Image via Elvert Barnes on Flickr (CC BY-SA 2.0)
Welcome to another edition of Opportunists, Charlatans, and… the occasional newsletter where I break down what’s going on with the far right in Europe and abroad.
I’ve been working on a deep-dive for you on how Central European movements and their US Christian Right investors have been working together to enforce a radical vision of the “traditional family”, but before that, I wanted to offer some thoughts on yesterday’s mob insurrection on Capitol Hill.
So in this mini-edition, I’ll highlight three things to pay attention to in the swirl of information coming out of yesterday’s bizarre events and recall a few similar events that have been taking place in Europe.
We fight like Hell and if you don’t fight like Hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore.
Donald Trump at “Save America” rally, January 6th 2021
As you probably know by now, a large group of militant Trump supporters and Qanon enthusiasts stalked Capitol Hill January 6th following a pre-announced Trump rally calling for election results to be overturned. Following the speech, the MAGA insurrectionists then occupied Congress, doing various activities including livestreaming from the office of the Speaker of the House, wrecking government property, smoking weed and fighting with police. One woman died after being shot by police in circumstances that are still not entirely clear, three others died from medical problems. By evening, police forces had regained control of the building and Congress reconvened to confirm the outcome of the election.
Those are the basics. There is still a huge amount of information we do not know, but I want to zero in on the three things that stuck out to me yesterday as especially odd, in a day of considerable weirdness. These are the questions I will be following up on and I think they are, as self-help guru Maria Forleo says, “figureoutable”.
What was going on with the police?
Image via Blink O’Fanaye on Flickr(CC BY-NC 2.0)
The world watched in disbelief yesterday as largely unarmed protesters overtook the one of the most important buildings in the country with seemingly little resistance from law enforcement. The number one question that must be answered is why security forces were so ill-prepared for an event that was announced as a violent revolution weeks in advance on both the anonymous web as well as openly on facebook and twitter. There are some things we know and a few we don’t.
The first thing to know is that Washington, DC is not a state. It is a federal district, with no senators but with a Mayor (Muriel Bowser) whose power is unusually limited because of the city’s special status. For instance, she cannot call on District of Colombia National Guard troops without executive branch approval, an issue that became highly relevent yesterday.
She has even less authority over the Capitol Complex containing the White House, Congress and other federal buildings. This is a special federal zone with its own police force, the U.S. Capitol Police, which has exclusive jurisdiction over the area and operates totally separately from the DC Police (The Metropolitan Police Department or MPD). Yesterday’s rally and insurrection both took place on Capitol Police territory, and they reportedly did not ask for backup from Mayor Bowser and the MPD until the Capitol building had already been breached.
U.S. Capitol Police apparently pre-planned a small presence for the day of Trump’s rally in order to de-escalate (de-escalation, as we know, being ever the watchword of police in the district). The Department of Defense (a part of the Exective branch under President Trump) also declined to offer federal protection for DC, according to officials, “to avoid the optics of having any U.S. military personnel on the steps of the U.S. Capitol.”
It’s safe to venture that the “optics” ended up slightly worse without them.
Thus, we see that there were security complications in advance of the 6th, mainly related to two issues:
The overlapping complexities of law enforcement in the District of Colombia related to its non-state status
The fact that the president was the only person who could protect the district from the actions of his own supporters.
We would not expect both of these issues to typically overlap. Its hard to think of a time when the Capitol Police would be tasked with protecting presidential supporters at his rally in the morning and then protecting DC from the exact same people in the afternoon.
But even taking into consideration that some failures were caused by the unusual and awkward situation, images and video that have emerged documenting the actions of the police raise serious questions. While in some cases videos show protesters violently breaching barricades, in others the police appear to open gates to allow them through.
Other documentation, like above from Timothy Burke, shows officers taking selfies with rioters after having entered the congressional building. On exiting the Capitol, one of the rioters told CNN that cops had wished him a good night on his way out, adding, “you could see some of them were on our side.”
And although Bowser enstated a district-wide curfew for 6pm, footage from multiple news stations showed protesters milling around uperturbed on Capitol Hill well into the evening, as police stood by watching. At a press conference today with Bowser, it was announced that a total of 13 arrests had been made for unlawful entry into the Capitol- not one of which was made prior to 6pm, well after all rioters had left the building.
There is clearly something strange going on with the actions of at least some of the Capitol Police, and an investigation is likely imminent, despite today’s resignation of the Chief. Given what we know about right-wing infiltration of law enforcement, and what we saw unfolding yesterday before our eyes, we must unfortunately ask the same question haunting police forces in other countries threatened by the far right - was yesterday’s failure gross negligence or in some cases, complicity?
Why did Trump record his “we love you” video on the lawn?
The second thing I would like to figure out is why the president recorded a video on the lawn of the White House and posted it to twitter.
Immediately following a press conference by Joe Biden in which he called on the president to go on national TV and denounce the violence unfolding at the Capitol, Trump released a short pre-recorded video on twitter (it has since been removed from twitter and facebook but is, for now, still on Youtube.)
Obviously, this is a deeply weird video. The president reassures protesters that their grievances are valid, saying “there’s never been a thing like this, where they could take it away from all of us, from me, from you, from our country”, telling them, “we love you, you’re very special,” (words Don Jr. has been waiting to hear his whole life).
But the bizarreness of this now-banned video is compounded by the circumstances. As President, obviously, Trump would be entitled to call a press conference to address events of national significance. He could have broken into coverage on every primetime network with a presidential adresss from the Oval Office. He could have at least arranged a podium or something. Instead, we get this strange informal video, like a former Bachelor contestant announcing her divorce on Instagram stories.
It may seem like a small detail from yesterday’s events, but it speaks to the chaotic atmosphere in the White House that this seemingly spontaneous video was not coordinated by a team or orchestrated with any of the trappings or visual reminders of presidential power during such an unprecedented day. Did he even tell the White House press team of his intentions or did he just grab an intern and head out to the lawn before pressing send? Was there even anyone else around to try to dissuade him?
Whether Trump has anyone left to restrain his worst impulses is important, given his proven power to rouse a segment of his base to violence. Finding out the situation surrounding the decision to post this video should offer some insight into just what is going on in the White House.
Why did Pence have the authority to call on the national guard?
As events unfolded on the 6th and images of MAGA insurrectionists in fur frolicking through the Capitol were freaking out the world, the lack of support by the National Guard became increasingly questionable. Eventually they were approved, not by the commander-in-chief, but by Vice President Pence. CNN reported that Trump hadn’t even been in contact with the Defense Secretary on the matter:
As the chaos unfolded, doubts were raised about whether Trump would order the DC National Guard to respond due to the slowness of the response. Public statements by acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller and other top officials suggested it was Pence who ultimately approved the decision. Miller's statement Wednesday seems to indicate he did not even speak with Trump, discussing the matter with his deputy instead
The fact that various government officials apparently decided ad hoc to just skip over the chain of command in order to rally federal backup for Capitol Police raises additional questions about what was going on behind the scenes that day with Trump. If there were to be (another) national security threat, who would be making decisions right now- Trump or Pence? And if Pence is acting commander-in-chief because of something going on with Trump, why isn’t anyone saying so?
It seems in all likelihood that officials fudged their chain-of-command obligations out of frustration and disgust with the President, who not only failed to act but appeared to encourage his “very special” protesters - which is understandable. But if the government no longer considers the president worth consulting as commander-in-chief, it seems like something the rest of us should know.
Could it happen here?
While we all recoil in horror from the first days of what we were PROMISED would be our year, let’s recall that this kind of government attack is getting slightly more common since QAnon arrived on the scene:
In Serbia this July, anti-government protesters surrounded the National Parliament building, and a small extremist contingent of anti-Vaxxers and Covid-denyers actually breached the building for the first time since Milošević was in power. (The government used this as a pretext to roundly beat and deploy teargas on peaceful protesters far from parliament). Read my report for Global Voices: Serbia protests point to crisis of legitimacy for Vučić government
In August, a group of around 100 far right “querdenker” protesters - combining anti-vaxxers, Qanon enthusiasts and nazis - stormed the German Reichstag with an imperial flag. They remained a few minutes before being pushed out by outnumbered police, terrifying the Germans for a few days. Read about it here: Far Right Germans Try to Storm Reichstag as Virus Protests Escalate
However, the spectacle of yesterday’s MAGA insurrection appears to have also inspired a few populists to attempt to distance themselves from Trump, even when he had previously been an inspiration:
Hat’s Off: Populist Czech PM Andrej Babis has removed a logo depicting a Trump-style red hat with the logo “Strong Czechia” from his social media account.
Howdy Modi: India’s Hindu Nationalist PM Narendra Modi condemned the attacks and called for a peaceful transition, only to be reminded by opposition that he literally campaigned for Trump in Texas. To hammer the connection home, some MAGA insurrectionists were waving Indian flags.
Let’s hope that the rest of the nationalist crew distance themselves all the way out of office.
Further Reading:
Maga v BLM: how police handled the Capitol mob and George Floyd activists - The Guardian
There’s A Straight Line From Charlottesville To The Capitol - Buzzfeed News
How the Insurgent and MAGA Right are Being Welded Together on the Streets of Washington D.C - Bellingcat
Thanks for reading! Have a topic you want covered in more depth? Shoot me a message on twitter.
New: https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-attempted-coup-federal-law-enforcement-capitol-police-2021-1
Two updates: first, Trump released another video yesterday, with a podium, a flag and reading off of a teleprompter. In the speech he condemned the violence and said he would accept a peaceful transition. The contrast between the speech on the lawn could not be greater : https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1347334804052844550
Second, WaPo has a deep dive on security failures of the Capitol Police, accepting source reports that they were worried about the criticisms they recieved about BLM protesters. I'm VERY skeptical:
"And unlike other major government events like inaugurations, there was no large-scale frozen security zone around the building, and Justice Department officials did not create a multiagency command center. Instead, both federal law enforcement agencies and National Guard troops kept a low profile, scarred by criticism of their involvement in the response to protests after the death of George Floyd last summer."
Read the full article here: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/capitol-police/2021/01/07/fa3114b8-5114-11eb-83e3-322644d82356_story.html