“None of this matters to the leaders in Washington: Not walling themselves from the public they serve, nor spreading even more fear and distrust among their supporters than already existed. What matters is that the Democrats and the troops be seen as the only things standing between America and a Ku Klux MAGA apocalypse.”
Christopher Bedford, National Review editor, in his essay, The Occupation Of Washington Is Pure Panic Porn — And You Are The Target
I don’t usually like to devote an Ethics Alarms post to quoting another writer’s work, but Mr. Bedford has expressed what I would have so perfectly that I’ll make an exception. Please go to the National Review and read the whole thing, but note these points:
- “The National Guard have been in D.C. for three weeks now….Fences, military trucks, and armored vehicles crisscross our roads and neighborhoods. Major traffic arteries through the city have been closed. Concertina razor wire surrounds our noble government buildings. Originally called to secure the Capitol building from attackers, the Guard never left. By Inauguration Day, some newspaper reports put the number of uniformed troops deployed to the city at more than 25,000. Bridges were shut down, highway exits blocked, gates raised.”
- “Just this week, we learned that thousands of Guardsmen could remain “indefinitely.” If this seems theatrical and excessive, it’s because it is. Worse yet, it’s about politics, not security, with the same politicians who claimed Antifa violence against their voters was a “myth” now insisting they need a full division of troops to defend them from a rebel army that doesn’t exist.”
- “When President Donald Trump ordered Guardsmen into the capital following nights of Black Lives Matter-inspired rioting, Maryland Sen. Chris van Hollen called it “an affront to our Constitution.” D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser “formally requested” they be withdrawn, and made them move to new rooms and hotels, declaring that the city would not “pay their hotel bills.” Continuing the troop-bashing, in July Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi compared the federal officers defending the Portland Federal Courthouse against weeks of nightly Antifa rioting (with 140 officers injured throughout the siege) to Nazi “stormtroopers.” And on and on and on.”
- “The Jan. 6 Capitol riots were an ugly, deadly, and tragic but ultimately isolated incident, spurred on by liberal toleration of political violence, Trump’s refusal to accept the loss, and corporate media’s open scorn of half the country and their legitimate election concerns. Democratic politicians took those riots and used them to reverse political course and order the complete militarization of downtown Washington, intentionally spreading the fear and distrust deeper into America in an effort to make their point.”
- “Just as in the aftermath of the terrible Sept. 11 attacks, many of the indignities we’ve been subjected to are pure security theater. Unlike the aftermath of those attacks, however, the people the theater is meant to frighten off aren’t foreign terrorists — they’re you and me.”
Exactly.
As regular readers here will recall, I agonized over the decision whether to decline to vote either for President Trump, whom I then, now and previously regarded as the kind of person who should never be an American leader, and the Democratic Party, which I increasingly have come to believe is an existential threat to democracy, personal liberties and core American values. In the end, I reluctantly concluded that the immediate danger posed by the latter vastly exceeded the undeniable threat still raised by the prospect of another four years of a chaotic Trump Presidency.
I wish I was always as right as I was in making that decision. But ironically, I also wish I had been wrong.
Tragically, I was not.
It’s choose one from Column A or Column B. No substitutions. What cognizant person doesn’t vote against the current Democratic Party? What are Democratic voters voting for?
Oh, wait. Here’s what they’re voting for: Raoul Grijalva, the Social Justice Democrat from the District north of mine.
https://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/healthcare/535901-an-equitable-distribution-of-covid-19-vaccine-must-include
As I have said, the Democratic Party doesn’t feel that they need to pretend anymore. There is no check to their power and they can do anything they want and they will. There may be more elections, but the outcome will be determined by those who count the votes, not the voters.
If they really think that, they are certifiable. If they run amuck for two years, they will lose the House and Senate in epic fashion.
Mail in voting is here to stay and the Democrats in power in Congress and the White House will have 2 years to perfect the game.
You heard Bernie Sanders, They’re in the majority and they need to act like it. If they run amuck enough, they won’t lose a thing.
They don’t have the votes, Steve.
They have the votes, they can ram stuff through with reconciliation, and the media will make sure EVERYTHING they do gets good press. Welcome to Venezuela 2.0
Judging by the number of Biden voters bitching and moaning online about how they feel betrayed that Joe hasn’t sent them a check for $2000 yet, I’d say a high percentage of Democrat voters are voting for “free” stuff to be given to them.
Ya think?
Well the Democrats had their Reischstag Fire opportunity with the storming of the Capital by a relatively small number of lunatics who really didn’t listen to what Trump said in his speech. Now the First and Second Amendment can be safely ignored by Biden and all his cronies in Congress. What an awful time it is.
And now we know that the storming of the Capitol was planned online days before, and was already underway when Trump was beginning his speech. Of course, the truth is whimpered meekly out into the void weeks after the lie has already lapped the globe, and no one cares because they’ve already got their version of reality dictated to them, as per usual.
Another reason I suspect for the Capitol police were unprepareed was because Speaker Pelosi had defamed their DHS cousins-in-arms as “stormtroopers”.
I can understand why so many Capitol Police officers did not try too hard, given what Pelosi tweeted.
It’s funny because the whole “federal troops arresting Portland protestors” thing is happening RIGHT NOW, exactly the same as it was when Trump did it, and no one is even talking about it.
I’m not sure people like Nancy Pelosi are even capable of a genuine emotion. They just spend the whole day play-acting. It must be exhausting.
Indeed.
Nice post but at 25,000 personnel, make that 2 divisions.
https://babylonbee.com/news/biden-administration-prevents-military-coup-by-deploying-20000-soldiers
Does anybody remember when Obama ordered all sorts of public parks, monuments, and buildings to be closed unnecessarily in order to make the government shutdown look worse than it was and then blame Republicans?
Of course they would do this.
I was reminded of this just yesterday. Mount Vernon is not run by the government, but its parking lot is, so the Obama administration shut down the parking lot. The open air WWII memorial had a guard stationed to prevent people from entering it, but the WWII veterans were having none of that.
I do recall reading an article in which a park employee verified that they’d been told to make things as hard as possible on citizens so that the Republicans would be blamed.
With that history, it is difficult to believe that there are things the Democrats wouldn’t do to cause the Republicans harm, including destroying the economywith stringent lockdowns just to win an election.
Then it is time Republicans do the same, only a hundredfold.
One reason for the Jan 6th breach of the Capitol was that the police were not prepared. You can see it from the video footage – there are too few of them visible, showing up too late. They’re forced to retreat in disarray, as individuals and small groups. They wait too long to lower security barriers, and by the time they try the crowd is already underneath them, preventing them from closing.
Now, I’m sure there are many reasons for this lack of preparation, but part of it is certainly that Capitol police never believed conservative protesters would actually be a threat. Sure, the media always speaks of conservative gatherings using the language of violence, but it’s an open secret they’re typically expected to show up, obey police, pick up their own trash, and leave. The police were never expecting them to do what the media is always screaming they will do because, with few exceptions, it has been a lie and they knew it to be a lie.
This take makes a lot of sense. I don’t know all the facts, but the reality is that protests from the right are an order of magnitude more peaceful and law-abiding than those from the left. That hasn’t always been true (I still remember the 1960’s), but it has been for a while. Also, in fairness, protests from the right tend to be smaller and far, far less frequent, so the sample size is small and small protests of either extreme have a lower propensity for violence.
This was the most egregious quote, due to her status as Speaker.
I am surprised Jack never dedicated an entire blog post to the Mark O. Hatfield Courthouse ethics train wreck.
The way these people reacted to arsonists and rioters at the Mark O. Hatfield Courthouse in comparison to how they reacted to rioters at the Capitol is striking!
Anyone up for betting on when the soldiers go home as an entity?
Not counting this round of activations eventually ending…such could be replaced by new activations of National Guardsmen…current round has been extended to the end of March.
When does the soldier presence actually go home?
The easiest answer is, “when the entire impeachment show is over,” since the troop buildup is there to enhance the idea that Trump caused a bunch of chaos. I suppose if they thought they could stretch it out until the midterms like they did the Mueller investigation, they might.
We have as a culture, quietly forgotten that the nation’s capital has been occupied by soldiers at the request of the Democrat ruling party.
As I suspected, it looks like it’s here to stay and has been normalized.
This is terrifying.
But good job democrats, you got rid of the great dictator!
I am reminded of this.
https://nypost.com/2021/01/08/rage-at-capitol-assault-makes-excuses-for-summer-riots-all-the-more-disgraceful/