Friday, February 2, 2024

OMNI US DEMOCRACY, JANUARY 6, 2021, INSURRECTION ANTHOLOGY

 

OMNI

US DEMOCRACY, JANUARY 6, 2021 INSURRECTION ANTHOLOGY

February 2, 2024

Compiled by Dick Bennett for a Culture of Peace, Justice, and Ecology, Efforts to Assess the Strength of US Democracy Today

Https://omnicenter.org/donate  

 


CONTENTS

“Democracy on Trial,” PBS, Frontline
Portside, the Attempted Coup and Democracy. Responses.
Robert Borosage.  Trump as Symptom of Plutocracy.
Common Cause v. Gingrich and Republican Anti-Democracy Movement
Monica Cruz.  What Are The Lessons From The Trump-Backed Insurrection Of January 6?

Jeremy Kuzmarov.  Capitol Riot One-Year Anniversary: Was it a False-Flag Attack?

David Sirota.   How The Meltdown Became An Insurrection.”
Dana Milbank.  “‘We are closer to civil war than any of us would like to believe.’

“A Day of Stunning Savagery.”
“3 retired generals: The military must prepare now for a 2024 insurrection.”
Benjamin Carter Hett. The Death of Democracy:  Hitler's Rise to Power and the Downfall of the Weimar Republic. 

 

TEXTS

“Democracy on Trial,” PBS, Frontline
PBS, FRONTLINE, DEMOCRACY ON TRIAL, USA JANUARY 6, 2021, PREPARATION FOR INSURRECTON, ATTEMPTED COUP 

[When we look back upon these events, whether our democracy has gone the way of the Weimar Republic or not, this documentary of roots of the January 6 Insurrection and of the criminal cases against former President Trump might be recognized as PBS’s single greatest effort to defend our democracy.  –Dick]

www.pbs.org › wgbh › frontline  Democracy on Trial” | FRONTLINE - PBS

“Democracy on Trial” Airs on January 30, 2024 / Watch the Trailer ↓ Season 2024: Episode 9 Directed by: Michael Kirk Produced by: Michael Kirk Mike Wiser Vanessa Fica FRONTLINE investigates the...

Alan Pergament: Frontline's 'Democracy on Trial' is must-see TV for all voters.  You likely won’t see a more important documentary in months than the new episode of the PBS series “Frontline” titled “Democracy</..The Buffalo News 

What if Hillary Clinton tried to overturn the 2016 election using tactics similar to Trump’s? Letter to the Editor.  After viewing the recently aired PBS Frontline program, “Democracy on Trial,” a...  The Cleveland Plain Dealer.

Videos:18youtube.com

Democracy on Trial (full documentary) | FRONTLINE

Jan 30, 2024 

youtube.com  Democracy on Trial: Robert Ray (interview) | FRONTLINE  Jan 30, 2024

youtube.com  Democracy on Tral: Rusty Bowers (interview) | FRONTLINE  Jan 30, 2024

 

1.     View all

2.     www.wpbstv.org › democracy-on-trial-full  Democracy on Trial (full documentary) | FRONTLINE | WPBS ...  2 days ago · January 30, 2024 FRONTLINE investigates the roots of the federal criminal case against former President Donald Trump stemming from his 2020 election loss. This journalism is made possible by viewers like you. Support your local PBS station here: https://www.pbs.org/donate

3.    www.thirteen.org › programs › frontline Democracy on Trial | FRONTLINE - New York Public Media

2 days ago · FRONTLINE | Episode Democracy on Trial The roots of the criminal cases against former President Trump stemming from his 2020 election loss. Amid the presidential race, examining the House..www.pbssocal.org › episodes › democracy-on-trial Watch Democracy on Trial | FRONTLINE Season 2024 | PBS SoCal

1 day ago · Episode 54:23 FRONTLINE Frontline - The Discord Leaks How a young Air National Guardsman allegedly leaked classified documents onto Discord. Season 2023 Episode 21 Episode 54:23 FRONTLINE Inside the Uvalde Response Investigating the chaotic response to the Uvalde school shooting and the missteps. Season 2023 Episode 20 Episode

4.    www.pbs.org › video › democracy-on-trial-previewFRONTLINE | "Democracy on Trial" - Preview | Season 2024 ...

"Democracy on Trial" - Preview Preview: Season 2024 Episode 2 | 32s | Video has closed captioning. The roots of the criminal cases against former President Trump stemming from his 2020 election...

o   Video Duration: 32 sec

5.   Images

 

Frontline: Democracy on Trial (PBS Tuesday January 30, 2024) | Memorable TV  Democracy on Trial (full documentary) | FRONTLINE : r/USTranshumanistParty

View all

6.    www.vpm.org › shows › frontlineDemocracy on Trial | VPM

Democracy on Trial. Season 2024 Episode 2. The roots of the criminal cases against former President Trump stemming from his 2020 election loss. Amid the presidential race, examining the House Jan. 6 committee’s evidence, the threat to democracy and the historic charges against Trump. Aired: 01/29/24.

7.    www.kpbs.org › 01 › 24FRONTLINE: Democracy On Trial | KPBS Public Media

Jan 25, 2024 · Amid the presidential race, examining the House Jan. 6 committee’s evidence, the threat to democracy and the historic charges against Trump. (a special 2.5-hour documentary) FRONTLINE:...

8.    weta.org › watch › shows Democracy on Trial | WETA

Democracy on Trial The roots of the criminal cases against former President Trump stemming from his 2020 election loss. Amid the presidential race, examining the House Jan. 6 committee’s

 

 

ONGOIING ATTEMPTED COUP AND DEMOCRACY RESPONSES
The MAGA storming of the Capitol is two years old. The attempted coup is still happening. The reshaping of the Republican Party as an insurrectionary force and the expansion of armed gangs aim to smash democracy. 
Please help us to inform, to mobilize and to inspire the forces of multi-racial, radical, inclusive democracy to defeat this threat in 2023.

“Building Resilient Organizations: Toward Joy and Durable Power in a Time of Crisis.”

To effectively contend with racist, authoritarian forces, our work must be as powerful as possible. Maurice Mitchell unpacks problems our organizations and movements face, identifies underlying causes and core problems, proposes concrete solutions.

December 1, 2022 Maurice Mitchell  CONVERGENCE. 

Executives in professional social justice institutions, grassroots activists in local movements, and fiery young radicals on protest lines are all advancing urgent concerns about the internal workings of progressive spaces.  Portside (12-2-22).  https://portside.org/2022-12-01/building-resilient-organizations-toward-joy-and-durable-power-time-crisis?utm_medium=email&utm_source=portside-snapshot
https://portside.org/sites/default/files/inline-images/contribute_2018%28160x43%29.jpg to Portside.
Bottom of Form

 

Robert L. Borosage.  “Watergate at 50.  What We Can Learn From Watergate.”  The Nation (10.17-24.2022).  “Fifty years ago, we tried to make the presidency more accountable. It wasn’t enough to secure democracy.”  “Bipartisan policies paved the way for Trump—and regulation and reform alone won’t preserve our democracy.”  [Succinct and comprehensive in only a page and a half.  “While Trump must be held accountable, he’s a symptom of our democratic decline, not its cause,” which is the “big money” of “plutocracy.” Dick ]

Petition: Condemn Newt Gingrich.   Common Cause.
Dick, former House Speaker and major Trump defender Newt Gingrich just called the House Select Committee investigating the January 6th insurrection a “lynch mob” that’s “pursuing innocent people.” [1]

That’s right: an actual violent mob launched a deadly attack at our Capitol and built a literal gallows for then-Vice President Pence – but Gingrich claims that the public servants trying to ensure this can never happen again are the ones who should “face a real risk of going to jail.”

Gingrich’s comments are appalling – and indicative of the far right’s ongoing efforts to downplay the atrocities that took place last January 6th. We cannot let these partisan operatives evade accountability and bury the truth.

Condemn Newt Gingrich’s outrageous comments – and demand that the House Select Committee investigating the insurrection can do its important work without obstruction >>

ADD MY NAME

Gingrich, who is currently advising GOP congressional leadership ahead of the 2022 midterms, is hardly the only Republican who has tried to minimize the attack. Last year, Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ) claimed that a federal investigation into the riot was “harassing peaceful patriots” – and Rep. Andrew Clyde (R-GA) likened the invasion of the Capitol to a “normal tourist visit.” [2]

Dick, the fact is: we are up against an authoritarian, anti-democracy movement – many of whom are relying on the threat of future attacks like the one on January 6th to back up their brazen attempts to seize power over the will of voters.

We will not let these power-hungry politicians rewrite history. The events of January 6th showed us just how fragile our democracy can be – but we can protect it by speaking out and holding anyone who tries to undermine this country’s bedrock principles accountable.

Add your name to condemn the egregious comments about the insurrection made by Newt Gingrich and other far-right extremists.

Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY), who serves as Vice Chair of the House Select Committee, tweeted a strong rebuke of Gingrich’s comments, stating: “This is what it looks like when the rule of law unravels.” [3]   We must, in this high-stakes moment, step up and speak out for our democracy.

With thanks for all you do,  Devon Nir, Digital Strategies Manager
and the team at Common Cause
1) 
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/gingrich-jan-6-committee-jail-1289408/
2) 
https://www.thedailybeast.com/gop-lawmakers-claim-trump-supporters-were-the-true-victims-of-capitol-riot
3) 
https://twitter.com/Liz_Cheney/status/1485332371981406212

 

What Are The Lessons From The Trump-Backed Insurrection Of January 6?

By Monica Cruz, Peoples Dispatch. Popular Resistance.org (1-9-22).   year ago today, a fascist mob took over the US Capitol building in Washington, D.C., stunning the country and the entire world. Called to action by Donald Trump and instigated by his false accusation that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from him, the mob stormed the building and briefly stopped the certification of the electoral college votes. The attack would not have been possible without collusion from high-level military, police and security officials. Yet, none of them have been brought to justice. At the same time, Congress formed a special committee on January 6th which has no... -more-

 

 

Capitol Riot One-Year Anniversary: Was it a False-Flag Attack?

By Jeremy Kuzmarov, CovertAction Magazine, Jan 06, 2022 06:00 am

Amateurish planning, delayed police response and presence of agent provocateurs in crowd offers indication that Deep State was behind it.

On January 6, 2021—one year ago today—a mob of pro-Trump supporters laid siege to the U.S. Capitol, 
causing more than $30 million in property damage and as many as seven deaths.

At that time, a Joint Session of Congress was convening to perform its constitutional obligation to count the electoral votes for President and Vice President and officially announce the results of the 2020 election, which the rioters viewed as illegitimate.

Upon entering the building, they disrupted the Joint Session of Congress, vandalized, and stole property, ransacked offices, and threatened the lives of elected leaders such as Vice President Mike Pence, who sanctioned the election result, and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, who had been branded as “the devil.” 

Since those events, 719 people have been charged with crimes, and 129 rioters have entered guilty pleas.[1]

In November, Fox News host Tucker Carlson caused a stir when he hosted a documentary series, “Patriot Purge” that branded the Capitol riots as a “false-flag” terrorist attack. […]

The post Capitol Riot One-Year Anniversary: Was it a False-Flag Attack? appeared first on CovertAction Magazine.

 

David Sirota.   How The Meltdown Became An Insurrection.”   The Daily Poster.  06 Jan 2022 – View online →  

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Today is the one-year anniversary of the January 6 riot, which was the violent crescendo of a generation-long meltdown that exploded in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis.

Amid all the solid reporting about the details of that day — who plotted it, who participated in it, who supported it — the larger context of the mayhem is almost never mentioned, because to mention it is to raise uncomfortable questions about the roots of right-wing authoritarianism, and spotlight what kind of soil allows those roots to sprout into bloodshed.

The Republican Party is now a corporate-sponsored insurrection creeping through right-wing media, state legislatures, and Congress.

Democrats’ stunned, deer-in-headlights reaction to that insurrection’s January 6th riot — and the belated fears about the end of democracy — only underscore that they remain totally out of touch with the political environment their party was complicit in creating. Their shock also illustrates how oblivious they are to the erosion of democracy that’s been going on for a half century.

The Loss Of Faith In Government
At its core, the January 6th insurrection was the weaponized manifestation of virulent anti-government sentiment in a putatively democratic country where a majority has not trusted its own government for two decades, according to the Pew Research Center polls. That anti-government sentiment on display during last year’s riot wasn’t spontaneous — a quick trip back in time in a flux-capacitor-powered Delorean shows it was cultivated by both politics and reality over the last four decades.

Let’s remember: The ideological crusade against government has always been a part of American politics. But it really began coalescing in modern form in the late 1970s when conservative demagogues, moguls, and business interests began building a movement to demonize public institutions — and to insist as Ronald Reagan did that “the nine most terrifying words in the English language are, ‘I'm from the government, and I'm here to help.’”

When these right-wing forces gained power, they enacted policies that turned their ideology into a self-fulfilling prophecy. Tax cuts for the wealthy starved government institutions of resources, and when those hobbled agencies then delivered worse services, Republican politicians cited those failures to justify even more budget-starving tax cuts, privatization, and deregulation.

Conservatives tilled this bumper crop of anti-government resentment in soil made fertile by a liberal establishment that was at the time discarding the proven political formula of Franklin Roosevelt. He became the Democratic Party’s most popular president because he understood that delivering economic gains for the working class is not merely good and moral policy, but also the only way to preserve democracy. As he said, a government that refuses to deliver those gains will create a population willing to “sacrifice liberty in the hope of getting something to eat” (and one of his first acts as president was quelling a potential insurrection by supporting help to aggrieved veterans).

In conjunction with Reagan’s ascent, more and more Democratic politicians abandoned this New Deal formula of delivering help to voters and then being rewarded in elections by those same voters. Instead, modern-day Democrats shoved aside a beleaguered labor movement in pursuit of corporate campaign cash, figuring they could help Republicans kick voters in the face, and then just try to buy reelection with corporate donors’ money.

The pillars of neoliberalism — tax cuts, corporate-written trade deals, financial deregulation, budget austerity, and privatization — soon became a bipartisan affair.

Bill Clinton, the first Democratic president after the Reagan era, proudly declared that “the era of big government is over,” and then launched a crusade to slash welfarehelp capital crush unionsderegulate Wall Streetprivatize government services, and pass the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) — the latter of which prompted culturally conservative working class voters to abandon the party in droves, according to new research.  [See Jeremy Kuzmarov.  Warmonger: How Clinton’s Foreign Policy Launched the US Trajectory from Bush II to Biden (2023).]

George W. Bush picked up where Clinton left off, and then turned the volume up to 11 with the Iraq War — a disaster defined by such epic lies, mismanagement, and theft that it thoroughly discredited the entire political (and media) class. The Hurricane Katrina debacle further underscored the idea of government as unable — or worse, unwilling — to fulfill its most basic responsibilities. During Bush’s tenure, polls showed a mind-boggling 40-point drop in Americans’ faith in their government.

Then came the financial crisis and the presidency of Barack Obama, in what now looks like a last-chance opportunity — a fleeting moment to use a massive election mandate to resurrect Roosevelt’s New Deal formula, reverse the neoliberal deregulation that fueled the emergency, and really deliver for a ravaged working class.

Instead, Obama fortified the policies that created the crisis in the first place. Regulations were aesthetically polished but not fundamentally changed. Bailouts were quickly delivered to the Wall Street donors whose banks were firing up a foreclosure machine. Meanwhile, millions of people thrown out of their homes were given some meager health insurance subsidies, a few nice speeches about “hope,” and the prospect of Social Security cuts.

A Predictable Riot
To be sure, there were some public sector successes in the last 40 years. Yes, infrastructure was built and important scientific research was subsidized. Yes, most medicinal innovations were funded by the public (and then privatized and profiteered by politically connected drugmakers). And yes, the government miraculously helped make a lifesaving vaccine available to everyone in America who wants one.

But overall, the government was not addressing eminently solvable economic problems that have been enriching a handful of billionaires while making life miserable for millions of people.

As economic inequality grew to levels not seen since the before the Great Depression, the topline message to millions of Americans over decades has been clear: Despite saccharine campaign speeches to the contrary, and despite some begrudging policy improvements at the margins, governmental leaders have been telling us that they are at best uninterested in aiding most people unless it enriches their donors. More often, they are actively hostile to helping anyone other than the rich and powerful.

Though blue-no-matter-who liberals don’t like to discuss it, the Obama administration’s alliance with Wall Street in the aftermath of the financial crisis was the inflection point solidifying distrust in government, providing a political opportunity for not just Trump but for his entire movement that ultimately tried to torch the Capitol on January 6th.

As Trump’s consigliere Steve Bannon said: “The legacy of the financial crisis was Donald J. Trump.”

That’s not an overstatement nor a shocker: Comprehensive research shows that in the last 150 years, such financial crises and weak responses in the industrialized world have almost always been followed by an assault on democracy by right-wing authoritarian movements whose anti-government arguments find even more purchase among voters who blame public institutions for the emergencies.

The insurrection was the American version of that global phenomenon — and it followed a Trump term that was performance art for public sector incompetence. The businessman-president seemed completely uninterested in the actual job, the rich got richerfixable crises got worse, and governmental corruption was not only rampant, but cartoonishly explicit — a signal that graft once considered scandalous is now considered just regular “government.”

Though he was literally the head of that government, Trump cynically blamed most of the grotesquerie on government (and by extension the obsequious political press) — from the “deep state” to the Centers for Disease Control to state governments. Come election day, he and his cronies effectively blamed his election loss on an alleged government conspiracy to steal the election, knowing that an ever larger share of the public was already alienated from its institutions and therefore pre-primed to believe any anti-government argument at all, no matter how absurd.

Hence, when egged on by Trump and a right-wing misinformation machine, some of the hardest of hard core of those believers amassed at the Capitol ready to burn the government down — literally.

It’s hardly a surprise that many of the disgruntled rioters had faced recent financial hardship, which no doubt many blamed on — you guessed it! — the government. It’s even less surprising that many other rioters were economically well off and considered “mainstream” rather than fringe militia types — showing that anti-government sentiment had been normalized and spread to Republicans’ golf-and-tennis crowd.

"Nobody Elected Him To Be FDR”
Acknowledging this context is not to defend the violence or sympathize with its motives — it is simply to recognize that neither Trump’s cabal nor January 6 are anomalies. They are villainous characters and horrifying events in a larger parable that unfolds when for decades a government stops governing and democracy is routinely defiled.

Preventing the next insurrection or something worse, then, is not just a retrospective investigatory or law enforcement matter about a single January day that will live in infamy. It must also be a forward-looking political project — one that Democrats seem to either not understand or not care about.

Up to now, Democrats have spotlighted the January 6 Commission’s revelations about Trump’s coup attempt, and they have touted their party’s half-hearted promise to protect voting rights — a promise simultaneously undermined by their steadfast refusal to end the filibuster.

Democrats have coupled this pro-democracy theater with high-profile betrayals of the working class — from dropping a $15 minimum wage to ending the expanded child tax credit, to refusing to eliminate student debt, to killing paid family and sick leave proposals in the middle of a pandemic. Most recently, Biden’s spokesperson scoffed at the idea of delivering free COVID tests to people’s homes, Biden’s consultants aided Big Pharma’s efforts to kill promised drug-pricing legislation, and Biden’s White House is promising no more stimulus legislation, no matter how much worse the pandemic gets.

Sure, there have been some successes — unlike Obama using his election mandate to give a handful of bankers a giant bag of cash, Biden’s first COVID relief bill actually delivered some tangible benefits to millions of Americans. But the benefits were a temporary reprieve. There has been no permanent structural change of the economy to alleviate any of the increasingly impossible challenges of surviving in America, from exorbitant health insurance bills to predatory rents, to the prospect of elder poverty. Indeed, there hasn’t even been a real public attempt at such structural changes.

As a recent Gallup poll shows trust in government further cratering under Biden, Democrats’ theory seems to be the opposite of Roosevelt’s truism — they seem to believe that a working class facing unending precarity would never dare “sacrifice liberty in the hope of getting something to eat,” and that simply screaming about the end of what’s left of democracy is a winning formula.

Democratic Rep. Abby Spanberger perfectly summarized these beliefs when she recently declared that "Nobody elected (Biden) to be FDR, they elected him to be normal and stop the chaos” — as if “stopping the chaos” has absolutely nothing to do with delivering FDR-like help to millions of angry people struggling to survive.

In this dominant Democratic ideology, “democracy” and “normalcy” are ends unto themselves that enough Americans will supposedly be motivated to defend. And who knows, maybe they will. Maybe we really are living in a West Wing episode where high concepts like self-government alone can win the day as a syrupy soundtrack swells with patriotic music.

But maybe not. Maybe the trouble is that in absence of effective government, more and more Americans see “democracy” alone as a weak lifestyle brand or worse — a ruse.

In the last two decades, they’ve seen a former president’s Supreme Court appointees hand the White House to that president’s son after he lost the national election.

They’ve seen senators representing a tiny minority of the country routinely use the filibuster to block bills supported by the vast majority of the country, as Democrats do nothing — choosing instead to defend arcane rules and the Senate as an institution. They’ve seen corporations and billionaires buy elections, legislation, and Supreme Court seats.  They’ve seen the Fourth Estate — a pillar of any functioning democracy — become a megaphone for the same corporations buying the elections.  They’ve seen senators from the poorest states become loyal shills for the richest oligarchs.  They’ve seen the opposite of what happened after America voted out Herbert Hoover and Roosevelt delivered the New Deal.  They’ve seen their votes for politicians deliver little more than inaugural parties, vapid appeals to our better angels, donor enrichment schemes masquerading as public policy — and then reelection campaign ads promising that progress is somehow still out of reach but just over the horizon, as long as you send a bit more cash to your preferred political party.

What they haven’t seen - and are still not seeing - is a robust attempt to combat anti-government nihilism by creating a government that is serious about the public interest.

Until they do, the insurrection is likely to continue.

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Dana Milbank.  “‘We are closer to civil war than any of us would like to believe,’ new study says.”  12-17-21.     Listen to Dana Milbank read his column. Produced by Julie Depenbrock.   
If you know people still in denial about the crisis of American democracy, kindly remove their heads from the sand long enough to receive this message: A startling new finding by one of the nation’s top authorities on foreign civil wars says we are on the cusp of our own.

Barbara F. Walter, a political science professor at the University of California at San Diego, serves on a CIA advisory panel called the Political Instability Task Force that monitors countries around the world and predicts which of them are most at risk of deteriorating into violence. By law, the task force can’t assess what’s happening within the United States, but Walter, a longtime friend who has spent her career studying conflicts in Syria, Lebanon, Northern Ireland, Sri Lanka, the Philippines, Rwanda, Angola, Nicaragua and elsewhere, applied the predictive techniques herself to this country.

Her bottom line: “We are closer to civil war than any of us would like to believe.” She lays out the argument in detail in her must-read book, “How Civil Wars Start,” out in January. “No one wants to believe that their beloved democracy is in decline, or headed toward war,” she writes. But, “if you were an analyst in a foreign country looking at events in America — the same way you’d look at events in Ukraine or the Ivory Coast or Venezuela — you would go down a checklist, assessing each of the conditions that make civil war likely. And what you would find is that the United States, a democracy founded more than two centuries ago, has entered very dangerous territory.”

Indeed, the United States has already gone through what the CIA identifies as the first two phases of insurgency — the “pre-insurgency” and “incipient conflict” phases — and only time will tell whether the final phase, “open insurgency,” began with the sacking of the Capitol by Donald Trump supporters on Jan. 6.

Things deteriorated so dramatically under Trump, in fact, that the United States no longer technically qualifies as a democracy. Citing the Center for Systemic Peace’s “Polity” data set — the one the CIA task force has found to be most helpful in predicting instability and violence — Walter writes that the United States is now an “anocracy,” somewhere between a democracy and an autocratic state.

U.S. democracy had received the Polity index’s top score of 10, or close to it, for much of its history. But in the five years of the Trump era, it tumbled precipitously into the anocracy zone; by the end of his presidency, the U.S. score had fallen to a 5, making the country a partial democracy for the first time since 1800. “We are no longer the world’s oldest continuous democracy,” Walter writes. “That honor is now held by Switzerland, followed by New Zealand, and then Canada. We are no longer a peer to nations like Canada, Costa Rica, and Japan, which are all rated a +10 on the Polity index.”

Dropping five points in five years greatly increases the risk of civil war (six points in three years would qualify as “high risk” of civil war). “A partial democracy is three times as likely to experience civil war as a full democracy,” Walter writes. “A country standing on this threshold — as America is now, at +5 — can easily be pushed toward conflict through a combination of bad governance and increasingly undemocratic measures that further weaken its institutions.”

Others have reached similar findings. The Stockholm-based International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance put the United States on a list of “backsliding democracies” in a report last month. “The United States, the bastion of global democracy, fell victim to authoritarian tendencies itself," the report said. And a new survey by the academic consortium Bright Line Watch found that 17 percent of those who identify strongly as Republicans support the use of violence to restore Trump to power, and 39 percent favor doing everything possible to prevent Democrats from governing effectively.

How the Capitol attack unfolded, from inside Trump's rally to the riot | Opinion

Early on Jan. 6, The Post's Kate Woodsome saw signs of violence hours before thousands of President Trump's loyalists besieged the Capitol. (Joy Yi, Kate Woodsome/The Washington Post)

The question now is whether we can pull back from the abyss Trump’s Republicans have led us to. There is no more important issue; democracy is the foundation of everything else in America. Democrats, in a nod to this reality, are talking about abandoning President Biden’s Build Back Better agenda in favor of pro-democracy voting rights legislation. Republicans will fight it tooth and nail.

The enemies of democracy must not be allowed to prevail. We are on the doorstep of the “open insurgency” stage of civil conflict, and Walter writes that once countries cross that threshold, the CIA predicts, “sustained violence as increasingly active extremists launch attacks that involve terrorism and guerrilla warfare, including assassinations and ambushes.”

It is no exaggeration to say the survival of our country is at stake.

 

Susan Dominus and Luke Broadwater.  “The Capitol Police and the Scars of Jan. 6.” The New York Times Magazine.  Excerpted in “A Day of Stunning Savagery,” The Week (Jan. 21, 2022).
Paul D. Eaton. Antonio M. Taguba, and Steven M. Anderson.   “3 retired generals: The military must prepare now for a 2024 insurrection.”  12-17-21 www.washingtonpost.com › opinions › 2021/12/17  Opinion | Retired generals: The military must prepare now for ...  Dec 17, 2021 · Paul D. Eaton is a retired U.S. Army major general and a senior adviser to VoteVets. Antonio M. Taguba is a retired Army major general, with 34 years of active duty service. Steven...
ww.npr.org › 2021/12/31 › 1068930675  Retired general warns the military could back a coup after ...  Dec 31, 2021 · As the anniversary of the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol approaches, three retired U.S. generals have warned that another insurrection could occur after the 2024 presidential election

 

Clouds of tear gas are seen as supporters of President Donald Trump storm the Capitol on Jan. 6. (Evelyn Hockstein for The Washington Post)

By

 

Yesterday at 5:05 p.m. EST

Paul D. Eaton is a retired U.S. Army major general and a senior adviser to VoteVets. Antonio M. Taguba is a retired Army major general, with 34 years of active duty service. Steven M. Anderson is a retired brigadier general who served in the U.S. Army for 31 years.

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As we approach the first anniversary of the deadly insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, we — all of us former senior military officials — are increasingly concerned about the aftermath of the 2024 presidential election and the potential for lethal chaos inside our military, which would put all Americans at severe risk.

In short: We are chilled to our bones at the thought of a coup succeeding next time.

One of our military’s strengths is that it draws from our diverse population. It is a collection of individuals, all with different beliefs and backgrounds. But without constant maintenance, the potential for a military breakdown mirroring societal or political breakdown is very real.

The signs of potential turmoil in our armed forces are there. On Jan. 6, a disturbing number of veterans and active-duty members of the military took part in the attack on the Capitol. More than 1 in 10 of those charged in the attacks had a service record. A group of 124 retired military officials, under the name “Flag Officers 4 America,” released a letter echoing Donald Trump’s false attacks on the legitimacy of our elections.

Recently, and perhaps more worrying, Brig. Gen. Thomas Mancino, the commanding general of the Oklahoma National Guard, refused an order from President Biden mandating that all National Guard members be vaccinated against the coronavirus. Mancino claimed that while the Oklahoma Guard is not federally mobilized, his commander in chief is the Republican governor of the state, not the president.

The potential for a total breakdown of the chain of command along partisan lines — from the top of the chain to squad level — is significant should another insurrection occur. The idea of rogue units organizing among themselves to support the “rightful” commander in chief cannot be dismissed.

How the Capitol attack unfolded, from inside Trump's rally to the riot | Opinion

Early on Jan. 6, The Post's Kate Woodsome saw signs of violence hours before thousands of President Trump's loyalists besieged the Capitol. (Joy Yi, Kate Woodsome/The Washington Post)

Imagine competing commanders in chief — a newly reelected Biden giving orders, versus Trump (or another Trumpian figure) issuing orders as the head of a shadow government. Worse, imagine politicians at the state and federal levels illegally installing a losing candidate as president.

All service members take an oath to protect the U.S. Constitution. But in a contested election, with loyalties split, some might follow orders from the rightful commander in chief, while others might follow the Trumpian loser. Arms might not be secured depending on who was overseeing them. Under such a scenario, it is not outlandish to say a military breakdown could lead to civil war.

In this context, with our military hobbled and divided, U.S. security would be crippled. Any one of our enemies could take advantage by launching an all-out assault on our assets or our allies.

The lack of military preparedness for the aftermath of the 2020 election was striking and worrying. Trump’s acting defense secretary, Christopher C. Miller, testified that he deliberately withheld military protection of the Capitol before Jan. 6. Army Gen. Mark A. Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, reportedly scrambled to ensure the nation’s nuclear defense chains were secure from illegal orders. It is evident the whole of our military was caught off-guard.

With the country still as divided as ever, we must take steps to prepare for the worst.

First, everything must be done to prevent another insurrection. Not a single leader who inspired it has been held to account. Our elected officials and those who enforce the law — including the Justice Department, the House select committee and the whole of Congress — must show more urgency.

But the military cannot wait for elected officials to act. The Pentagon should immediately order a civics review for all members — uniformed and civilian — on the Constitution and electoral integrity. There must also be a review of the laws of war and how to identify and deal with illegal orders. And it must reinforce “unity of command” to make perfectly clear to every member of the Defense Department whom they answer to. No service member should say they didn’t understand whom to take orders from during a worst-case scenario.

In addition, all military branches must undertake more intensive intelligence work at all installations. The goal should be to identify, isolate and remove potential mutineers; guard against efforts by propagandists who use misinformation to subvert the chain of command; and understand how that and other misinformation spreads across the ranks after it is introduced by propagandists.

Finally, the Defense Department should war-game the next potential post-election insurrection or coup attempt to identify weak spots. It must then conduct a top-down debrief of its findings and begin putting in place safeguards to prevent breakdowns not just in the military, but also in any agency that works hand in hand with the military.

The military and lawmakers have been gifted hindsight to prevent another insurrection from happening in 2024 — but they will succeed only if they take decisive action now.

THE OVERTHROW OF THE WEIMAR REPUBLIC: SOME PARALLELS

Benjamin Carter Hett. The Death of Democracy:  Hitler's Rise to Power and the Downfall of the Weimar Republic.  Henry Holt, 2018.  St. Martin’s Griffin paperback, 2019.  304.

 

A riveting account of how the Nazi Party came to power and how the failures of the Weimar Republic and the shortsightedness of German politicians allowed it to happen.

Why did democracy fall apart so quickly and completely in Germany in the 1930s? How did a democratic government allow Adolf Hitler to seize power? In The Death of Democracy, Benjamin Carter Hett answers these questions, and the story he tells has disturbing resonances for our own time.

To say that Hitler was elected is too simple. He would never have come to power if Germany’s leading politicians had not responded to a spate of populist insurgencies by trying to co-opt him, a strategy that backed them into a corner from which the only way out was to bring the Nazis in. Hett lays bare the misguided confidence of conservative politicians who believed that Hitler and his followers would willingly support them, not recognizing that their efforts to use the Nazis actually played into Hitler’s hands. They had willingly given him the tools to turn Germany into a vicious dictatorship.

Benjamin Carter Hett is a leading scholar of twentieth-century Germany and a gifted storyteller whose portraits of these feckless politicians show how fragile democracy can be when those in power do not respect it. He offers a powerful lesson for today, when democracy once again finds itself embattled and the siren song of strongmen sounds ever louder.

Named "Book of the Week" by CNN's Fareed Zakaria GPS
Named a Best Book of the Year by The Daily Telegraph (UK) and The Times of London


“[An] extremely fine study of the end of constitutional rule in Germany. . . . With careful prose and fine scholarship, with fine thumbnail sketches of individuals and concise discussions of institutions and economics, . . . [Benjamin Carter Hett] sensitively describes a moral crisis that preceded a moral catastrophe.” -- Timothy Snyder, The New York Times Book Review (Editor's Choice)

"At a time of deep distress over the stability of democracy in America and elsewhere, Benjamin Carter Hett's chronicle of the collapse of the Weimar Republic and the rise of Adolf Hitler could not be more timely. 'The Death of Democracy' makes for chilling reading." -- Roger Lowenstein, The Washington Post

"If this is an oft-told and tragic tale, Hett's brisk and lucid study offers compelling new perspectives inspired by current threats to free societies around the world. . . . It is both eerie and enlightening how much of Hett's account rings true in our time." -- E. J. Dionne Jr., The Washington Post

“Particularly instructive. . . . a penetrating study of how Nazism overtook the Weimar Republic. Hett never mentions Trump; the societal parallels are, of course, far from exact. But his account carries a troubling ? and clearly intentional ? resonance.” -- Richard North Patterson, Huffington Post

“With a wealth of telling detail, a keen eye for human character, and a talent for gripping narrative, Benjamin Hett analyses the end of the Weimar Republic and the inauguration of the Nazi regime. It is a chilling and warning tale, for he shows that Hitler’s victory was by no means inevitable. Rather, it was the result of human folly, greed, selfishness and, on the part of those who invited him, an unwillingness to confront the true meaning of Nazism and a willful insistence that they could use Hitler.” Margaret MacMillan, author of The War That Ended Peace: The Road To 1914

"Intelligent, well-informed... intriguing. Hett provides a lesson about the fragility of democracy and the danger of that complacent belief that liberal institutions will always protect us." -- The Times (London)

“Fascinating. . . . Readable and well-researched.” -- Nicholas Shakespeare, The Daily Telegraph

"Intelligently written. . . . a fast-paced narrative enlivened by vignette and character sketches. . . . Hett reminds us that violence was at [fascism's] core. But he also insists that Hitler did not prevail because Weimar was doing badly. On the contrary, it was doing remarkably well in tough conditions: the end came because conservative elites thought they could use the Nazis for their own purposes and realised their mistake too late." -- Mark Mazower, Financial Times

"Hett also reminds us that Hitler was deliberately enabled by conservative elites, especially business leaders and military commanders, who wanted the electoral votes of the Nazi movement and were willing to overlook its excesses to achieve their goals. . . . Hitler was also enabled by a disaffected public ‘increasingly prone to aggressive myth-making and irrationality.’ . . . At no point does Hett mention any current political figure by name, but his warning is nonetheless loud, clear, and urgent.” -- Booklist

“How did Adolf Hitler, an obvious extremist, con a nation into backing him? This historical essay answers the question, to often unsettling effect. . . . A provocative, urgent history with significant lessons for today.” -- Kirkus Reviews

"Persuasively challenges familiar arguments that the rise of Nazi Germany was an inevitable consequence of abstract forces. . . [A] page-turning account."--Publishers Weekly

A brilliant account of the twentieth century’s great political catastrophe: the Nazi capture of power. Full of arresting images and ideas, this gripping new book charts the rise and fall of the first German republic, and the unlikely victory of Adolf Hitler. A timely reminder of the fragility of democracy and the dangers of extreme nationalism.”--Nikolaus Wachsmann, author of KL: A History of the Nazi Concentration Camps

“The story of how Germany turned from democracy to dictatorship in the fifteen years following World War I is not a simple one. But the moral lessons are exceptionally clear. Benjamin Carter Hett honors that complexity in this account while never straying from the path of moral clarityAn outstanding accomplishment.”--Rick Perlstein, author of Nixonland and The Invisible Bridge

“Benjamin Carter Hett is one of the few historians who is able to think out of the box and knows how to tell a story well – without simplifying it. His new book tackles one of the most interesting questions in German history: How was it possible that an educated and developed country like Germany could fall for Adolf Hitler?”
--Stefan Aust, editor of Die Welt, former editor of Der Spiegel, and author of The Baader-Meinhof Complex

The Death of Democracy is a thought-provoking new look at the collapse of German democracy in 1930-34 with a clear and careful emphasis on those individuals who operated behind the scenes to bring Hitler to power. Benjamin Carter Hett also offers insight into the steps Hitler took to consolidate his power.”
--Gerhard L. Weinberg, professor emeritus of history, University of North Carolina

“Histories of Nazi Germany can be overwhelming. The Death of Democracy is carefully focused on the conditions and cynical choices that enabled Nazism, in just a few years turning one of the world’s most advanced and liberal societies into a monstrosity. Its author is also that rarity, a specialist who writes lucidly and engagingly. In this post-truth, alternative-facts American moment, The Death of Democracy is essential reading.” --Kurt Andersen, author of Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire, A 500-Year History

Benjamin Carter Hett

Benjamin Carter Hett is the author of The Death of DemocracyBurning the ReichstagCrossing Hitler, and Death in the Tiergarten. He is a professor of history...

Further reading:
US DEMOCRACY ANTHOLOGY #4,
http://jamesrichardbennett.blogspot.com/2017/05/democracy-newsletter-4.html
ECONOMIC INEQUALITY/POVERTY USA, AND SOCIAL, ECONOMIC, RESTORATIVE JUSTICE ANTHOLOGY #2,  November 13, 2022
https://jamesrichardbennett.blogspot.com/2022/11/omni-economic-inequalitypoverty-usa-and.html  (nos. 3-6 in preparation)
CLIMATE URGENCY, CLIMATE EMERGENCY ANTHOLOGY, #1.  DECEMBER 17, 2019.  https://jamesrichardbennett.blogspot.com/2019/12/omni-climate-emergency-newsletter.html (nos 2 and 3 in preparation)
CULTURE OF WAR Anthology #2,  August 19, 2013.   {Plutocracy, Corporations-Pentagon-Congress-White House-Mainstream Media-Empire Complex}    http://jamesrichardbennett.blogspot.com/2013/08/military-corporate-congressional.html
REFUGEES, ASYLUM ANTHOLOGY #5, June 28, 2016 http://jamesrichardbennett.blogspot.com/2016/06/omni-refugee-newsletter-2.html (additional numbers in preparation)
FEAR, NATIONAL SECURITY STATE, ANTHOLOGY #5, January 25, 2019.  https://jamesrichardbennett.blogspot.com/2019/01/fear-and-us-national-security-state.html
SOVIET/RUSSOPHOBIA ANTHOLOGY #2, MARCH 3, 2023. https://jamesrichardbennett.blogspot.com/2023/03/omni-sovietrussophobia-anthology-2.html

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