*Editor’s Note: This entry is rendered as it was written in real time.
For fuck’s sake.
You gotta be shitting me.
MAGA zealots have sacked the Capitol.
While Congress was in the process of the formalized certification of the electoral count, supporters who’d come to Washington to attend That Guy’s ‘Stop the Steal’ rally have begun storming the halls of Congress.
Legislators within are being told to take shelter under their chairs and they’re being given gas masks. Vice President Pence and Speaker of the House Pelosi have been quickly escorted away to lockdown areas of the building.
The House floor is being cleared.
They’re forcing their way into the halls, having overwhelmed several Capitol police checkpoints. Live feeds from inside the Capitol building show MAGA supporters taking selfies inside the rotunda of the Capitol building.
There’s an armed standoff at the inside door of the House chamber happening right now, where Capitol police have their guns drawn, ready to confront encroaching civilians banging on the door from outside. This is happening. Right. Now. Live on television. I’m watching those guards take aim with their guns. TV cameras are trained upon them.
Tear gas is being deployed outside.
Washington D.C.’s mayor has imposed a 6 PM curfew. Local police have called for additional law enforcement and military support.
I guess…um. It’s a kind of coup. Or rather, MAGA’s version of one.
Nonetheless, it’s an insurrection of degrees, at the very least.
In my lifetime.
In your lifetime.
To think we’re seeing this happen, in this day and age, is beyond belief.
The sedition genie is officially out of the bottle.
The last time the Capitol building was breached was over 200 years ago when British troops set fire to the building during a broader attack on Washington in the War of 1812. The Capitol was under construction at the time. Much of it was destroyed.
That Guy could stop all this with a single tweet.
Instead, it’s rumored he’s watching with glee from some bunker, after his rally speech where he incited the crowd to march on the Capitol building. This morning, he peddled a shit ton of snake oil. Most of it fanned the flames of election fraud.
A few bullet points from his speech which may have incited insurgent impulses:
“We will never give up. We will never concede. It doesn't happen. You don't concede when there's theft involved. Our country has had enough. We will not take it anymore and that's what this is all about.”
“After this, we’re going to walk down, and I’ll be there with you, we’re going to walk down to the Capitol. You’ll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength, and you have to be strong.”
Editor’s Note: He never walked down with them, he was not there with them, he watched from the safety of afar.
“We will not let them silence your voices. We're not going to let it happen, I'm not going to let it happen.”
“The Republicans have to get tougher. You're not going to have a Republican Party if you don't get tougher.”
“And we fight. We fight like hell. And if you don't fight like hell, you're not going to have a country anymore.”
“So we're going to, we're going to walk down Pennsylvania Avenue. I love Pennsylvania Avenue. And we're going to the Capitol, and we're going to try and give. The Democrats are hopeless — they never vote for anything. Not even one vote. But we're going to try and give our Republicans, the weak ones, because the strong ones don't need any of our help. We're going to try and give them the kind of pride and boldness that they need to take back our country. So, let's walk down Pennsylvania Avenue.”
He fell just short of directly ordering the taking up of arms and outright endorsement of violence. It was such a near thing. It’s all inflammatory language, written to fire up the fears of the attendees, but it stops, just barely, of calling for actual war.
One can almost imagine Miller greasily penning the pitch beforehand, toeing the fine line between euphemism and directive. But it’s not a thin read-between-the-lines thing. The space between sentiment and suggestion is far and wide, easily misinterpreted by a base ready to let loose their hounds.
Don Junior also stoked the fires, warning Republican allies who’d split from his father, “You can be a hero or a zero, but we’re coming for you and we’re going to have a good time doing it.” Guiliani took the stage and mentioned a pending “trial by combat,” a vague, soft sell call for blood. The intention was clear. I still think That Guy is too dumb to mastermind such an effort, but his followers can easily manifest actualities he didn’t necessarily orchestrate on purpose. But who knows?
If it’s planned, it appears haphazard. Either way, he really doesn’t care how his words affect his base, as long as they result in giving him the media spotlights he craves. Those words have certainly accomplished that today. Pointless as it is. Biden will still be sworn in on the 20th. But That Guy’s fear-mongering succeeded today. He finally pushed enough of his assembled fans in Washington over an edge, creating an event which will live in infamy.
Far too late, he sent this out, 3 PM EST: “I am asking for everyone at the U.S. Capitol to remain peaceful. No violence! Remember, WE are the Party of Law & Order – respect the Law and our great men and women in Blue. Thank you!”
He probably tweeted that because his advisors noted the boys in blue were getting their asses kicked, and that’s not a good look for MAGA.
U.S. Marshals, the A.T.F., the F.B.I., Homeland Security, and the National Guard have all been activated and deployed to address what’s now being deemed by the media as a genuine coup attempt in the United States.
A normal person would ask themselves how in the hell we got here.
Looking back on the events and circumstances leading up to this moment in history, the answers speak for themselves.
The photos and video feeds coming in from live coverage are incomprehensible.
Senate security police, guns drawn, pointed at the door to the House chamber.
A MAGA fanatic, having breached the House chamber, raising his fist in triumph as he stands at the same podium where Pence and Pelosi were just overseeing the electoral count.
Men in paramilitary gear breaking windows and scaling walls to get inside the Capitol building, some carrying zip-ties and collapsible batons.
A man proudly reclining in Nancy Pelosi’s chair, feet up on her desk in her private Congressional office.
Men taking down the building’s American flag and hoisting a blue flag with That Guy’s image in its place.
A man holding a blue lives matter banner…while throwing a punch at a policeman.
A man taking a selfie with a policeman assigned to protect the Capitol building, laughing with the cop who allows the trespasser deeper inside the halls.
A trespasser hoisting a Confederate flag as he runs through Congressional halls. To my knowledge, a Confederate flag has never flown inside the Capitol building, not even in Civil War times, until today.
A man using an American flagpole to repeatedly beat on a policeman holding his ground on the Capitol steps.
Remember when peaceful protestors were tear-gassed, clubbed, and sprayed with pepper balls and rubber bullets for demonstrating against racial injustice last summer?
Where’s all those pepper balls and rubber bullets today?
One of these gatherings is not like the other.
What’s the difference?
Oh yes, that’s right.
Pro-whiteboyism versus anti-whiteboyism.
If this was a BLM protest, with thousands of participants of color storming the Capitol steps and breaking windows to get inside, Black and Brown people would be dying left and right.
White privilege reigns even as they scorn their own power structures.
It’s insane.
And some D.C. cops seem to be in on it, or at the least, tolerating aggression toward our literal seat of justice, a far more provocative action than any Black Lives Matter march.
Why were there so many bolstered regiments of law enforcement during Black Lives Matter protests, yet so little reinforcements protecting the Capitol building from an executive-endorsed movement?
Ruling class horseshit.
To see it in such a sensationalist fashion at the very heart of our nation’s center…
…it’s fucking tragic.
One of them has been shot by police.
This ‘coup’ is no longer bloodless.
Continued…
*Compiled from January 6, 2021