Sh*t Show at the F**k Factory
Trump tried a little insurrection yesterday, you might have heard about it
Thursday, Jan. 7, 2021
Weather: Partly to mostly cloudy, especially in the afternoon. High around 47. And we’re now looking at about a 40% chance of an inch of snow tomorrow, more likely later in the day.
BTW: The headline for today’s newsletter comes from one of my favorite Secession episodes. Also, it seemed fitting.
Today’s Numbers:
3,793
While you weren’t looking, the U.S. had its second-highest daily total of COVID deaths yesterday.
75,376
Days between the two times the U.S. Capitol was breached: Aug. 24, 1814, by the British during the War of 1812, and Jan. 6, 2021, by Trump fans.
127
Republicans — six in the Senate, 121 in the House — who voted not to certify Joe Biden’s victory in Arizona after the pro-Trump riot.
+TRUMP’S INSURRECTION
I write about politics for a living, so this is a strange thing to admit. But I have no idea what to say right now.
I’m at a complete loss for words.
I’m sick and sad and angry and shocked but not surprised. I spent the better part of yesterday staring at the news, frozen in something that wasn’t quite disbelief but more like resigned numbness, like it was inevitable that this story — this farce that became a tragedy — would end here. Now I’m trying to figure out what little nugget of insight I can add to the darkest day our democracy has seen since — hell, I don’t know, the Civil War? The Wilmington Massacre? Selma? Watergate? 9/11? When Freaks and Geeks got canceled? (Jokes!) And I’m drawing a blank.
It’s not that I don’t have anything to say. It’s that I have everything to say. There’s so much that happened and so much that needs unpacking and so many craven politicians who’ve had their lips glued to Donald Trump’s ass who will retcon themselves into Heroes of the Constitution. (Hi, Thom Tillis!)
See? Two hundred words and I’ve said nothing at all.
I imagine you know the basics: While congressional Republicans were trying to overturn the election, pro-Trump insurrectionists stormed and occupied the Capitol, forcing Congress to flee and disrupting the election-certification process. Four people died, including one shot by Capitol Police.
There’s no way to capture the full scope of an insane day. But this morning, I’m going to get out of the way and share some of what I’ve been reading — play-by-plays, news items, pieces of essays, tweets, etc. Maybe we can make sense of it together.
How Trump incited the mob:
Shortly before Trump supporters smashed their way into the Capitol on Wednesday afternoon, President Donald Trump whipped up a crowd of protesters in D.C., vowing to demolish any Republican who opposes him and pinning all hopes of overturning the election on a vice president who has no political power to do anything.
“You have to get your people to fight, and if they don’t fight we have to primary the hell out of the ones that don’t fight. We’re going to let you know who they are,” Trump said in a rambling speech to a large protest in D.C. held on Wednesday to coincide with Congress officially counting the Electoral College votes. (Daily Beast)
How the mob thinks:
The rumble of hundreds crowding the steps of the Capitol could be heard blocks away as just as many demonstrators joined the fray as walked away from it.
“You’re seeing something in America you haven’t seen since 1776,” one man said as he stood with a group of Trump supporters outside the southeast corner of the building. (WaPo)
How it played out:
The chaos began around 2:15 p.m., as the House and Senate debated a move by a faction of Republicans to overturn the election results, security rushed Vice President Mike Pence out of the Senate chamber and the Capitol building was placed on lockdown.
In a scene of unrest common in authoritarian countries but seldom witnessed in the history of the United States capital, hundreds of people in the mob barreled past fence barricades outside the Capitol and clashed with officers. Shouting demonstrators mobbed the second floor lobby just outside the Senate chamber, as law enforcement officials placed themselves in front of the chamber doors. …
“This is what you’ve gotten, guys,” Senator Mitt Romney, Republican of Utah, yelled as the mayhem unfolded in the Senate chamber, apparently addressing his colleagues who were leading the charge to press Mr. Trump’s false claims of a stolen election.
“This is what the president has caused today, this insurrection,” Mr. Romney said later. (NYT)
How Biden responded:
“I call on President Trump to go on national television now to fulfill his oath and defend the Constitution and demand an end to this siege,” Biden said, condemning the president for stoking the flames.
“The scenes of chaos at the Capitol do not reflect a true America, do not represent who we are,” he added. “What we’re seeing are a small number of extremists dedicated to lawlessness. This is not dissent. It’s disorder. It’s chaos. It borders on sedition. And it must end. Now. I call on this mob to pull back and allow the work of democracy to go forward.” (WaPo)
Ed note: I would quibble with the words “do not” and “borders on.”
How Trump called for “calm”:
President Trump on Wednesday evening openly condoned on social media the violence unfolding at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue after a mob of his supporters stormed the Capitol, prompting Facebook and Twitter to remove his posts and lock his accounts.
“These are the things and events that happen when a sacred landslide election victory is so unceremoniously & viciously stripped away from great patriots who have been badly & unfairly treated for so long,” Mr. Trump tweeted Wednesday evening, after spending much of the afternoon in the Oval Office watching footage of escalating violence unfolding on Capitol Hill. “Go home with love & in peace. Remember this day forever!” (NYT)
How the feds acted:
They knew it could happen. They feared that Donald Trump would pull a "Samson," bringing down the whole house on top of him in the two weeks before he left the White House. Officials from the FBI, the Secret Service, Homeland Security, the District of Columbia government, the Pentagon, the National Guard, and the Joint Task Force–National Capital Region who spoke to Newsweek last weekend on condition of anonymity, all talked about the potential for protesters and militias and paramilitary goons—egged on by the president—to storm Capitol Hill and even the Capitol building itself.
A half-dozen sources spoke openly about this very scenario: that the mob would take over the "People's House" and that somehow the system would break down. They speculated that this could occur because of the president's treasonous behavior, because of leadership deficiencies in the federal government and Congress, because of the extreme partisanship of the moment, and because everyone was looking the wrong way. (Newsweek)
How Pence dispatched the National Guard:
Defense and administration officials said it was Vice President Mike Pence, not President Trump, who approved the order to deploy the D.C. National Guard. It was unclear why the president, who incited his supporters to storm the Capitol and who is still the commander in chief, did not give the order. President Trump initially rebuffed and resisted requests to mobilize the National Guard, according to a person with knowledge of the events. (NYT)
How Chuck D responded:
How the National Association of Manufacturers responded:
The outgoing president incited violence in an attempt to retain power, and any elected leader defending him is violating their oath to the Constitution and rejecting democracy in favor of anarchy. Anyone indulging conspiracy theories to raise campaign dollars is complicit. Vice President Pence, who was evacuated from the Capitol, should seriously consider working with the Cabinet to invoke the 25th Amendment to preserve democracy. (NAM)
How the mob thinks, cont.:
It’s difficult to overstate the mood of insurrectionism, and the apocalyptic tone of the rhetoric that has undergirded each molten paving stone on the path of conspiracy. On militia forums and right-wing websites, QAnon Twitter accounts, and far-right social-media platforms like Parler and Spreely, the far right has cast this moment as an apocalyptic struggle between slavery and freedom, continually reaching back to the rhetoric of the American Revolution. For QAnon acolytes, including Trump attorney Lin Wood, the struggle was metaphysical in nature: between the forces of good and evil, in the forms of a cabal of pedophiliac murderers known as the Lizard Squad, which held the entirety of America’s political elite save the president in its thrall, and those citizens who had “woken up” to the truth of stark evil. (New Republic)
How Trump thinks:
This is precisely what Trump wanted. It was Trump who repeatedly called on his supporters to travel to Washington, D.C., for the joint session, after his efforts to overturn the election through the courts had failed. It was Trump who repeatedly told those same supporters that the election had been stolen, and that the result needed to be reversed. And it was Trump who ignored reports that some of his supporters were planning to go far beyond the peaceful protest that he claimed to be calling for. (New Yorker)
How NC Republicans responded:
Sen. Richard Burr: “No evidence of voter fraud has emerged that would warrant overturning the 2020 election. The President bears responsibility for today’s events by promoting the unfounded conspiracy theories that have led to this point. It is past time to accept the will of American voters and to allow our nation to move forward.”
Sen. Thom Tillis (who announced he wouldn’t try to overturn the election after Republicans got spanked in Georgia):
Rep. Patrick McHenry:
The state’s Treason Caucus prefers its coup attempts peaceful:
How Trump propagandists responded:
Conservative radio host Mark Levin lambasted the Trump supporters who breached the U.S. Capitol building and shut down the electoral certification process on Wednesday afternoon as “fools” and “idiots” who should be prosecuted. But, he reassured his listeners, “None of you had anything to do with it. . . . You, we, are the law-abiding citizens of this country."
Greg Kelly, the top-rated host on conservative upstart Newsmax, said “we condemn it unambiguously.” But, he told viewers during his primetime show, “These people don’t look like Trump supporters. Trump supporters don’t do these things.”
How Republican voters responded:
A YouGov Direct poll of 1,397 registered voters who had heard about the event finds that most (62%) voters perceive these actions as a threat to democracy. Democrats (93%) overwhelmingly see it this way, while most (55%) Independents also agree. Among Republicans, however, only a quarter (27%) think this should be considered a threat to democracy, with two-thirds (68%) saying otherwise. In fact, many Republicans (45%) actively support the actions of those at the Capitol, although as many expressed their opposition (43%). (YouGov)
How the foreign media responded:
The chaos unleashed on the US Capitol by Donald Trump's supporters dominated front pages across the world Thursday, with headlines such as “Trump sets fire to Washington”, “Democracy under siege”, and “The Coup of Madness”.
For the most part the international press laid the blame squarely at the outgoing president's feet, accusing him of having encouraged the violence.
In Britain, “Trump supporters storm heart of American democracy” was the headline in The Times, describing how, “Democrats and Republicans alike pulled on gas masks and sheltered under desks and staff hid in offices.”
“Democracy under siege”, wrote The Daily Telegraph, reporting “unprecedented scenes of violence and chaos” in Washington as “hordes of Trump supporters” stormed the Capitol.
For The Guardian, it represented “the most dramatic challenge to the US democratic system since the civil war”. (France24)
Ed. note: It goes on for a while.
How foreign leaders responded:
The UK:
NATO’s secretary-general:
Italian Council of Ministers President Giuseppe Conte: “Violence is incompatible with the exercise of democratic rights and freedoms. I am confident in the strength and robustness of the institutions of the United States.”
Canada:
For the cherry on top, here’s the authoritarian Turkish government trolling us:
How should we respond?
With severe consequences:
Remove Trump from office:
Do it now:
This is a moment of shame and grief.
If we are not very careful, it will also be a terrible moment of opportunity for President Donald Trump. The violence Trump incited could be his pretext for further abuses of presidential power.
As so often with Trump, he has indicated the plan in advance: Use the Insurrection Act to somehow interfere with the transition of power. He could try it this very day.
In institutional self-defense, Trump must be impeached again and this time removed. That needs to happen immediately, before he can declare martial law, so that Vice President Mike Pence can oversee the constitutional transition of power, the first time since the Civil War that such a transition can no longer be described as “peaceful.” (The Atlantic)
President Trump’s refusal to accept his election defeat and his relentless incitement of his supporters led Wednesday to the unthinkable: an assault on the U.S. Capitol by a violent mob that overwhelmed police and drove Congress from its chambers as it was debating the counting of electoral votes. Responsibility for this act of sedition lies squarely with the president, who has shown that his continued tenure in office poses a grave threat to U.S. democracy. He should be removed. …
The president is unfit to remain in office for the next 14 days. Every second he retains the vast powers of the presidency is a threat to public order and national security. Vice President Pence, who had to be whisked off the Senate floor for his own protection, should immediately gather the Cabinet to invoke the 25th Amendment, declaring that Mr. Trump is “unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office.” (WaPo editorial board)
It’s 2:30 a.m. as I wrap this up, and I’m too tired to add anything coherent. So here are a few quick parting thoughts, and tomorrow we’ll get back to a normal-ish PRIMER:
In a sane country, Trump would be removed from office by the time you read this and facing criminal charges by the end of the month. Neither of those things will happen.
We can’t let the politicians who’ve spent the last four years humping Trump’s leg rewrite history. We can’t let the politicians who lied to their base about make-believe voter fraud pretend they had nothing to do with what happened.
Every single member of Congress who objected to Biden’s certification is complicit. There is no such thing as a peaceful coup attempt. If you tell enough people that there’s a conspiracy to steal an election — even if you assume they know it’s bullshit because how could anyone believe something so stupid — people are going to get hurt.
Never thought I’d say this, but here goes: Mike Pence for President*