A smoking ruin
Republicans cling to Trump ... A short history of white supremacists and electoral disruption ... Neo-Confederates on the march ... Trafficking in pardons and associated sleaze ... Roger Fitch in Washington on Trump's grotesque legacy
"The sacking of the Capitol is proof positive that what we thought was dangerous is indeed very much so. Those outlets that propagate lies to their audience have unleashed insidious and uncontrollable forces that will be with us for years ..." - James Murdoch
It appears the twice-impeached Donald Trump will escape conviction for insurrection. The senate, even in Democrat hands, will acquit him again.
He clung to power as much to avoid jail as to maintain hustles, and now he faces civil and criminal prosecutions. He's earned it, and Ivanka, too. More here and here.
Republicans have meanwhile learned nothing from the election and its aftermath. Party officials continue to embrace their disgraced leader, especially in states they control and he lost.
Georgia, the state with the best case for prosecuting Trump, plans new voter restrictions; in Michigan, Republicans replaced the party official who joined the state Democrats in certifying the election.
In Arizona, a proposed Bill would allow legislators to replace popularly-chosen electors with those of their own choosing; in Pennsylvania, the legislature plans to punish elected supreme court justices who certified the result (Republicans, too) by forcing them into individual, heavily-gerrymandered districts.
The neo-Confederates triumphed, and Trump survives as a kind of antipope. The plan for minority rule continues: the playbook is the 2018 Wisconsin state elections, where the party lost the popular vote, but kept control of the state through stacked courts and partisan gerrymanders.
* * *
Blackshirts march on Rome - 1922
"History doesn't repeat itself, but it often rhymes" - Mark Twain
Lincoln's 1861 inauguration was threatened by violent white supremacists not unlike this year's mob, and an impeached president refused to attend Grant's 1869 inauguration. This year's break-in mimicked the 1898 Wilmington Coup as well as the 1954 attack on congress.
As for the ousted president, his behaviour on January 6th paralleled Mussolini's in his 1922 March on Rome, when Il Duce accompanied foot-weary fascists on a first class train.
This year, Trump sent a mob towards the Capitol, promising to accompany them, then returned by limousine to the White House to watch the ensuing chaos on TV, too absorbed in the drama to answer calls for assistance.
Mr Trump was reportedly "bemused" by the "spectacle", but found the rioters "low-class".
Imagine being called lower-class by Donald Trump.
There's evidence the Capitol break-in was planned (more here and here) and the FBI had warned there would be "war".
In the event, the attack was poorly-executed. The rioters posted foolish trophy videos on websites like Parler, and the photos and metadata enabled identification of many of the 400 under investigation. 800+ stormed the Capitol, guided by Proud Boys and Oath Keepers.
There's more at ProPublica and a timeline here; TPM and the Times have long reads on the months of scheming that led to the attack. One pro-Trump forum is already scrubbing the evidence.
"Low class" Capitol invader
It seemed to some a redneck revival, a white trash liberation movement with a Confederate battle flag as standard and MAGA hats as the uniting and distinguishing symbol: people that the US class system used to sort-out.
No longer. Racist thugs, fake patriots and the religiously-deluded now get a pass.
The insurrectionary rabble comprised more than ignorant buffoons and the usual hate-group suspects. It provided cover for real villains: rogue police, Army reservists, and serving and retired soldiers (including with sniper training). About 20% of those charged had military training.
The attacking mob also contained a lawless lawyer, a disturbed doctor and intruders who knew the capitol layout, e.g, the woman who stole Nancy Pelosi's laptop with a view to selling it to the Russians.
Indeed, there's evidence that "foreign actors" may have helped fund the rally-riot, in addition to shell companies and dark money connected to, well, Donald Trump. Was it all an autogolpe?
Incredibly, the rally that set-off the Capitol assault was promoted by the Republican Attorneys General Association, proof of the bad lawyering in Republican circles.
The insurgents may have had inside help (more here), e.g, from Congresswoman Lauren Boebert of Colorado; there was suspicious reconnaissance inside the Capitol on the day before the attack. Boebert is one of congress's two QAnon supporters (the other: barking-mad Georgian Marjorie Taylor Greene).
Even saner members of congress are in legal peril, if they conspired with the Capitol attackers: some congressional ties to extremists are under scrutiny.
* * *
"People who say Trump has no empathy are wrong. He has the utmost empathy for degenerate, corrupt, disgraced politicians who perhaps remind him of himself" - Preet Bharara, former Manhattan US Attorney.
Trump's last days offered his venal band a final feeding opportunity, and enterprising mates like Rudolph Giuliani offered themselves as brokers in the business of pardon-trafficking.
On the morning of January 20th, the outgoing president issued 143 pardons and commutations, many as sleazy as expected (more here), including crooked Republican politicians and the odd bent Democrat, e.g, the former mayor of Detroit, Kwame Kilpatrick; Trump had previously commuted the sentence of Rod Blagojevich, the Democrat governor of Illinois serving time for trying to sell Barack Obama's senate seat.
Prosecutors were outraged: pardons included commutation of sentences and foregone restitution in Medicare rort convictions that took years to obtain.
Can pardons be undone? Sometimes. President Biden might have tried to recall pardons not yet accepted, from January 20th. In any case, given Trump's incompetence, some of his pardons may turn out to be ineffective.
* * *
Broke everything he touched
Donald Trump's legacy? Unfettered corruption; contempt for law; and power abused with impunity.
Through his actions and those of his endless parade of bottom-drawer hirelings, a unique chapter was written in American history. He made war on truth and civility while irreparably coarsening political discourse. He glorified selfishness, greed and gratuitous cruelty.
If nothing else, he proved that one man, even badly-damaged, can make a difference. For four years, he broke everything he touched. Though defeated in a fair fight, he continued to incite violence and plot sedition; even in his last hours in office, he encouraged mean-spirited harm to others.
But as a New Republic writer observed:
"... cruelty and contempt are not just the essential ingredients of Trumpism but exactly what Republican voters hunger for. They don't want deregulation, or a lower marginal tax rate, or even The Wall. What they want is the liberation to talk freely about the people they hate."
The smashed traditions and American decline are likely to endure. There are dire predictions of an American abyss, a pre-fascist opposition in a Weimar era.
Still, Trump was good for Democrats, turning Virginia "red to purple to blue", adding Democratic Senators from both Georgia and Arizona, and "turning various state-level Democrats into national stars".
And flipping both houses of congress.
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