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
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
Democracy on
Trial (full documentary) | FRONTLINE
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
"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
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
to
Portside.
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.
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.
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 →
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 welfare, help capital crush unions, deregulate Wall Street, privatize 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 richer, fixable 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.
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.
Opinions to start the day, in your inbox. Sign up.
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 clarity. An 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 is the author of The Death of Democracy, Burning the Reichstag, Crossing
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
MORE on Trump, Biden, etc.
No comments:
Post a Comment