Against the Grain II
The rude awakening of Trump-supporting rioters
On Dec. 7, 1941, responding to the sudden Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt referred to it as “A date which will live in infamy.” If that was the case for Pearl Harbor, such also must be said about Jan. 6, 2021. Contrary to popular analysis, the failed insurrection at the U.S. Capitol was the result of not just the urging of former President Donald J. Trump, but years of built-up frustration.
Trump, however, is not above censure. His entire political uprising was based on mobilizing and manipulating rural America. Many of these individuals hold core beliefs in the right to bear arms, are susceptible to conspiracy theories and act as a military unit with coded communication via obscure social media formats. While the vast majority of these “patriots” as they call themselves, oppose government control, they align with the Republican party as one of its core principals is the reduction in government oversight.
The election of Barack H. Obama as the 44th President of the United States was a tipping point for this culture. Much like a Black quarterback breaking the glass ceiling in the NFL, the “patriots” felt that Obama’s election was the low point in the relinquishing of the power of the country to someone they never thought should have held office.
Trump’s ascension to power was clear cut. He embraced this culture. He somehow found a balance to attract enough traditional Republicans and add the secular extremists who began to crowd his campaign trail in 2016 and remain with him through two impeachments.
Feeding this culture a bevy of untruths….well, outright lies, Trump’s assertion that he in fact won the 2020 presidential election and that he was being robbed by mainstream America, he incited fury in the “patriots.”
It all came to a head on the U.S. Capitol plaza as Congress was ratifying the election with the acceptance of the electoral college submission. Emboldened by Trump, the insurrectionists made their way inside the Capitol and vandalized, terrorized and degraded the capitol, looking for members of the House and Senate to harm.
In the end, five individuals died in the raid. In that number was a Capitol police officer who was crushed by the rebellious insurrectionists. The rioters made their way through the building as members of the Congress and Senate were rushed to safety tunnels. The world watched the images of the strongest nation in the world being hijacked by a group of domestic terrorists.
Not since the Boston Tea Party in 1773 had we seen such a rebellion in this country.
As the dust settled, Trump finally denounced the very people he incited to perform the insurrection. It was par for the course as many Americans had seen from Trump over the past four years, but it was a rude awakening for those caught up in the emotion and hype exacerbated by Trump’s rhetoric. The one that they believed in and based their whole operation on had turned on them. Shortly before Trump’s denouncement, the clan had turned their hateful intentions to former vice president Mike Pence and former Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. Pence and McConnell who had stood by Trump for four years had seen enough and broke with the movement.
The rudest of awakenings came as warrants and arrests of business CEOs, community leaders, seemingly upstanding citizens, and ordinary blue collar workers began and incarceration for their misguided actions that day at the capitol began to unfold. It was even much darker as they realized that they were left on a plank by the very person that virtually called them to do what they did on that chilly day in Washington D.C.
