10 Jan The Republic, the Revolution, and Our Radicalized Ruling Class
I’ll be blunt: I have little sympathy for Donald Trump when it comes to the events of January 6, 2021. He threw a fit. It really is as simple as that. He wanted to stay in the White House. He firmly believed that he deserved to stay, that the election had been “stolen” from him. He was flattered that his most loyal supporters showed up to cause a stink on his behalf, and he encouraged them to do so. It was petty and immature and generally unbecoming of the President of the United States.
But it wasn’t treason or insurrection or…whatever the powers that be have decided it was. Donald Trump is not Jefferson Davis, and the pretense that the two are somehow equivalent is part histrionics, part transparent partisan political calculation. Trump’s behavior was ugly and stupid and really bizarre. But there was never any question that power would be transferred from him to Biden.
More to the point, the people who were engaged in the protests that day were, for the most part, far less culpable of any serious crime than was Donald Trump. Again, to be blunt, some of them did stupid and violent and criminal things. And some of them deserved to be charged with criminal acts and to be punished for those acts. But most of them did not. Most of them were unthreatening. Most were frustrated and animated but ultimately non-“insurrectionary.”
Nevertheless, just the other day, commemorating the third anniversary of those events, President Biden painted that day and its “perpetrators” as real, vicious, and unrelenting threats to the nation and its “democracy”:
Today, we gather in a new year, some 246 years [after Valley Forge]…just one day before January 6th, a day forever shared in our memory because it was on that day that we nearly lost America — lost it all….
[O]ur campaign is about preserving and strengthening our American democracy. Three years ago tomorrow, we saw with our own eyes the violent mob storm the United States Capitol….
For the first time on our history, insurrectionists had come to stop the peaceful tranfer — transfer of power in America — first time — smashing windows, shattering doors, attacking the police.
Outside, gallows were erected as the MAGA crowd chanted, “Hang Mike Pence.”
Inside, they hunted for Speaker Pelosi [of] the House, was chanting, as they marched through and smashed windows, “Where’s Nancy?”…
And since that day, more than 1,200 people have been charged for their assault on the Capitol. Nearly 900 of them have been convicted or pled guilty. Collectively, to date, they have been sentenced to more than 840 years in prison.
Contrast this aggressive vindictiveness with how the leaders of the Confederacy – an ACTUAL insurrection – were treated. On July 4, 1868, President Andrew Johnson issued a wholesale amnesty for all Confederates, with the only exceptions being those facing charges of treason. Five months later, the treason charges against Jefferson Davis – the PRESIDENT of the Confederacy – were dropped. He lived – as a free man – for another 21 years. His Vice President, Alexander Stephens, served four-and-a-half-terms in the U.S. House of Representatives AFTER the war, and he too lived out his life as a free man. Robert E. Lee, of course, lost his property in Virginia (which became Arlington National Cemetery) but lived out the rest of his life free, serving as the President of Washington College (Now Washington and Lee University).
In short, the Confederates were punished far less for their crime of STARTING A CIVIL WAR AND ATTEMPTING TO DESTROY THE UNION than was the goofy shaman guy with the Viking hat. I can’t say for sure, since the numbers aren’t readily available or transparent, but I’d guess that the 840 years in sentences doled out in response to January 6 dwarves the total sentences issued in response to crimes committed in and around the Civil War. And that’s patently absurd.
You add to this the presumption held by many and undenied by the Director of the FBI that the crowds on January 6th contained a significant number of law enforcement personnel, some of whom may have encouraged the above-mentioned prosecuted offenses, and the whole thing just gets super creepy. And yes, I know that the “Feds Started It!” narrative is mostly a conspiracy theory, but I also know Congressman Clay Higgins, who sits on the House Oversight Committee, just told Tucker Carlson that the evidence suggests that there were AT LEAST “200 FBI Undercover assets operating in the crowd,” that day. Conspiracy theory? OK. But a “curiouser and curiouser,” conspiracy as Alice might put it.
As for Trump, he continues to speak – albeit vaguely – about “retribution,” “Bedlam,” “opening Pandora’s Box,” and generally doing unto others as they have done unto him. As always, it’s probably best to take Trump seriously but not literally. Still, words have meaning, and these words are unhelpful at the very least.
The message in all of this is one that we’ve repeated countless times over the years but which bears repeating: when it comes to American politics and especially our political class, the worst is yet to come.
Or, to put it another way, the late, great Angelo Codevilla is still right:
We have stepped over the threshold of a revolution. It is difficult to imagine how we might step back, and futile to speculate where it will end. Our ruling class’s malfeasance, combined with insult, brought it about. Donald Trump did not cause it and is by no means its ultimate manifestation. Regardless of who wins in 2016, this revolution’s sentiments will grow in volume and intensity, and are sure to empower politicians likely to make Americans nostalgic for Donald Trump’s moderation.
For eight years now, our political betters have insisted that they need to take away this freedom or alter the definition of that liberty or truncate the expression of that right, largely because Trump constitutes an existential threat to Our Democracy®. Just this morning, the man who secured Marc Rich’s pardon, who worked diligently to prevent any of our former colleagues at Lehman Brothers from going to jail after 2008, and who almost single-handedly changed the corporate definition of “diversity” to be superficial and unworkable reiterated to USA Today that Trump MuSt Be StOpPeD!
Former Attorney General Eric Holder, a close friend who is often considered Obama’s political alter ego, told USA Today Monday there would be “incalculable damage” to the country if former President Donald Trump wins the November election.
Asked if Obama shares that view, Holder replied: “Absolutely. I don’t think it’s a question about that.”
“I think that’s what motivates him. I think that’s what will continue to motivate him,” Holder said.
The former president’s wife, Michelle, revealed she’s “terrified” about the election’s outcome in a podcast interview this week.
The catch, of course, is that this is nonsense. If Nikki Haley were, somehow, to win the nomination, she too would be an existential threat to Our Democracy®. Likewise Ron DeSantis, or Vivek Ramaswamy, or (heaven forbid) Chris Christie. To paraphrase Voltaire, if Trump did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him.
Additionally, the escalation here is hardly one-sided. Given his campaign rhetoric, we’d probably want to modify Codevilla above, changing the last bit to read “first-term Donald Trump’s moderation.” Fighting fire with fire may, in some cases, be necessary and effective, but it tends to intensify the number and degree of burns.
If the last year has shown us anything, it is that the American people and economy remain resilient. Whether they can survive the radicalization of their ruling class, however, remains to be seen.
