AOC Is Right About Hawley and Cruz & America Is A Coup-able State

Fair points, Ian, but she needs to talk to her boss, Joe Biden and the party leadership and do something about it. Talk is cheap. It’s time to walk the talk.

In the present, however, it is also true that Cruz and Hawley; Hawley in particular, remain possible votes for things that AOC will want passed. Hawley pushed $2,000 checks hard.

Some of what Hawley wants done will help AOC’s constituents avoid poverty or death. This is a conundrum, and it is best answered by accepting their votes but not letting them take lead if at all possible. Hawley wants to be President, and AOC doesn’t want a man complicit in a riot/coup that could have killed her to have that sort of power. This is reasonable.

Agreed.

But the problem is too far gone.

Agreed.

So here we are.

The media, especially Fox, has done a lot to whip up hatred toward AOC, resulting in her getting death threats on social media on the regular, despite direct threats of violence not being covered by freedom of speech. If I were her I’d have a bodyguard nearby at all times. If she has the money, she should sue those media outlets if there’s legal grounds for it.

It also doesn’t matter whether she gets absorbed by the normie Dems; she’s still being scapegoated by Fox for being an extremist. I guess one could make the argument that she might as well embrace her outsider status and help her constituency, but in her place I’d retire from politics and disappear.

There’s a allegation against AOC being manufactured right now on the reactionary side of Twitter, that AOC has claimed that she was in the Capitol Building itself when the rioters broke in, rather than in her own office (where she recounts hiding in the bathroom from someone she took at the moment to be a rioter). This gets spun to portray her as manipulative liar who’s trying to play the victim, but only deserves open mockery for feeling endangered that day.
It’s really gross to see. BTW, if anyone has a link to video or a quote where AOC actually does state that she was in the Capitol Building itself when the rioters broke in, I’d love to see it. So far, I have not seen it.

I agree with Joan’s comment that AOC should have a bodyguard nearby at all times. The House should pay for one while she’s on official business.

How long until we have a mass shooting during a session of Congress? It’s within reach. Maybe Marjorie will snap and mow a bunch of them down. What then? Brennan & Co. will downplay it and marginalize it and say it was the Dems fault.

Speaking for myself, I mostly ignore AOC. She’s an ankle-biting chihuahua for the Dems. Her job is to trade barbs and wrangle with the lowly wacko conservatives. She does it well. I can’t take her seriously about this when her own party doesn’t take it seriously, meaning they won’t prosecute McDonald Trump and they won’t hold the influential wealthy enablers of January 6th accountable, i.e. the Mercers.

I can’t take her seriously about this when her own party doesn’t take it seriously, meaning they won’t prosecute McDonald Trump and they won’t hold the influential wealthy enablers of January 6th accountable, i.e. the Mercers.

Ah, the Mercers. Let’s name names. I’ve been watching “Yves Smith” over at NakCap go out of her way the past few days to immediately discredit any theorizing about Mossad involvement with the Apollo/Leon Black affair. She of course has no compunction in offering her own unverified theories of the events. Her speculations are more rational, because she says so.

Ian, as politely as I can say this; you are losing your grip* but, more importantly, you are, and have in the past…encouraged violence from those who listen to you. You are not innocent of what you seek to have punished in others. Indeed, most of the serious charges the protestors have are for what they said online. Be careful what you wish for.

There was no coup.
Well, there was one that you supported, it lasted over four years, your side won.
[your polite applause here]

There was no insurrection.
Well, there was one that you supported, it lasted over four years and your side won.
[your polite applause here]

What you claim a “coup”, an “insurrection” was just a few agent provocateurs leading a few gullible goofballs. Before going further down the road to perdition I suggest you do what good Americans are supposed to do, wait for a trial. My bet is that the National Security State has no interest in the protesters being given a platform to speak at a trial, nor in having the agents provocateurs revealed, the protesters will be given very lenient terms to plead guilty or the charges dismissed entirely.

Ian; You are Canadian, in Canada and right now, your words are useful to the National Security State but, they have a nasty habit of turning patsies into whipping boys. At some point the neoDs will have gotten everything out of this that they can. When the music ends and the denunciations, the show trials are finally over…somebody will have to be blamed for the mess…make sure you’re safely in your seat.

*Remember the Kavanaugh protests…they entered the Rotunda and surrounded senators offices to your polite applause. Have you forgotten..that was just two short years ago?

This whole thing was ultimately a form of blowback. US authorities and their instruments (NED and various other somewhat more deniable outfits), and indeed the US media, have grown used to making up baseless allegations that elections are fraudulent . . . abroad, in places the US wants to destabilize. And they have gotten very good at arranging “Colour Revolutions”–propagandizing local populations, helping to organize and arm extremist groups, pushing them into the streets at a flashpoint, having some cadre storm the legislative buildings and take over. The US establishment is used to doing all this stuff to get what it wants.

So this kind of thing has become one of the “ideas that’s floating around” in America for American elites to put into their toolkit LOCALLY to get what they want. Trump’s just the first one to actually do it. Trump’s term was perhaps the first time that the polity/economy was sufficiently unstable to create what looked like a sufficient critical mass of discontented dupes to get the job done. Turns out it wasn’t actually sufficient and Trump was too incompetent, and arguably too CAREFUL, to organize them to actually try to take government (I know “careful” isn’t a word normally associated with Trump, but the man skated the edge of calling for a lot of stuff without ever actually quite saying it, and he seems to have largely left them to organize themselves, with the result that although they can impeach him since that has no real legal standards of what it takes to do it, I don’t think there’d be a hope of putting him in jail for an actual insurrection-related crime).

But that general idea is still floating around and I see no signs of the general trend towards greater inequality, and more precarity for most of the public, reversing. Next time the mob could be bigger, angrier, and incited by someone who actually pushes all their chips in to organize them and really tell them to take government. If it happens, it will in part be a result of US behaviour in the international arena coming home to roost, US political actors in essence treating domestic political opposition the way they treat international political opposition.

Most Trumpists I know (I know many, personally) are closet dominionists. Before that they were Founding Father fetishists with a bit of dominionist in them. As their numbers, and thus power, slowly shrinks, they’ll become more open about their wanting a God-inspired authoritarianism that’ll restore America to its rightful Old Testament ways. As always in proto-fascist movements, I can’t imagine any such coup leader not currying favor with those people, besides the usual corporate power creatures. Cruz seems like too much of an oily car salesman. Hawley seems more on that ball.

This goes back to yesterday’s post. AOC would not need to work with Hawley if members of her own party did not renege on their promise to give Americans $2000 checks. If AOC were serious about $2000 checks and universal health care, she should also attack Biden, Pelosi, and other Democrats who have made achieving these goals impossible. If she and the Squad don’t have the guts to go against the power players in their party, their only option is to work with right wing populists to achieve some of those goals. When 2024 rolls around, unfortunately, someone like Hawley will benefit from these achievements because Biden will have done nothing.

I’ve seen enough already to refrain from voting in 2022 and 2024. This last election, my vote actually mattered. It will matter again in 2022 and 2024 and I refuse to vote for these dirty lying creeps. Unlike Brennan, I will not vote for the fascist opposition but I do agree with him that the Dems are just as fascist considering they are handing it to the fascists which makes them complicit which makes them fascists.

If this was a coup attempt, it was a mighty half-assed one. Call it the revolt of the Underpants Gnomes. 1. Seize the Capitol. 2. ???. 3. Emperor Donald, the first of his name. The investigation for this incident has so far pointed the finger of blame largely at the Proud Boys, whose leader just happens to be a major FBI informant. The cheap histrionics of the people shouting “COUP!” ever since Election Day over every bit of Trump’s desperate flailing about as he sank into the quick sand of his own making has become truly annoying. Look at Myanmar. THAT’S a COUP! They had a plan and the power to execute that plan. Not just street theater gotten somewhat out of control And I am writing this NOT out of any sort of affection for Trump. I am perfectly aware that he breaks the mold when it comes to self-serving and sheer incompetence. Its more out of incredulity that normally sane and intelligent people fall into spittle flecked hysteria when it comes to Trump. I’m with W. Church up thread. It’s not that we find Trump anything other than loathsome, we just want some clear eyed, SOBER analysis, something apparently in short supply.

anon, since your position is that Hawley benefits from everything, how does he benefit from pushing the insurrection? How does he benefit from losing his book deal, part of his national roll out, and financial backers? And why has he been MIA since Jan. 6?

So DMC, if one of your neighbors pours out gasoline, throws a match on it, and your house burns down, you are willing to call that arson, but if your house survives, you are willing to say, “No harm, no foul,” until your neighbor succeeds. Of course, in this case, people did die. So I guess my question is how many people have to die or be threatened for it to be significant enough to you.

A stupidity or idiot defense has been notoriously unsuccessful in the courts. However, Trump will beat his impeachment trial because of corrupt, cowardly Republicans. His being a stupid, inept criminal will have nothing to do with it.

Good example, Hugh, and extending that example, wagging your finger like a scornful librarian isn’t going to prevent the hellbent arsonist from eventually burning your house down, is it?

Trump’s Puppet master speaks. The world’s most evil man, now that Hitlerrr..er..Trump has been disposed of..the second most evil man uncloaks and reveals his malevolent plans for planet earth. Once you read Putin’s desires you will recoil in horror and plea for a divine intervention to stop this man! I tell ‘ya, Putin’s the next Hitler or…is that gonna be Tulsi Gabbard? I wish the people at the DNC would hurry-up and make up my mind for me ’cause we can’t have two Hitlers at once or…can we?

Excerpted from b at MOA https://www.moonofalabama.org/2021/02/this-is-why-they-attack-him-putin-explains-why-we-need-new-economic-policies.html#more:
_______________________

“I would like to point out four key priorities, as I see them. This might be old news, but since Klaus has allowed me to present Russia’s position, my position, I will certainly do so.

First, everyone must have comfortable living conditions, including housing and affordable transport, energy and public utility infrastructure. Plus environmental welfare, something that must not be overlooked.

Second, everyone must be sure that they will have a job that can ensure sustainable growth of income and, hence, decent standards of living. Everyone must have access to an effective system of lifelong education, which is absolutely indispensable now and which will allow people to develop, make a career and receive a decent pension and social benefits upon retirement.

Third, people must be confident that they will receive high-quality and effective medical care whenever necessary, and that the national healthcare system will guarantee access to modern medical services.

Fourth, regardless of the family income, children must be able to receive a decent education and realise their potential. Every child has potential.

This is the only way to guarantee the cost-effective development of the modern economy, in which people are perceived as the end, rather than the means. Only those countries capable of attaining progress in at least these four areas will facilitate their own sustainable and all-inclusive development. These areas are not exhaustive, and I have just mentioned the main aspects.

A strategy, also being implemented by my country, hinges on precisely these approaches.

What should be done globally:

We are open to the broadest international cooperation, while achieving our national goals, and we are confident that cooperation on matters of the global socioeconomic agenda would have a positive influence on the overall atmosphere in global affairs, and that interdependence in addressing acute current problems would also increase mutual trust which is particularly important and particularly topical today.

Obviously, the era linked with attempts to build a centralised and unipolar world order has ended. To be honest, this era did not even begin. A mere attempt was made in this direction, but this, too, is now history. The essence of this monopoly ran counter to our civilization’s cultural and historical diversity.

The reality is such that really different development centers with their distinctive models, political systems and public institutions have taken shape in the world. Today, it is very important to create mechanisms for harmonizing their interests to prevent the diversity and natural competition of the development poles from triggering anarchy and a series of protracted conflicts.

To achieve this we must, in part, consolidate and develop universal institutions that bear special responsibility for ensuring stability and security in the world and for formulating and defining the rules of conduct both in the global economy and trade…”
______________________

Pure evil I tell you, thank God we have Joe Biden to protect us, to stand up for us “little people” against Trump’s evil puppet-master Putin and, all of his evildoing agents hiding underneath every bed in America. And when I speak of evildoing agents in the USA…I am of course speaking of Trump and his 49.7% of USA’s voters. USA’s voters who, as a CNN host so properly declared, must be sent to re-education camps and either be converted or liquidated.

Brought to you by the National Security State, Ministry of Public Enlightenment, Putin is Trump’s Puppet-master Division.

That Putin is quite the forward thinker. But much like Trump, Putin’s words don’t mean much. His deeds like imprisoning his main opposition figure Navalny for two more years because Navalny didn’t obediently die the last time Putin tried to off him speak more loudly.

Looks like AOC got jealous of Andrew Cuomo’s Emmy and is shooting for a “Movie of the Week”.

Not been on here in a while, but:

Hugh, even though I have differed with you on some issues, your posts on this topic are spot-on. I’m afraid many of these posters are so fixated on their ‘hate the Dems’ shtick that they’ll excuse or minimize Trump’s doing anything, even a coup to install himself as Prez-for-life. Repeat after me, the biggest reason *why* neoliberal Dems are bad is that they *set the stage for a Trump, or worse*, not that they are worse than Trump.

(And for those who say it was a half-assed coup, that’s only because fascists as a rule aren’t competent. Hitler wasn’t competent either; he too believed looney stuff (read his Table Talk) and he mismanaged WWII. Hitler was ‘competent’ only in that he took over a state apparatus that had a great deal of competence (though it was frequently evil); even then Hitler over time destroyed its competence by replacing able people with his cronies.

Neither were Mussolini, Antonescu, or others particularly competent; the only ‘competent fascist’ I would name would be Franco, who correctly predicted that Germany wasn’t going to win WWII in 1940 (!) and managed to keep Spain neutral. Coups succeed as much or more due to the weakness of a state and its institutions rather than to the skill and strength of the coup plotters; Weimar Germany survived several insurrections and coup attempts until Hitler’s takeover succeeded in 1933).

I think people are giving the insurrectionists, however, too much credit, and underestimating the power of the state to repress. Jjust as Ian correctly ridicules the idea that ‘war never solves anything’ it’s an equally absurd mistake to say ‘repression never works’. History is littered with the bones of movements, ideologies and even religions, that were turbocrushed by determined state repression. (BTW, this doesn’t include Christianity in the Roman Empire, because the Roman persecution of Christians was local and sporadic; quite unlike the repression later by Christian Roman emperors that was empire-wide, vociferous, and prolonged).

On this, I give you US Grant’s dealing with the KKK, which was quite effective:

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2021/01/30/what-ulysses-grant-can-teach-joe-biden-about-putting-down-violent-insurrections-463976

The very fact that Biden’s inauguration day went off with very little in the way or protests was the result of what precautions were put up and how easily America’s fascists were deterred.

And finally–those guys who stormed the Capital January 6th aren’t working class. They are NOT POOR, by and large. Studies of fascists show that although fascists will draw some individuals from every segment of society, the working class as a rule doesn’t become fascists. This was true even of German workers in the height of the Great Depression; they may have deserted the SPD to become communists but as a rule they did not become Nazis. Fascists are more typically small businessmen. As someone who lives in Trump country, I have passed a MacMansion I couldn’t possibly afford sporting Trump and Gadsen flags many a time with late-model autos and trucks parked in the driveway. Moreover, one particular Trumpster I know who doesn’t live in a MacMansion and drives a beat-up old pickup (but who IS a small businessman) is dead-set against Medicare-for-All and a $15/hr minimum wage (“it would destroy small business”, he claims). The people who claim these guys are potential Bernie Sanders voters just waiting for the Dems to be more progressive on economic issues are deluding themselves.

And the fact that they are NOT POOR, is exactly why they didn’t show up on January 20th. They do actually have a lot to lose, like their MacMansions and shiny new pickups.

@GlassHammer,

Armed Representatives and Senators inside the Capitol? If AOC is allowed to have her own loaded weapons in the Capitol, then Representative Little Miss Jewish-Space-Lasers will also have to be allowed to have HER own loaded weapons in the Capitol.

Is this really such a good idea?

If it was a coup attempt, then where is the outrage at the 28 second appearance of SWAT guys, during which cops abandoned the barricaded doors, where Ashli Babbitt was ‘shot’, soon afterwards? Shouldn’t coup coo-ers be looking for these armed devils, so close to the beating heart of political power?

My understanding is that the guy who supposedly shot Babbitt hasn’t been named, yet.

Of course, if this was a false flag, meant to demonize Trump and national populist MAGA types, then the last thing the false flaggers would want is a serious investigation of the Babbitt ‘shooting’. Speaking of which, anybody have word on her funeral or autopsy, yet? Oh, say now, don’t let that bother you! You’ve got a “coup” to whine about. I guess the coup plotters forgot to whisper in the ears of nearby (as in Pentagon) Army, Air Force and Navy types. I mean, not even a single tank! Not a single mortar! Couldn’t the ‘coup’ plotters have managed even a single strafing run by a disgruntled army helicopter pilot, decked out in a MAGA hat as he tries to take out AOC, but leave Hawley unscathed, from 200 feet in the air.

“the revolt of the Underpants Gnomes” does indeed better describe the events of Jan. 6. Emporer Donald apparently was banking on the loyalty of Army, Air Force and Navy after his coronation. Not exactly how it works, now, is it? Also, aren’t you supposed to seize some mean of mass media communication? Twitter shutting down Trump is sort of the opposite of that. So, how was he going to make his Big Announcement?

The desperate attempt to impeach Trump will fail, but attempting to coerce Trump to not mention the election fraud during the Senate trial may well succeed. Trump has no moral center, no moral courage. After reading Patrick Byrnes’ expose “How DJT Lost the White House” on his deepcapture.com website, I have even less respect for Trump, and sincerely hope he never runs, again. What would be the point? Yeah, sure, he could beat Biden in 4 years (that is, if populists and others get real election & voting reform enacted at the state level). But, then what? 4 more years of political incompetence, where he gets rolled even by Chamber of Commerce Republicans? Build another 250 miles of border wall? Oops – I mean rebuild 250 miles of border wall that Joe Biden will tear down? Maybe next time he meets with world leaders, he’ll give 2 of them a shove, instead of just one.

National populists deserve better. Not necessarily the Trump fanboys who cheered him on, no matter what stupid thing he said or did (they are part of the problem), but those who love their country, more than cheap rhetoric from weak man who folds like a cheap suit when his Constitutional duties required just the opposite.

As our resident fascists point out, the insurrection never happened, and even though it didn’t, it’s still the Democrats’ and more particularly AOC’s fault. Why, oh why can’t they be more like peaceful, unity Representatives like Marjorie Taylor Greene holding an assault rifle in a Facebook post and talking about cleaning out the “house.”

“It never happened” — that’s exactly what the current rightist, fash, and R propaganda mills and individuals want us to believe.

“There was no coup attempt, nothing happened, nobody died, AOC can go shopping (or whatever) whenever she wants.”

This is shocking the first time you encounter it. It’s hard to believe that anybody, especially anybody in a power position (or who wants to be) would be so dishonest about things we witnessed if only at a distance and on the tube with our own eyes, in many cases in real time. “It never happened, tho.”

Or if it did — but it didn’t — it was a false flag arranged by the Deep State (Proud Bois) and “antifa” working in concert to… to… well, something. Make Orange Man Bad. Yeah, that’s the ticket.

The whole picture is not going to be clear anytime soon, but the propagandist are absolutely certain that nothing happened at all.

Nothing.

Zyuganov, the old communist, last ran for Russian president in 2012. Grudinin, not Zyuganov, was the communist candidate in 2018. Navalny was barred from running in 2018 by Putin.

What Astrid said.
Time to give the pipe a rest for some charged commenters here, even if you don’t know who you are; all the usual suspects, natch.

Narratives drive politics. A lot of political rhetoric revolves around contested narratives used to organize, coordinate and motivate people. That is not the same thing as thinking a narrative arc controls the evolution of politics and political events. History is written as narrative, and can be well written with respect to such facts as are known and accounted for in the narrative, but history is written that way because the human mind likes stories, wants story-telling. The actual cause-and-effect social, economic, psychological, political factual conditions may be incomprehensibly vast and largely undocumented in the debris fields of the past; the narratives of history — even the best and most meticulously documented processed by considerate judgment — paper over ignorance as much as they identify correctly what happened and how what happens comes to us as legacy. Which is a long-winded way of cautioning against getting caught up in emotionally stimulating historical analogies expressed as narrative.

I would especially address StewartM’s Weimar > Third Reich historical analogy. Social conditions and the cacophony of competing ideologies were so different circa 1930 Europe and the preceding twenty years history — the experience of adults then living — so different from ours that the contrasts crowd out the commonalities if you just begin to admit them into consideration. As an organizing insight into productively applying historical analogy to understanding our present politics, I strongly recommend Sheldon Wolin’s idea that what we have building today is an inverted totalitarianism — in many (bad) ways the mirror-image opposite of what politics mobilized in the first half of the 20th century.

Trump = Hitler is so stupid on so many levels, I do not know where to begin. And, no, misapplying “competent” as a label for a fixed characteristic does not make it better. Whether the Dems are “worse” than Trump or not, both have proven themselves worse than useless — does no one get that?

What is this “49.7% of the country” of which some speak?

If the reference is to Trump voters and/or fans, that’s not “narrative,” that’s just false. Trump voters/fans amount to 25%-30% of “the country.” At best.

And I live among them. Trump voters around here far outnumber Biden voters. Most are fine people, just wanting to live their lives and do their work with as little government interference and burden as possible. The petit bourgeois among them saw Trump as someone who “finally listened” to their pleas. Dems never did, or at least that was the perception. And it had some merit. Dems tend to make things complicated and more complicated for no particular purpose — except they can and they think they’re supposed to. That might play well enough in the cities, not so much in the country, and the over complicated, over regulated, ridiculous impositions of The Government tend to make people out here mad. Trump promised to do away with all that (he didn’t), protect the guns and to “pwn the libs” in the process (yeah, right.) So he was popular with about 70% of local voters — which is not the same as local population. Most of whom are not rabid Q folks or even involved Republicans. certainly not rioters or insurrectionists. Though resistance, passive or no, is common.

Some people who post comments here and elsewhere like to pretend they’re operatives doing God’s Work to spread the Gospel of either the D or the Trump team (at this point, there is no coherent R team). As Bruce says, a lot of that is “narrative” not “truth,” and you can take it or leave it as you will. A lot of it is gaslighting, bullshit, false narrative, and fantasy. That’s true of both teams’ operatives, but as a rule since the advent of Trump-the-Saviour, it’s been customary for the Trump team to live in an alternate universe, not reality, because why not? As long as it works for them…

To the topic of Ian’s post, I think a fair reading of the the situation in DC pre-and-post January 6 is that there was a coup attempt that was mostly a disorganized and partially spontaneous uprising by people, mostly Trump fans, who could afford to be there — not the poor or working class the populists pretend to represent. When those in front of the mob saw that they could easily overwhelm the security services on duty (few and far between) they went for broke, why not?

They could have, and some would have, taken hostages and potentially murdered some — putting their heads on pikes at the four corners of the building as lessons to the rest (the way Steve Bannon put it in another context) — in order to ensure the perpetuation of Trump Rule (or in reality their own) forever and ever amen.

But they didn’t. Some people died, yes, but no heads wound up on pikes. AOC and the rest of Congress survived the terror. Biden’s victory was ratified and Trump slouched away to his palace-in-exile in Florida.

The end? Hardly.

Thank you for your comments DC, we don’t get enough geriatric, terrified-of-what-the-unwashed-youngs-might-do paleocon talking points.

If everyone over the age of, say, 50 could step back from the controls for once, that’d be swell.

@bruce wilder

“I strongly recommend Sheldon Wolin’s idea that what we have building today is an inverted totalitarianism — in many (bad) ways the mirror-image opposite of what politics mobilized in the first half of the 20th century.”

Ah, excellent point. I’ve many times been tempted to point out that there’s no fascism in the US*, to speak of, but there certainly is inverted totalitarianism, which is sort of the opposite (i.e., business/financial interests controlling the government, not the opposite). I was introduced to this conceptualization via interviews of Chris Hedges by Gary Null. And it’s absolutely compelling, being a mild elaboration of the idea of plutocracy, which has been shown statistically via the research of Gilens and Page.

I frankly take it part of the psychological burden of participating on a forum with a lot of lefties, that they are seemingly UNABLE to divorce themselves from their favorite bug-a-boos. Not unlike their (real or feigned) ignorant, half baked notions of “climate change”, which is married to their complete disinterest in cost/benefit analysis of remediation, as has been attempted by Lomborg. Similarly, in the past year, we’ve seen (real or feigned) ignorance of science regarding therapeutics & prophylactics against covid, like hydroxychloroquine, ivermectin, and vitamin D.

No! It’s Trump that killed 300,000 Americans from covid, and not at all the medical beau acracy; aided by the media corruption (Laura Ingraham’s show is the exception that proves the rule) as well as big tech censorship. I mean, TO THIS DAY, youtubers self censor the words “hydroxychloroquine” and “ivermectin” (see, e.g., Kim Iverson’s WHOAAAA ! Just went to search for her youtube where she went into how India is handling covid, and I see that Iverson has self-censored – i.e., removed – the ENTIRE SHOW. It was called “Kim Responds Directly To The Rising’s Reports On Sweden” and appeared on or around Jan 18. I posted a reference to it in a comment in Ian’s diary “The Logic Of Bootlickers Is The Logic Of Too Many Americans”.)

And why did Trump kill all these Americans? Well, a better question is, why didn’t he kill more of them? After all, he’s a fascist, a modern day Hitler, and that’s what Hitlers do, isn’t it? No deeper ‘analysis’ is necessary, for the most rabid fascists-under-every-rock amongst us.

I’m sure Biden will do a much better job controlling covid, even as resistance to prophylactics and therapeutics remains strong. {snicker} If Biden wants to be a hero, he can take on the Medical Mafia, and do what Trump was too ignorant, feckless, or cowardly to do. More likely, some more practical red states, like Florida or Texas will lead the way, and force Biden’s hand. Unfortunately, I rather doubt this scenario, also.

Anyway, as Biden is busy putting down “insurrections” and “coup attempts”, he’d probably be too busy to notice what’s going on in any forward-thinking state that vastly out-performs the Federal government, were such to occur.

* OK, I’ve sometimes referred to Tony Fauci as “a little Nazi”, which has a more damning ring than “a little inverted totalitarianist”. So, I’m a bit guilty of what I’m criticizing, but also understand the utility of the “Nazi” label. Hopefully, everybody will infer that I’m referring to Fauci’s de facto promotion of suffering and death, and not any peculiar racial theories or hyper-national romanticizing.

This whole thread has been fascinating. There’s a cadre of people who simply cannot compute that the political world does not revolve around the material interests they want it to revolve around. So AOC is supposed to cooperate with people who have either cynically whipped up or have *been whipped up into* a near-murderous frenzy against her and many other people on the left who happen to participate in mainstream politics.

Oh, now this is just fascinating! Lindsey Graham is threatening to call in witnesses from the FBI to testify about security failures on Jan 6, if the Democrats call even 1 witness.

Oh, for the love of God, Democrats, PLEASE CALL WITNESSES! LOTS AND LOTS OF THEM!

I have little faith that Trump will come through, and use a Senate trial as an opportunity to educate the American public about the election fraud. Maybe he will, maybe he won’t. The War Room Pandemic crowd is pushing Trump in the direction of having Gaetz represent him, and Gaetz has declared that he is willing to resign from Congress to do so (due to ethics considerations).

I’m also skeptical of Graham, but in this particular instance, less so than of Trump. Not sure what his motivations are. I think he wants to avoid a lengthy Senate trial because the MAGA crowd may grow by 15% in numbers, and 30% in intensity. (Especially if Gaetz represents*) That could mean serious movement to taking over the Republican party, from the donor base. And that would upset poor Lindsey comfortable, war-mongering, plutocracy-kissing, world, now wouldn’t it?

* Yup, just checked the timeline, and at least in terms of reporting, Graham’s threat is carried today on Feb. 4, while Gaetz pledge to quit Congress to represent Trump, was reported yesterday. So, Graham may be terrified of the election fraud issue being exposed AND a populist surge in power within the Republicans. AND (possibly) launching Gaetz’ political career into the stratosphere.
The threat of calling FBI witnesses is probably mostly directed to Pelosi and McConnell, who probably colluded in having security undermanned on Jan 6. However, it’s just as plausible that it’s directed to the Democrats in Congress, primarily. Unfortunately, it’s least plausible that Graham has any interest in identifying Deep State colluders, in particular those involved in the ‘shooting’ of Ashli Babbitt. Since it’s the FBI we’re talking about, there’s zero chance of them testifying to false flag treason, anyway.

Well, I am speculating as to motives, but in any event, I hope the Democrats call witnesses and Graham follows through with his threat.

PLEASE, DEMOCRATS, CALL WITNESSES! CALL THEM EARLY, AND CALL THEM OFTEN! YOU DON’T WANT HITLER – ERR, I MEAN TRUMP – TO GET AWAY WITH HIS COUP ATTEMPT, DO YOU????

Anybody who thinks Kavanaugh and Trump deserve positions of power have lost their minds.

It is inevitable that commenters here will echo memes they pick up from social media, mass media or the zeitgeist. One that particularly disturbs me in this thread is that all 74 million Trump voters are horrible, irredeemable people with crazy beliefs, not open to either persuasion or alliance on any issue.

Okay bruce. Please tell us your answer to dealing with them. Mine, is they either need to be peeled away from Qanon objectivist white evangelical tribalism onion layer by layer leaving the center to rot, or be allowed to hit bottom like your guru Qanon shaman. This does go against the common wisdom that the 74 million are best properly deprogrammed gently and lovingly so they’re strong enough to be persuaded to face reality.

SB continues to give us daily lessons in how the fascist right in the US tries to duck responsibility for everything. So the lie that there was no insurrection wasn’t working out so well. So now the line has shifted to: there was no insurrection but if there was one, it was the left who did it first and inspired the right’s version. Similarly, the no violence or it was really antifa lies weren’t flying either. So it became if there was any violence, and it’s all highly doubtful and murky, then if antifa didn’t do it, they “inspired” it. So really even if the right did it, for some definition of it, it’s the left’s fault.

The right uses multi-pronged attacks employing gaslighting, shaming and repetition. Dissembling is as popular as are well-studied attacks on the weaknesses of individual psychological temperaments. The evidence is so prevalent that it should be self-evident. These seem like plutocratic strategies to me. They attack TV advertisement style. You’re not cool unless you’re drinking their Kool aid. If you say that added sugar is bad for you, then they’ll repeatedly repeat that you’re a neoD for sure.

There was never any evidence that Trump was going to attack the plutocratic hegemony. His talk was always cheap. I’d rather itemize the end-result differences between Biden and Trump, pro and con.

When I point out that virtually no leftists are at the level of lying lunacy as an Alex Jones or Rudy Giuliani or The My Pillow Guy, they try to gaslight, shame, and repetition me into believing that Bernie or David Hogg or Greta Thunberg are even worse. This is obvious insanity.

“Not sure what bruce thinks he gains by calling American fascists inverted totalitarians, except it seems to make him feel better.”

Here you go –

https://www.amazon.com/Democracy-Incorporated-Managed-Inverted-Totalitarianism/dp/0691178488/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=sheldon+wolin&qid=1612468474&s=books&sr=1-1

Do a simple Google search and find out how long this book has been out and how much talk about it there has been online.

The essence of inverted totalitarianism is its corporatism. It really fits much better into neoliberalism. Trumpism is much more in tune with traditional fascism. It’s anti-democratic, race-based, leader-centered hypernationalism. Other than obfuscation, I do not understand the recourse to some convoluted academic nomenclature instead of something that is simple and accurate.

With Trumpers we get this “conclusions first followed by facts as needed or not at all.” So with the Capitol insurrection their beginning conclusion is that it wasn’t their fault. Thus, either it didn’t happen or it’s really somebody else’s fault. We have seen and continue to see both from our local fascists.

the recourse to some convoluted academic nomenclature instead of something that is simple and accurate.

Back when I was a gig-economy worker going company to company as an engineering temp, I could quickly tell who was ethical and decent regular guy because they’d answer my newbie questions as plainly and simply as possible. With others, when I’d get this overlong bafflegab, only rarely was it a feature of their speaking style. They’d reveal later that they were rivals either intentionally misleading me, or trying to intimidate me into some kind of submission.

The “tribalist” politics promoted by the relentless propaganda of mass media is addictive, but antithetical to everyone’s mental health.

You’re a nobody if you don’t have a new F-250 to drive from Home Depot to your D.R. Horton McMansion with your new Samsung washer. The products being advertised are the real products, the tribalist politics is an excuse.

Even if you’ve conditioned yourself to live with less, there’s more. Ever wake up one day to find yourself twenty pounds overweight, after all that exercise, and realize the ridiculous amounts of unhealthy deliciousness they put into your daily food? The foundation of conservatism and neoliberalism is the addiction to more for oneself. Healthy sustainable everything usually means less.

Hugh, you obviously have something in mind. Why don’t you just tell me what it is?

I wonder if the response will be, “Just answer the question first.”

A rare time I am going to disagree with Ian. The Jan. 6 events were a putsch, a failed coup attempt. I think Max Blumenthal, who was there covering the events, called it a beer-belly coup or something like that.

Despite the occasional Trump coup supporter like the Proud Boys’ Enrique Tarrio, also an FBI informant, & some fascist cops & ex-military (pretty common, as we all know), that group of aggrieved bourgeoisie lacked the vital support of the actual military, Pentagon etc. (which some Trumpkins pretended to disrespect as “the deep state”, which obviously does exist but does just fine with 100% support from the political Establishment, Demopublican bipartisanship).

As NR correctly points out, the Trump Cult/Qanon bunch have no real ideology beyond “propaganda & [white grievance] idpol”– that movement will never have the sustained success of even say, e.g., the Trotskyists during the Soviet revolution.

So the Establishment, the “grown ups” as our state media said, prevailed again, for now, and the process, “transition of power” continued almost peacefully, with only a half dozen immediately dead, & some deep state militarization of the Capitol (which has not had a “people’s house” in decades, since FDR, if ever). Now Biden will do nothing to support the majority of Americans as their material situation continues to decay during a deadly pandemic, and 2 years from now, whichever faction of the (R)s, Corporate Establishment (Lincoln Project globalist imperialists) or Marjorie Taylor Greene (Jewish Space Lasers QAnon lumpen) prevails will be firmly back in the drivers’ seat, with control of the Senate at least.

It’ll be a slow bleed for the “nation”, if USA even merits that term anymore. Perhaps had Trump been in the least anti-imperialist and not just performative, there would have been a coup, but none was needed, and as dotard Joe informed the donors, “Nothing will fundamentally change.” Maybe America is exceptional, still clinging to a failed Late Capitalist oligarchy as it falls apart piece by piece. I don’t know a lot about the Byzantine Empire (though I do know they fell from an external threat that we don’t currently face) but I think studying their downfall might clarify where this country is headed.

@Mark Level

“As NR correctly points out, the Trump Cult/Qanon bunch have no real ideology beyond “propaganda & [white grievance] idpol””

I disagree with this, both in general and in regards to the capitol riot specifically. Trump increased his share of every demographic other than (the constantly vilified) white men in the 2020 election. Portraying him and his supporters as driven predominately by racism has always been a dishonest media narrative that never fit the facts on the ground (why did 200+ counties that had previously voted twice for Obama flip red in 2016?). But it’s a convenient way to ignore anything deeper behind the rise of Trump. Saying “it’s just bigots being bigots” is a great way to instantly shut down any introspection.

In terms of the riot specifically, the narrative was established basically from the start that this was a white supremacist mob. But if you actually look at pictures and video of these ‘white supremacists’, it isn’t hard to find black and brown people in the crowd. https://www.middleeasteye.net/sites/default/files/2021-01/Trump%20supporters%20hold%20sign%20that%20says%20'Iranians%20for%20Trump'%20-%20Ali%20Harb.jpg

Mostly this inconvenient factoid has been ignored, but sometimes someone will try and take a stab at explaining it, which gets us sheer idiocy like this: https://www.npr.org/2021/01/24/960060957/understanding-multiracial-whiteness-and-trump-supporters

When all you have is an idpol hammer, everything is a nail that must be pounded down to fit the idpol framing. ‘Obviously’ minority supporters of Trump can’t be motivated by anything other than some sort of ingrained racial self-hatred.

Excellent posts Soredemos,

I only found one thing to disagree with in all that well presented writing…Cortez* “probably becoming the next Pelosi herself”…I don’t think she’ll be trusted, used like Bernie to keep the sheep on the plantation but not trusted by the DNC’s donor class.
_____________________

I find Cortez trying to force others to revere and address her in the nomenclature of FDR repulsive.

Also I voted for Hawkins. So spare me the claims that I’m a ‘tribalist’.

came to see, you gave us a generalization, throwing some/all groups together, with no context.

I did? This was my post:

I thought this was the most important piece of Bruce’s post:

Evidently no one else did.

Of course, “you gave us a generalization, throwing some/all groups together, with no context” is in fact an exact description of your own approach to the events of that day.

I’m the rip old age of 31.

The woke of my age group and younger are in fact profoundly stupid.

I- Ching hexagram 108 states:
Buncha twinkies bitching.
No furtherance.

Howie Hawkins seems like a good guy. Doesn’t appear to have any major personality disorders, which is a plus. He even condemned the riot/insurrection/beer belly putsch:

The disruption of the Electoral College vote by Congress today by an invasion of the US capitol by a far-right authoritarians deserves total condemnation.

https://howiehawkins.us/release-howie-hawkins-comdemns-right-wing-invasion-of-the-us-capitol/

Sadly, I’m thinking that if he’d been there on the 6th wearing his Green Party Socialists! getup, he might’ve gotten his ass kicked.

Since bitching about AOC and pining for Trump seem like dead ends, I wouldn’t mind some new blood. That Hawkins got 0.2% of the 2020 vote and then trying to get elected 25 other times without success, certainly are problems. Any ideas about how to multiply that voter share by at least 250 or so?

Obviously, $15 an hour is too much an ask.

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/02/04/us/joe-biden-trump-impeachment

Biden is not going to budge – he is running TORP (That Other Republican Party).

Hey, guys, I found yet another example of a coup attempt, as clear as day on video. In the youtube “When Your Car is Blocked by a Herd of Goats”, you can see a herd of goats attacking a couple of vehicles, and their occupants. Dare I say that they are “storming” these vehicles? The goats are obviously right-wing goats, and obviously some of the goats attempt to murder the occupants, via trampling and goring.

Sure, I know that some people will object and SAY “Ah, but most of the goats aren’t looking to harm anybody”. Indeed, the videographer in the car actually seems to enjoy the process, and we can imagine that they would have posed for some of the goats for a selfie, if only goats could take selfies. This in no way should detract from the visual evidence, which we can all see with our own eyes, of the clear coup attempt to deprive the vehicles and their occupants of access to the road, and by the actions of oh-so-many of the goats to attack the vehicle occupants, some with the intent to kill them. Clearly, this coup attempt is for keeps, and the goats will never leave that road, if successful!

It’s also perfectly clear that the lead goat, as well as any and all shepherds involved, should be IMPEACHED! Justice demands this, and our righteous anger should not be deterred by any fascists and goat-murderer-apologists in our midsts, like metamars, Golladay, and S Brennan.

BTW, while this is clearly analogous to the fascist storming of the Capitol Hill, there is a clear difference. And that is: all the goats have horns, but only 1 of the Capitol Hill coup stormers had horns.

Oh, well, no analogy is perfect, now, is it?

A few notes.

In Ian’s 2012 “kindness” repost following this post, where the comments are closed, in the commentary you will find a commenter by the name of Qanon. It was 2012, long before there was even any mention of Qanon. Hmmmm.

Kindness to fascists is seen as weakness to them and is lost on them. They only understand cruelty. I’m not saying be cruel, I am saying don’t bother going out of your way to be kind to them. They admire Pinochet and his death squads where dissidents were thrown out of helicopters. They tauntingly approve of this tactic. I refuse to be kind to that.

https://theintercept.com/2021/02/04/pinochet-far-right-hoppean-snake/

Comment about Howie Hawkins in mod.

Yeah, the Qanon coincidence in the kindness thread is weird. The only other Q I’d ever heard of was Qtips and that TNG supernatural prankster character.

In world full of trolls, memes and computer viruses you’d think people would be more immunized to dark pranks like Qanon. Seems like a good teachable moment. I’d say the supernatural and conspiracy blind-faithers are most susceptible to these brain worms. Low abstract reasoning perhaps?

As for kindness and cruelty, people are born with a temperamental talent range. Been known for millennia and Keirsey expanded on what Hippocrates observed. For some people their natural set point is ethical compassion, for others it’s cruel dominance. I observed different groups in the gig economy world and every group had a different personality. The most unpleasant groups, full of anxiety-inducing chaos, usually had a psychopath in charge or lurking in the shadows pulling strings for their own amusement. If I could go back I’d screw them over for my own amusement, while trying to raise the kindness level of the group.

It’s a traditional brain (guardian) function. Happened to the Japanese during its militarist days when they mass murdered not-Japanese Asian others. It’s why liberty loving conservatives are some of the most boring dressers out there, until everybody’s doing something more sexy-stylish. What functions as the ballast of human society can be turned to evil by the nefarious.

Greens. I think that very carefully, comprehensively, and logically laying out scientifically ironclad cases for voting Green, will get them around 10-20 percent of the vote, at best. Most people just do things because that’s the way they’ve always been done, or it serves them well on a personal level, or just because they’re just cool.

Take Amazon. Is there really much difference between browsing for products on a computer vs browsing for products in a paper catalog? Sears had the added bonus of having stores in most towns where customers could put their hands on the products they’d seen in the catalogs. Personally, if I’m gonna make a major purchase I want to take the time to put my hands on it first. Make sure the box hasn’t been smashed in, or gets manhandled by the stressed delivery guy, or gets stolen off my porch. Not to mention its a crap shoot. I bought a dehumidifier from Sears that lasted 25 years, while the 9.8 star “review rated” replacement I got off Amazon is plastic crap which doesn’t do what was advertised.

Amazon knew how to get “cool”, and Sears lost their coolness. In the political world, sometimes it backfires. Goldwater tried logic for years and after the anti-christian GOP became cool with many Christians, they started influencing the movement to where he famously said it’d been taken over by “a bunch of kooks”.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0BEHO08r67U&ab_channel=TimPool

Watch and read the actual article, in which Establishment types brag about how they fixed the Election to ensure Biden won while suppressing all attempts to do a full and transparent audit.

Congratulations, we got a fascist authoritarian in charge who will ramp up the wars, ramp up warrantless surveillance, and finish off the economy.

I notice this typo toward the end of the first long paragraph: “This is a little low since the January 2018 to January 2018 jobs growth was” should read “This is a little low since the January 2018 to January 2019 jobs growth was.”

In his title Ian calls the US a coup-able state. This is a play on words in French where coupable means “guilty.”

No indications things are getting substantially worse or better.

If they’re not getting better then things in the real world are getting worse for people. Status quo is slow death. Though the word “substantially” is a qualifier.

Does “seasonally unadjusted data – as in what really happened” in economic terms translate well – or even at all – into people’s real day-to-day lives?

@Hugh,

Since I don’t know French, I would not have spotted that clever double meaning, if it was in fact intended.

If it was, all I can say is that if America is ten times more evil than Canada, it is because America is ten times bigger by population, power, etc. If Canada were ten times bigger than it is, it would be just as net-quantity evil as America.

Certainly, the Canadian Anglo-Franco settler state imperative was just as anti-Indian as America’s, wherever Canada had land as inhabitable and settle-able as America.

That said, Canada offers America certain better examples . . . . such as tax-funded Single Payer CanadaCare for all people in Canada. The US could do the same thing IF the majority who want it could conquer the government here and make it our OWN government and use it aGAINST the opponents of CanadaCare for all Americans to FORCE the issue.

Of course, a lot of Americans will be suspicious that ” Universal Health Care” or “Single Payer” or whatever doesn’t really secretly mean ” Crappy ObamaCare Bronze Plan” for everybody here. Because that is something we would mostly reject.