Sunday, January 02, 2022

“Not Me” Did It!

It's been a year since that pro-Trump mob broke through the Capitol doors and windows, attacked law enforcement and media and vandalized the building as lawmakers were rushed to secure locations. Five people died in or as a result of the attack and 140 police officers were assaulted, along with members of the media.

As it was unfolding, we asked one of the rioters, who called himself "Joe from Ohio," what the goal was.

"The people in this house, who stole this election from us, hanging from a gallows out here in this lawn for the whole world to see, so it never happens again," he said. "That's what needs to happen. Four by four by four, hanging from a rope out here for treason."

A makeshift gallows with a noose was actually built on the Capitol grounds that day but was never used.

On another side of the Capitol, Tom Bowman was talking to Natalie O'Brien and Chris Scalcucci, a couple from Detroit. He asked them why they were doing this.

"The Republic falling," O'Brien said. "And becoming corrupt and unmanageable. And our vote not mattering at all whatsoever."

"Because we love our country," Scalcucci added. "And we don't want it to fall in the hands of these evil people. The stuff that they do, it's unforgivable."

"Our tax dollars pay for this monument. This is kind of our property," O'Brien said.

For many who participated in the siege, it felt like a patriotic act. They were loyal Americans protesting what they had been told was a stolen election.

And now that there are consequences for their actions, they didn't do it, they weren't even there.

Months later, Tom Bowman and I went back to the Capitol grounds in Sept. for the "Justice for J6" rally. A lot of the people we spoke to had also been there on Jan. 6. And yet, they were echoing the story they had heard on Fox News.

"Those weren't Trump supporters," said a man named Phil from Kentucky, claiming the only people breaking in were dressed all in black.

"So they were black helmets, black clothes, black backpacks who started busting the windows first," said Janie, a nurse from South Carolina, who said she saw members of Antifa and Black Lives Matter committing the violence. She also claimed the Trump supporters were actually trying to fight them off. But when we mentioned we were on site that day, she admitted that she never actually came close enough to the Capitol to see any violence.

We let her know that the Proud Boys were dressed in all black that day, having planned to forego their usual colors of black and yellow in order to be "incognito."

"I didn't know that," she said.
Knowing is half the battle; right? 

And 700+ people have been charged with crimes.  How's that working out for them?

Tampa Bay attorney Bjorn Brunvand represents several people who were at the Capitol that day, including Robert Scott Palmer, who was recently sentenced to five years in prison for assaulting law enforcement officers with a fire extinguisher, a wood plank and a flagpole. His is the longest such term yet.

"He believed in the lies that were being professed by former President Trump and his accomplices," Brunvand said.

But he said his client has had a major change of heart since his arrest.

"It went from 100% support for President Trump and the idea that the election was fraudulent at the beginning ... to the recognition that he was misled. He's sitting in a detention facility here in Washington, D.C. and this big powerful former president who said 'meet me at the Capitol', he's too busy playing golf and has no interest in any of the guys that have been arrested," Brunvand said.

He said Palmer took President Trump's words that day as a directive. That he did it for him. And now he feels abandoned.

"Not only did he not show up, he's not there for anyone who were there and supposedly were there to save democracy and save the country. When in fact, they were doing quite the opposite," Brunvand said.

I do wonder if these people even vote; or influence how anyone else votes.  And then I remember the 2020 election was a repudiation of the incumbent, something Americans almost never do.  So why is Trump likely to win again in 2024?

But the idea of Jan. 6 did not die with the day. The University of Chicago Project on Security and Threats has been tracking insurrectionist sentiment in the U.S. for a year now. It found that 21 million share the same beliefs that motivated rioters that day.

In other words, millions of Americans support the idea of political violence. Researchers call it "an American insurrectionist movement" that, a year after the attack on the Capitol, is still alive and well.

Millions of Americans also opposed granting civil rights to non-whites.  It happened anyway, because millions more supported it.  Watch the donut, not the hole.  And watch the players, too:
This is actually a switch for Crenshaw, which may explain why MTG is so upset. I first heard Crenshaw shouting on the topic on a local NPR talk show. He was shouting so much and so vehemently I thought it was a crank caller. I found out later it was my newly elected Representative. Of course, now he’s shouting because Biden, so maybe not so much change after all. Apparently MTG is defending the “don’t test/don’t tell & it will go away” line a true Trumper would embrace.

I wonder what changed his mind? Of course, he didn't run as a complete jackass; he mostly ran as the butt of Pete Davidson's joke on SNL.  Maybe he doesn't think he can win re-election by appealing to people who want to get covid.
Crenshaw  asked for more testing facilities to be available in his district, which includes Houston (or did).   That, or his district has changed. Either way, it tells me "stupid" is not playing as well for him as it once did.
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