so.. We Need to Talk About This
4On January 6th, I was so shocked by what was happening that I couldn't even think straight to fully articulate myself. I just shared news, and did my best to attack right wing hypocrites. This deserves a full discussion though.
I think the reason why what we witnessed yesterday was so shocking for me... Growing up in the 90s I really thought bad times were a thing of the past. Wars, racism, sexism, riots. It looked to me like it was all dead, things you read in the history book.
I know now that it had never gone away, I just got lucky to have a privileged life to not really see it. And to some degree it had at least been burried a little - just only an inch deep and not 6 feet under.
All it took was one insane ego maniac to dig it up and put it on a pedestal like it's something to be proud of to tear it all apart. He whipped the right wing base which had been ashamed to even show itself into a fervor and basically made the base his policy.
Something no president has done before, they've all appealed to moderates until then. Its how you win. Democrats were complacent, Hillary was an unappealing candidate. Even so a huge amount of blame rests on anyone who identifies as left of center who refused to vote for Hillary. I didn't like her, but I voted for her anyway because even just as a candidate it was obvious Trump was unhinged. Status quo was better than living in a conservative hellscape - and that's what we got.
I really hoped him appealing to his base so hard was just a way to scam those fucking idiots into voting for him. (And yes no after yesterday I don't pull punches, if you voted for Trump you're an idiot, if you did it a second time you're deplorable, if you support what happened yesterday you aid and embed terrorists.) I thought maybe since he had been a democrat earlier in his life, some of that might come through. But no, his ego is out of control and he decided to keep appealing to the extreme base.
The last 4 years were hell, but the attack on the 2020 election was it for me. Knowing he was going to lose he planted the lies of fraud well before the election. Told his supporters to not use mail in ballots(and get COVID) while Biden encouraged his voters to do it by mail. All because he had it planned that once the votes came in that Biden one he could claim he was right about the fraud. He then sought to prove it, but with over 60+ cases all losing in court because none of them had evidence, many of which were courts with judges appointed by him, including even his illegally stacked supreme court. Not one person on his team even willing to actually say under oath they were alleging fraud, because they would get debarred for lying. He makes a phone call to a state he lost to try to force them to overturn an election that had been recounted several times, threating them and using sly language to try to convince them to do it.
And then we have yesterday. While I said it was shocking to see, it also wasn't surprising. This is the end result when you lie for 4 years straight. When you brainwash people and whip them into a frenzy with outrageous, unproven claims for 4 years straight. What the fuck else was going to happen? But if just that much wasn't enough, he literally tells them at the rally just before the electoral confirmation hearing, to march down the road to the capital to make the Republican senators to overturn the race. Saying he'll go with them, then hiding like a coward because he wants them to do the coup for him. And when called upon by literally everyone in the country to make them stop, he doesn't even do a live address, he tells the protestors they're right, and only tells them to go home because he has too.
That's what makes it so shocking. A sitting president literally incited a riot, to get his brainwashed with lies supporters, to storm the Capitol building of the United States of America to force congress to ignore the results of a free and fair election, and declare him dictator for life like his tyrannical buddies across the world. All while he and his supporters belong to the "states rights" party, he wants to ignore the will of the states. I can't even say will of the people because Republicans almost NEVER actually have the will of the people in America.
The people who broke into the Capitol building are not patriots. They do not love democracy, they don't even love a republic. They're fascists. They're monarchists. They wanted to create political change by using force and creating fear - they're terrorists. The broke and entered, the looted and pillaged, they violated the sanctity of our most scared institution.