should think a majority vote would be required. Are Members of Congress going to vote to expel themselves? Rethink needed, methinks.

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            1. Theoretically possible, though, depending on how one defines “encouraging.” Thirteen senators originally objected to certifying the election, so plenty left to vote for expulsion. Similar with the 140 House members. If a simple majority would work, it would be doable. Not an iota of probability, but technically, yeah.

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        2. Yes. If you’re inciting people to riot on FB or Twitter etc., or spewing racism, etc., you should expect to be blocked. You have no right to create havoc and harm by shouting “fire!” in a crowded theater.

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          1. Right up to this crisis, of course, Twitter continued to treat Trump with kid gloves, tolerating any vile racist/xenophobic stuff he spewed. And his endless, endless absurd lies. FB started to post notices that what POTUS was posting was simply not true. Obviously Trump’s supporters found that risible. Just as the kid-glove treatment of the rioters by LEOs was risible. Risible, and permitting five deaths to occur.

            Liked by 1 person

        3. One thing that upsets me here is how FB, Twitter, etc. are now posturing about being concerned for public safety. Among so many other entities, they’ve profited from Trump for 4+ years. Twitter has loved Trump and all his traffic; same with FB. They’ve loved all the money he’s made them. And they’ve had no problems with him issuing violent threats in the past, e.g. to obliterate countries like North Korea or Iran.

          But now, at the very end of Trump’s term, they finally discover he’s a con man who spews violent and hateful rhetoric. Who knew?

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          1. Or, in other words, “Follow the money.” As for threatening to obliterate another nation and all its millions of individual human beings, well…that’s called another day at the office at CIA!!

            Liked by 1 person

          2. I wonder how many have read
            Yasha Levine’s Surveillance Valley
            Brilliant explanation of the birth of this medium we all use for communication.
            The military built it and they have complete control over most all it’s functions.
            Sgt. Schultz used to say …
            “ I know nothing!”
            Well I believe every company that is based in this medium of idea exchange has someone in house and directing ideas from a prominent position that has deep ties to the MIC…
            They say
            “I know everything! Even what you will do before thinking you want to do it.”

            Liked by 1 person

            1. I have never attempted to access “the Dark Web,” but we’ve known for a long time that any activity we engage in on the “regular” internet is subject to monitoring, if only for “innocent” (irritating) attempts to sell us stuff. “Caveat emptor” should have been the watchword from the outset using the Web, which has turned into the leading source of DISinformation on the planet.

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    2. From a Farming Perspective….
      What one sows, one will reap
      Truth plowed in this life so deep
      It makes me ponder in wonder
      Have the owners of our farmhands
      In our fair fields of Washington DC
      Ever invested in GMO infected seeds
      Exporting them into offshore meadows
      Expecting modified crops to sprout
      Importing compliant yields
      Profiteering is what life’s about
      Do they think it so odd
      When similar seeds sprout
      Insurrections invading green terrain
      Their sharecroppers cower
      While pestilence strips bare
      The facade of their military power
      There’s Beetles at the pasture gate
      That taxman’s levee is now overdue
      Longhairs reveal language on banners
      Instant karma’s gonna get you
      Gonna knock you off your feet
      While the mountains remain filled
      With disillusioned lost sheep

      Like

  21. Isn’t is amazing how quickly Nancy Pelosi & Crew are moving to impeach Trump? With ten days left in office?

    If only they could move that quickly on single-payer healthcare for all, or a Green New Deal, or a $15 minimum wage, or ending the AUMF.

    Like

    1. I would be delighted to see enuf GOP support to impeach & remove to have it actually transpire. Absurd to do it this late in the game? I argue no. It was impossible to achieve as long as GOP in Senate said “Nyet!” If that situation has changed then, yes, let Congress declare that POTUS instigating violence against the Legislative Branch is not acceptable. Let’s get this in the historical record!

      Like

      1. Besides, he can be impeached even AFTER he’s out of office, according to my reading. Apparently, there’s precedent. Not useful in the immediate timeframe, but effective in putting an end to any future aspirations.

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        1. I’ve been pooh-poohing the idea of Daddy Trump running again, assuming he was still alive and at large in 2024. The younger members of that KKKlan? It’s possible, actually possible (I ain’t saying probable, dig?) that by time of next election they’ll have come to understand that their hours in the limelight are over, done with, kaput!

          Like

          1. Possible, yeah. But I think that for those KKKlanners to see the light, it will have to get a LOT uglier in this country that it is now, before it gets better. It could well be a very, very dark process.

            Like

    2. Healthcare, a living wage, a better environment? Pfffttt! Those are for the little people. Now, it’s personal! Minions of the Orange Menace made Madame Speaker hide in the basement! THAT requires immediate action to remedy!

      Like

      1. Yes! Inflict the most damage by….
        Passing meaningful legislation it’s s the best form of remedy and if I’m not mistaken; will help stabilize the nation’s mood. We have wasted enough time energy and resources chasing after this false prophet. Isolate and ignore, keep him out of the headlines and focus on contacting your elected officials to increase their focus on cleaning up our environmental health, our food supply, our right to privacy, our public infrastructure, truth in history classes, de-funding the war economy, investments in preventative health care, universal healthcare, local and postal banking systems, education without cost ….forever for anyone interested.
        Go ahead elected leaders, stop listening to your big boss men, listen to your hearts; come together and focus on a commitment to the people, and for the people, and possibly, for the first time in your elected career. You just might sleep better at night.

        Liked by 1 person

          1. Title of an Akira Kurosawa movie about corporate/governmental corruption (and the Japanese have made some very explicit films about this): “THE BAD SLEEP WELL.” And so it goes.

            Liked by 1 person

  22. As Caitlin Johnstone, the always excellent Australian lady observer of reality, notes in her distinctively incisive way:

    “In response to pressures from all directions including its own staff, Twitter has followed Facebook’s lead and removed Donald Trump’s account.

    And it wasn’t just Trump. Accounts are vanishing quickly, including some popular Trump supporter accounts. I myself have lost hundreds of followers on Twitter in the last few hours, and I’ve seen people saying they lost a lot more.

    It also wasn’t just Trump supporters; leftist accounts are getting suspended too. The online left is hopefully learning that cheering for Twitter “banning fascists” irrationally assumes that (A) their purges are only banning fascists and (B) they are limiting their bans to your personal definition of fascists. There is no basis whatsoever for either of these assumptions” [emphasis added].

    Good and truthful observations, except for the phrase “The online left is hopefully learning . . .” Every time I hear mouth noises that sound like “Russian . . .” or “hacking . . . ” or “Pearl Harbor . . .” from someone on CNN or MSNBC (quoting Adam Schiff or Nancy Pelosi or Chuck Schumer, et al) complaining of Donald Trump’s ignorant, lazy, and inept “fascism” (as opposed to their own junior-varsity version) I consign the concept of learning to sentient species other than those spineless worms calling themselves “Democrats.” You know, those cucks like Bernie Sanders who cringe and retreat at the mere thought of their fellow-right-wing corporatists (like Michael Bloomberg) cynically taunting them with the label — “left,” as if any such anti-war, working-class political organization actually existed in the Empire’s US Marketing Territory. Call a corporate Democrat a “leftist” and they’ll soil their own diapers just to save the Republicans the trouble of publicly ordering them to shit.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. Trump is a master of Twitter. To deny him access to it is to deny him much of his power.

      It may be merited and even necessary, but perhaps it’s really all about neutering any populist movement that challenges the bought-and-paid-for duopoly.

      Put differently, Trump has outlived his usefulness to the owning class and now they’re putting him down.

      Like

      1. Please, Mr. Astore, don’t add to the further degradation of the word, and the concept, of Populism!! There is no progressive strain of populism loose in this society at present. A Fascist demagogue sending a mob to sack the Capitol is no “populism.”

        Liked by 1 person

        1. Agreed. Progressive populism has been suppressed, with Bernie Sanders slapped down and put in his place. Because Russia.

          Trump, of course, was and is a con man, but he used populist elements in his campaign. “Drain the swamp,” for example. He even promised health care for all, cheaper and better than Obamacare. Of course, he had no intent to deliver on these populist elements, but he did recognize their appeal.

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          1. Yes, thereby perfectly fitting the very definition of DEMAGOGUE. And pretty well half our nation’s citizens support this guy!!

            Liked by 1 person

          2. No, it’s not that bad, Greg. Remember that roughly half of Americans don’t vote at all.

            I also think that a sizable % of Trump voters don’t embrace all of his hate, and/or they just found Hillary and Joe to be uninspiring, to put it mildly.

            Yes, too many people support him. Millions. And we must break the spell.

            Liked by 1 person

            1. You’re giving “these people” (oh, my) far too much credit for being RATIONAL, I’m afraid. After all these years, if one still embraces Trump one has to be embracing every vile aspect of him there is is my view. CNN opinion poll says “only” (my observation) about 50% of our fellow citizens support immediate impeachment or removal from office by another means. That corroborates the votes cast on Nov. 3. Seventy+ million citizens voted for Trump.

              Liked by 1 person

            2. I think what you say about not embracing the hate MIGHT have been applicable in 2016, but now….one can’t support the Dumpster without implicitly endorsing the whole package.

              Like

  23. My wife just gave me a run-down of the Taiwanese political analysis on the news channels here in Kaohsiung. Where Americans speak of a lame duck politician about to leave office, in the case of Donald Trump the Chinese speak of “beating the drowning dog.” How the dog’s 74 million owners feel about that remains for the future to reveal . . .

    The local TV talking heads, or “political animals,” harbor suspicions that another, unspoken agenda motivates the hysteria surrounding Trump supporters treating themselves to an unguided tour of the Capitol Building. The analysts say that Donald Trump and his rabid cult followers scare both Democrats and Republicans to death and neither want to face him in a future election, primary or general. The Republicans don’t want to alienate their own party’s base, so they will get the Democrats to neuter Trump for them, even with only 10 days left to “impeach” him before he leaves office.

    The Democrats will, no doubt, do as instructed, if they can, while Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, Mike Pompeo, Mike Pence, and Nikki Haley silently wish them all the “success” in the world.

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    1. I hadn’t thought of that, Mike. But it makes sense. The two corporate-owned rightwing parties, by which I mean the Dems and Repubs (but I repeat myself), would love to see Trump and his allies eliminated from the playing field, mainly because they’re too unpredictable and could actually turn populist and give the people something.

      So let the Dems do the dirty work, opening the door for Rubio et al. in 2024.

      Like

      1. Following your suggestion about using URLs for images in comments, I copied an image from the Moon of Alabama blog that combined paintings from art history and current cell phone photos to establish some context for the events in Washington, D.C. on January 6, 2021.

        Then I tried using my GIMP photo editor to merge two relevant images I located on the Internet years ago which seem timeless in their relevance.

        From Donald Rumsfeld’s dismissive “some kid with a vase” (as rampaging hordes looted priceless treasures from Baghdad’s National Museum) to the rest-of-the-world’s yawning: “some yokel with a podium.” Karma, pure and simple. “Oh, the Horror!”

        Anyway, I just posted the URLs and we’ll have to see what happens . . .

        Liked by 1 person

      2. Maybe it’s been published somewhere in the many varied “verses” that contain commentary and punditry. But I haven’t been able to find it out in the open, yet.
        But just what are Washington’s bosses saying about the mayhem in the drafting rooms of elite corporate engineering. Has any of our countries “best” of the billionaire class decided to utter some wisdom about how the common human being is supposed to proceed. Since this is and has not been a government of, by, and for the common human being for a long, no…. too long a time; I’m curious just what ideas they have about their bought and paid for, imbalanced form of governance, and the foolish outcomes it continues to produce. I can only deduce that the silence that their gilded crickets are manifesting is a wink and a nod that missions are being accomplished. A nation divided against itself….

        Like

        2. Maybe start your reply to those whom you see as the common, dusty, unwashed, un-enlightened and unfit to rule “class” of human beings…
          May I help you find the starting point to reference a proper response…
          Locate your heart center
          Turn off your calculating mind…
          Let these words come forth…
          Please accept our heartfelt apologies….
          Go ahead
          Swallow your pride
          You will not die
          It is not poison

          Like

      3. What would Trumpites, “turning populist,” give the people, pray tell? Enuf rope to lynch every politician and elected official perceived as being “Liberal” perhaps?? That’s about all I can think of. What did Hitler & Co. give the German people? They thought they were on top of the world in the initial blitz victories, but ultimately they got starvation, bombed-out cities, death for themselves. Great deal they got!

        Liked by 1 person

        1. My thoughts run along the same lines there. The Orange-ites have nothing substantive to offer, as their entire agenda consists of seizing power for themselves. Sorta like politicians in general.

          Like

  24. I have not read all the comments but this long superb essay by historian, Prof Timothy Snyder is an absolute must read for every American, no matter what her/his political affiliation.

    Like

    2. From the above mentioned article:

      “Truth defends itself particularly poorly when there is not very much of it around, and the era of Trump — like the era of Vladimir Putin in Russia — is one of the decline of local news. …”

      Typical, tedious red-baiting from the New York Times. Definitely not an absolute read for Americans or anyone else.

      Also this:

      “No true fascist would have made the mistake he [Trump] did there, which was to openly love foreign dictators” . . .

      (1) Dealing respectfully with foreign leaders does not mean that one “loves” them (openly or otherwise). The rest of the world regards that as simple Diplomacy 101. Even an ignoramus like Donald Trump seemed to understand that. Only rank foreign-policy amateurs demonize leaders of other nation states in pursuit of domestic political advantage. And as to what constitutes a “dictator” — or “Emperor” — the typical US president (in reality an Imperial Provincial Governor) usually fits the description in all too many ways, as do legions of actual dictators that the US installs and nurtures on a regular, continuing basis. Americans really ought to give up criticizing foreign governments and their leaders. The world has grown exceeding fed up with the arrogance and hypocrisy.

      (2) Anyway, since [Trump] failed to do what a “true fascist” would do, then it follows that we need not regard him as a true fascist, QED. If only other US presidents would also fail at that “fascist” thing.

      As for scary images of the Cosplay “Fascist” Insurrectionists “flipping off” or “mooning” the US government that has failed and betrayed them:

      http://themisfortuneteller.com/images/PBs Moon Anti-FA Cosplay 2.jpeg

      Or this:

      Somehow, I find this sort of thing more amusing than frightening: sort of like a quintessentially American mix-up where Tea-Party pretenders, Civil War re-enactors, and “sweet transvestites” from The Rocky Horror Pictured Show find themselves thrown together at a Star Trek convention with other cosplayers dressed up as Romulans and Klingons — all of them singing in unison: “Let’s do the Time Warp again” (meaning vastly different things by the words “time” and “warp”) No. Not frightening. Pathetic, perhaps. More like 1966, the year after I graduated from high school when our football team finally won a game after mostly losing for years. Some of my friends got into the back of one guy’s pick-up truck, and — as they drove by in front of the other school — dropped their pants displaying their naked buttocks while loudly bellowing the refrain to a popular Bob Dylan song: “How does it feel? How does it FEEL?”

      Finally, the author of this New York Times article might have consulted Neil Postman’s book, Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business — published in 1985 decades before the “era” of either Donald Trump or Vladimir Putin. Donald Trump did not invent “Trumpism.” He found it already built and just waiting for exploitation after a string of predecessor “presidents” and “congresses” and “courts” gave him a corporate-owned oligarchy, cattle-call beauty pageants, mail-order university-degree scams, and “reality” cable television shows from which to learn. And now the Sixty-Four-Dollar Question: “Who will learn from Trump?”

      Liked by 1 person

      1. It looks like the URL for the first cosplay “mooning” image might have needed “%20” (for “space”) inserted between parts of the image-file address. So, I’ll try again:

        Like

      2. Dealing respectfully with foreign leaders does not mean that one “loves” them (openly or otherwise). The rest of the world regards that as simple Diplomacy 101.
        I guess, “Diplomacy 101” means different things to different people and how it is practised.

        Like

        1. So, words mean different things to different people? How insightful.

          More substantively: Since when did the Empire’s US Marketing Territory (and it’s Provincial Governor, quaintly called “president”) ever believe in — much less engage in — Diplomacy? Not for a very long time. I do credit the Obama Administration for at least flirting with actual diplomacy when it signed the JCPOA nuclear understanding with Iran and several European countries. But it took only a tiny bit of Zionist bullying before Donald Trump dismissed all that patient negotiating with a stroke of a crayon — while both right-wing factions in Congress happily went along without a whimper of opposition.

          The US Marketing Territory (the Empire’s largest and most indebted fast-food franchise) more typically believes in Takie-It-or-Take-It ultimatums. But diplomacy, as I understand this ancient practice, means consideration of competing state interests and compromise leading to win-win outcomes, especially those that avoid the catastrophe of war. I think I understand what “Diplomacy” means, or at least what it used to mean. I see signs of this fundamental understanding on the part of other significant world leaders, such as Russia’s Vladimir Putin and China’s Xi Jinping, but none whatsoever from the neo-con/neo-liberal fanatics like Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, and Victoria Nuland — all of them and more of their ilk besides — about to infest the Empire’s incoming US Provincial Governate. Pontius Pilate or Pompous Pilot, take your pick.

          But, again, cheap slander and libel directed at foreign leaders like Vladimir Putin — and the imputation that American presidents haplessly serve “Russian” interests — has proven not only counter-productive, but disastrous for the former democratic republic located primarily — geographically and administratively — somewhere between Canada and Mexico.

          Like

  25. Many of these “protesters” literally believe they were on a mission from God — or Trump — the same thing? It’s cult-like in which they define their own “truth.” Freedom is believing.

    Like

    1. Frankly, I’m kind of shocked at the outbreak of virulent hostility toward Pence. This really seems to be an “all loyalty to the Fuhrer” “mindset” at work.

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      1. I’ve come to a bit of a break in working on my first novel, so should be able to post a commentary soon on my personal website. The title of the essay will be something like: “Immaculate Deception: Bamboozling the white working class.” Can’t wait, can ya?

        Like

      2. Yep, that’s deeply frightening, and concerning. For people to openly admit that they share the incumbent’s hatred of the “other, ” his beliefs in “fake news,” and so on….we as a country are in serious trouble.

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  27. Once again we’re witnessing Republicans, in the main, kowtowing to Trump and “the base,” no matter what. Whereas Democrats, in the main, do their absolute best to marginalize and silence their base. Which is why there’s no left or even leftist party in America.

    Republicans who think that Pelosi is a “leftist” are truly deluded. Sure, she’ll make noises about genderless pronouns in Congress and the like, but on any policy that’s meaningful, like health care and Covid relief, she kowtows to her owners and donors. That’s not a leftist; that’s a craven corporate stooge.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. Well, it ain’t exactly “news” that US politics has run the English language thru a meat grinder for a long time now. “Left,” “Right,” “Liberal,” “Conservative,” largely rendered meaningless, just names to be thrown at one’s opponent. As for Speaker Pelosi and more Covid relief, I think something will be happening after Jan. 20.

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  28. Hey everyone: check out Denise’s new article at her site, which focuses on Pence and the options to get rid of Trump in a way that sends a message.

    https://i-know-right.blog/2021/01/12/papering-over-the-cracks

    And here’s my response to her blog post: I think Pence still has presidential ambitions and needs “the base,” hence his decision to oppose invoking the 25th amendment. Also, he may believe it’s better for others (the Democrats) to do the dirty work of trying to remove Trump. Why should he dirty his pure Christian hands? Let Pelosi & Co. handle it.

    So it’s yet another impeachment, this time well-deserved. If inciting a mob to storm the U.S. Capitol and imperiling Congress isn’t impeachable, what is?

    Like

    2. Great point about Dems doing the dirty work. In this case, though, they should be honored to do so, although it’s their job. There’s an argument to be made that they’re obligated to defend their branch of the government.

      Like

    3. I don’t think Pence’s political career is over, but note how absolutely loyal Trump’s hardest-core supporters are to Fuhrer Trump. They’ll actually turn against Jesus’s Little Helper (my pet name for Pence) if Donald criticizes him publicly.

      Liked by 1 person

      1. In a Counterpunch article from yesterday, commentator Joshua Frank echoed your point, Greg. He said that the incumbent has convinced his followers that he, and ONLY he, is the one who can fix anything. Which explains the Orange minions’ new hatred of Pence. He was merely a tool, and now that he’s “broken,” he’s been kicked to the curb and excoriated for his betrayal.

        Like

        1. Pence has contributed to this by being a cipher. Basically he’s stood in the background these four years, nodding his head along to Trump. As far as VPs go, Pence has been even more of a cardboard cutout than they usually are. And cardboard cutouts are so easily discarded when they no longer serve their purpose.

          Liked by 1 person

          1. For a little while, Pence was supposedly in charge of the pandemic response. Trump declares pandemic “fake,” then appoints his VP to oversee response? No wonder we’re in the mess we’re in! At least Pence agreed to be vaccinated. What, Jesus would let you down and let you get sick, Mike?!?

            Liked by 1 person

          2. I think Pence was a proponent of “pray the gay away,” the idea gay people can be “cured” through prayer.

            So why not just pray Covid away?

            Like

            1. I think some televangelist tried to pray a hurricane away from Florida many years ago. Didn’t exactly succeed, as I recall.

              Like

        2. Pence’s value to GOP in steering “Evangelicals” to voting places cannot be understated, though. He, of course, pursued very rightwing policies as Gov. of Indiana. I wouldn’t be surprised if he tried to regain the latter position. Trump has zero personal loyalties, he probably doesn’t have a single REAL friend in the world!! Boo-hoo, poor little Donald.

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          1. The abject, entirely personal loyalty to Chump is what disturbs me. It is indeed a cult, and its members are immune to reason and reality.

            I don’t think Pence has the charisma or the testicular fortitude to be as dangerous, however extreme his theocratic views.

            Like

            1. It would’ve been The Shocker of the Century had Pence agreed to seek removal of Trump via 25th Amendment!!

              Like

  29. Wonderful post, I thoroughly enjoyed reading it so thank you for sharing! I also recently posted an article on my blog about Trump’s second impeachment. I’m not from America so share a more external perspective, but would be really interested to hear your thoughts on my article if you have time! Wishing you all the best 🙂

    Like

  30. Pingback: Did Democrats Learn Nothing from the Rise of Trump? - LA Progressive

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