Tomorrow And Tomorrow And Tomorrow Creeps (Take IV): The January 6th Coup , A Year Later

Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!

Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

<From Macbeth, spoken by Macbeth:
William Shakespeare>

<i.>

The stuff of anniversaries is often the stuff of nightmares, as well as dreams, and this one is no different. One year ago today, Donald J. Trump, America's 45th President, once again defied the familiar script, in which the former Commander-in-Chief turns over the keys of power to his successor, who takes his oath of office, and prepares to make his own mark on the nation's long-standing democratic experiment.

It almost didn't work out that way. Raging like King Lear at the forces he felt had unfairly denied him a second term, Trump mustered the powers that remained to him, determined to hang on, against the others -- Antifa, Joe Biden, mobs of woke Millennials, the undocumented -- on which he'd focused so much public fury during his tenure.

As courts turned back his repeated claims of electoral fraud, Trump shifted his focus to its internal machinery. If he couldn't get federal judges to listen, maybe he could disrupt the certification of electoral votes. Or stall the process long enough to seize ballots and equipment, possibly by declaring martial law, under some national security pretext or other.

The true nature of these efforts are only becoming apparent now, as bits and pieces continue to surface, sometimes from co-conspirators like former trade envoy Peter Navarro -- whose new book, In Trump Time, proudly details those efforts -- other times, from tidbits of a special Congressional committee's investigation that have leaked through the news media.

Depending on which accounts you believe, the mob of supporters summoned for Trump's last ride were either egged on by a Chief Executive consumed by "Stop the steal" notions of personal betrayal, who planned to get even, all along. Or they broke into the Capitol in a mass fit of spontaneous rage, after hearing of Vice President Mike Pence's refusal to stop Joe Biden's certification as President-elect.

Five protesters died, including protester Ashli Babbit, shot dead by Capitol police as she tried to climb through the broken window of a barricaded door. Three others died from heart attacks, plus one from an accidental amphetamine overdose, and trampling by others as they swarmed the building.

Capitol police officer Brian Sicknick died the following day of a stroke from the stress of an ordeal that included being pepper sprayed. Four more officers killed themselves during the next seven months, and an additional 138 were injured, 15 of them severely enough to require hospitalization.

The U.,S. Capitol's looting and vandalization resulted in an estimated $1.5 million in damages that included rampant defecation on floors and walls, as well as damage to statues, paintings and furniture from fire extinguishers and pepper spray canisters. Taxpayers effectively subsidized the resulting repair and cleanup, because the building had no insurance for such contingencies. 

Those measures also included an additional $30 million spent on security fencing that remained in place through early July, with the building largely off limits to visitors. The images of Fortress Washington, as some commentators called it, bore an uncomfortable resemblance to the bombed-out likes of Belfast, or Beirut, two other locales scarred by sectarian violence spurred by one side or the other's refusal to share power. For editorial writers, such images allowed them to say, "Such things couldn't happen here." Until January 6, 2021, that is.

<ii.>

So what, exactly, has happened, one full year after the event? Not much, so far, though that may soon change. Republicans continue working hard to memory hole the events that almost capsized our democracy, a challenge eased by a COVID-19-dominated news cycle, and public weariness with headlines that bear nothing but endless calamity. That, too, may change, depending on what the special Congressional committee -- the 1/6 Committee, as it's known -- uncovers.

For most of the insurrectionists, the putschists, the seditionists, whatever you call them, the legal fallout has been relatively low. With federal guidelines that cap misdemeanor sentencing at six months to a year, most first-time offenders could cut plea deals that involve no prison time at all, a fact that's disturbed some federal judges during the sentencing hearings. 

The stiffest sentences have, naturally, gone out to those implicated in violent or particularly disruptive conduct, such as Jacob Chansley, who received 41 months for his role as the infamous self-styled QAnon "Shaman." While nobody's suggesting that someone should get 20 years for crapping on a desk, how all this prosecutorial leniency (see BuzzFeed link below) will deter future insurrectionists remains to be seen.

The situation holds uncomfortable echoes of the soft punishment dished out to Adolf Hitler, who served eight months o fthe five-year sentence he received for instigating the 1923 Beer Hall Putsch, in Munich. The future German dictator's experience, as most historians agree, convinced him to seek a legal path to legitimacy, and the power he craved, even as his supporters eagerly committed bolder acts of street violence in his name. That, too, sounds sadly familiar.

Trump supporters, by and large, remain subject to the alternate universe they've inhabited since he won the Presidency in 2016. For example, only a fifth describe the attempted coup as an insurrection, while four in 10 believe those who attacked the Capitol were leftists disguised as Trump supporters. (For other poll findings, see Down With Tyranny's link below.)

Congressional enablers like Congressman Mo Brooks, of Alabama, and Senators Ted Cruz, and Josh Hawley, continue to show up for work, despite reports that implicate them in the plan to delay certifying Biden's victory. Calls for their expulsion have largely subsided, leaving the wish we stated in Part I of this series ("their desertion of democratic norms should not go unnoticed, nor unchallenged") to hang in the air, unanswered, the language of the Fourteenth Amendment (see above) notwithstanding.

Those enabling the enablers don't seem unduly alarmed about their prospects of losing the next coup, judging by the barrage of laws they've unleashed (425 measures, in 49 states) that range from outright, old school voter suppression (Georgia, Texas), to language that shifts control of elections to partisan bodies (see ABC News link below).

Republicans are making no attempt to hide what they're doing, amid the stale talking points of "election integrity," or "making it easier to vote, and harder to cheat" they're invoking to justify it. They can do it, because Democratic efforts to protect voting rights have stalled miserably in the Senate, thanks to fifth columnists in their midst (Senators Joe Manchin, Kyrsten Sinema), and the party's inability to shake its addiction to unilateral disarmament.

<iii.>

And what of the man riding the center of the storm? Many quarters of the mainstream media cling to dismissals of a 2024 Trump Presidential run as a grift to make bank off his base, or bid to stall the legal reckoning that he's avoided so far. It's a reading that seems slightly at odds with Trump's vigorous attempts to purge the party ranks of his critics, and continue casting an outsized shadow over its future. 

So far, he's made 40 Congressional and nine gubernatorial picks, with much of his ire focused on those he sees as crossing him personally, like Georgia's infamous vote suppressing governor, Brian Kemp. Does that sound like someone who only seems content to count the cash, and call it a day? We doubt it.

The fallout of Biden's presidency isn't exactly discouraging Trump dreams of a dramatic comeback in 2024. On one level, Biden has scored some impressive wins, such as his confirmation of 40 federal judges -- the most of any new President since Ronald Reagan's election, in 1980. By and large, they're a more diverse and better-qualified lot than the zealous foot soldiers that typify Republican presidencies, and should balance out the latter group's excesses. 

The American Rescue Act's passage provided $1.9 trillion in much-needed relief to Americans struggling to stay afloat during a never-ending pandemic, while the approval of $1 trillion in infrastructure aid should certainly feel like welcome news for communities hoping to get a piece of that action.

On other levels, Biden's presidency is slipping into a familiar disconnect of, "Do as we say, not as we do." One example are his actions on environmental issues, which are rapidly emerging as his administration's biggest, blackest hole, as evidenced by its issuance of oil and gas drilling permits (3,091 on public lands and water, or 332 per month) compared to 300 per month for Trump, according to CBNC.

Other goals are falling by the wayside after Big Money gets to clearing its throat. Last month, for example, Congress largely shrugged off calls for badly-needed structural reforms, like paid family leave, to pass a $777.7 billion defense budget that wound up $25 billion higher than the White House wanted, and nearly $38 billion more than Trump himself spent.

Defending democracy is a tricky business that requires the ability to look behind, as well as ahead. How we got here is as important as where we're headed. Protecting voting rights is critical and necessary, but so is trying to ensure that social conditions don't slide to the point of giving someone like Trump the foothold they need, to gain the power they crave.

Yet, unable (or unwilling) to deliver on their domestic priorities, Democrats are once again reduced to hoping that enough people show up to rescue them, in spite of themselves, and that Republicans lack the smarts to get out of their own way, as they continue measuring the drapes. If you're hoping to defend democracy, there are simpler and smarter ways of doing it. This passive, reactive approach isn't it.

 

<iv.>

Improbably, though, embers of hope continue to flicker amid the barrage of apocalyptic imagery. By all accounts, the 1/6 Committee has moved at a faster than anticipated clip, in pulling together the various strands of the conspiracy. They've interviewed some 300 witnesses, though only 50 have been identified publicly, as Politico reports: 

"They’ve blanketed Donald Trump’s allies with subpoenas, referred three key witnesses for contempt of Congress prosecution and exerted pressure like few committees ever have. By all accounts, they’re making inroads into the depths of the Trump White House and unearthing evidence that will make that dark day look even darker."

Transparency, of course, is the best hope for bringing light to that particular darkness. From our standpoint, what's most striking about the January 6th coup, and its immediate aftermath, is how so many observers missed the signposts that led up to it. 

In hindsight, the dots have been there to connect all along, starting with the fury that Barack Obama's victory unleashed among the more extremist and racist quarters of a population determined to inhabit the world of the 1950s, when women and minorities were expected to "know their place," or risk legal and extralegal retribution.

The "birther" movement that emerged to cast doubt on the legitimacy of Obama's birth certificate -- the same one that Trump embraced, eagerly and publicly -- soon gave away to more dangerous movements. The rise of shootings by racist and rightist militants, such as the New Zealand mass shooter who livestreamed his massacre of 51 Muslims, would surely feel familiar to any Weimar-era German who witnessed similar incidents during the 1920s and 1930s, as their democracy slowly, then rapidly, came apart at the seams.

Media narratives dismissing the shooters as social misfits living in their mom's basement, or "lone wolves" with mental problems, as Professor Erroll Southers, quoted in "Trafficked"'s episode on white supremacy (see clip below, on Military.com) makes clear: "What Southers is diagnosing is a national blind spot, an inability for a country founded by, and still largely run, by white people, to recognize the very real threat of white extremism."

We urge readers to watch that episode, which lays bare the global connections and increasingly sophisticated outreach recruiting techniques being utilized by groups like the Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys, who had members among the January 6th rioters. If nothing else, the events of January 6th should serve as a wakeup call, particularly for agencies like the FBI, who have largely spent two decades focusing on yesterday's fight against the (largely) nonexistent threat of Islamic terrorism. 

Tomorrow's fight, as the "Trafficked" episode demonstrates, will prove a dirtier, different beast. Critics who cheer the deplatforming of Trump, or loudmouthed Congressional cheerleaders like Marjorie Taylor Greene, also need to take a closer look at the role of platforms like Facebook, whose algorithms, by all accounts, continue to promote militant extremism for the sake of multibillion corporate profits. It is hard to imagine how democracy can function, when such instincts are allowed to run unchecked.

For democracy to survive in its present form, it requires understanding how drastically the perils to its existence have changed. The mere absence of misfortune, as some mainstream outlets have suggested, is not a cause for celebration.

 

The January 6th coup attempt did not succeed, because our institutions held so strongly. It mainly failed because Trump and his allies didn't have the right people in the right places to do their bidding, or relevant control of electoral machinery nationwide, to achieve the outcome they so fervently desired.

Whatever happens from here on out, let us redouble our efforts to defend democracy, renew scrutiny of those who seek to undermine it, and resolve to learn from the errors that have dogged the American democratic experiment from making good on its promise of social and political equality for all who seek it. 

It has been fashionable, as of late, to repeat the oft-quoted truism, "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." A related expression might well suggest, "If you want to meet the moment, don't rely on the luxury of getting a second mistake." As the backsliding of democratic norms in Hungary and Poland demonstrates -- or, for that matter, Germany's Weimar-era experience -- the price of failure is too high. So are the penalties for falling short. --The Reckoner

LInks To Go
ABC News: 10 New Laws

Shift Power Over Elections To Partisan Entities:
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/dozen-state-laws-shift-power-elections-partisan-entities/story?id=79408455

Brennan Center For Justice:

Voting Laws Roundup: October 2021:

https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/voting-laws-roundup-october-2021

BuzzFeed News: Most Capitol Rioters

Probably Aren't Looking At Maximum Prison Sentences:

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/zoetillman/capitol-insurrection-jail-time-jan-6-cases

Down With Tyranny:

Trump Won't Be In Prison

When We Wake Up Tomorrow...But Should He Be?:
https://www.downwithtyranny.com/post/trump-won-t-be-in-prison-tomorrow-when-we-wake-up-but-should-he-be

Military.com: NatGeo Series Asks

If The US Has A Domestic Terror Problem:
https://www.military.com/off-duty/television/2022/01/05/natgeo-series-asks-if-usa-has-domestic-terror-problem.html

Politico: What Impeachment Taught The 1/6 Committee:
https://www.politico.com/newsletters/politico-nightly/2021/12/17/what-impeachment-taught-the-1-6-commission-495514

The Huffington Post:

Capitol Police Officer Harry Dunn

On Jan. 6: "It Can Happen Again":

https://www.yahoo.com/news/capitol-police-officer-harry-dunn-162848312.html

Tomorrow And Tomorrow And Tomorrow Creeps (Take III): Then Came January 6th

<"...It Was Nothing"/Take I

The Reckoner>

"The bats are streaming out of the abyss, 

the dark legions are clicking their heels,

and fresh smoke still billows over the wreckage...pick whatever expression 

of purple prose that you prefer 

to describe the debacle. 

"For Democrats, Election Day 2016 

bore an unsettling resemblance to a multi-car pileup 

of the kind that generates reams of shrieking headlines."

"Mandate, Shmandate (President, Shmesident): 

Why Hillary Clinton Lost" (11/23/16)

<i.>

Here's how I define the bookends of Donald Trump's rise and fall as President. The morning after his election in 2016, I endured an emergency tooth extraction at my local community clinic. 

Last Wednesday, January 5, I went to bed elated at watching Georgians send the first African-American (Reverend Raphael Warnock) and first Jew (David Ossoff) to the U.S. Senate, instead of Trump's eager, ever-profiteering enablers, David Perdue, and Kelly Loeffler ("the dynamic duo of doing wrong," as former President Barack Obama called them, during a campaign stop).

Hey, we finally broke out of the penalty box! Looks like we may get those $2K stimulus checks after all...

Then came the next day. I woke up wearily at my usual two p.m. starting time, after another all-nighter of working online.

The Squawker came into the bedroom, with a look of total alarm. Well, I woozily figured, either the nuclear plant's melting down, or the shoreline we can see from our apartment complex is heaving into full tsunami mode.

But it was neither of those things. 

"Guess what?" Squawker said, in a voice ringing with pure undertones of panic. "We're living under Gilead rule now."

"Huh? What are you talking about?" I asked, as I stumbled to the bathroom.

"Come look at what's happening on CNN."

For the next several hours, I watched, transfixed, like so many other millions across the nation. Armed mobs swarming the Capitol building, tearing up TV camera tables to form nooses, preparing to impose maximum carnage with assault rifles, chemical sprays, handcuffs and zip ties, all at the behest of their Dear Leader, a certain D. Trump, as he crowed, "We will never concede."

Suddenly, the bleak, dystopian theocracy of Hulu's hit TV series, The Handmaid's Tale, no longer seemed like some clever piece of alternate history, but a real life menace, bearing down on the doorstep of our democracy, once Trump sent them off with these parting thoughts: "And after this, we're going to walk down, and I'll be there with you."

He did nothing of the sort. As usual, Trump, his family and stable of sycophantic advisers, discreetly peeled away from the mob they'd worked so hard to arouse, and hurried to the safety of their waiting motorcade.

We all watched the rest. For a few terrifying hours, our nation teetered on the brink of some demented abyss, as Trump's self-styled Crusaders rampaged through the Capitol building, ready to deliver the reckoning that their hero had promised them for oh, so long. 

But how we'd get here, exactly? A few reminders seem in order.

<"Trump Decay,

Take I"/The Reckoner>

 “I’m looking behind us now, across the count of time, 

down the long haul, into history back.”

<ii.>

I remember hearing the laughter a decade or so ago, in the Before Times, as you've heard from Star Trek (see link below, for the nitty-gritty behind the phrase). You heard all the crap about Obama's birth certificate? Ha, ha, ha, some right wingers claim it's a fake. Heh, heh, heh. They claim it proves he's not an American. Ho, ho, ho. How far you think they'll get, peddling that one? Ha, ha, ha. Those maroons, they've really got nerve, right?

I knew we'd crossed some strange Rubicon in the popular consciousness when a newly-minted member of our social justice group earnestly repeated the "birther" theory, as we eventually called it, word for word. I was trying to be welcoming, as he'd just been booted out of a conservative activist group, but I felt puzzled by the intensity of the "proofs"  that he presented. Where did this come from, I wondered, and why did it matter to much?

The other group members set me straight after our meeting, once the gent in question had gone home. All roads led back to Trump, and were already morphing into racist variations that multiplied online, like so many rabbit litters. He's really from Kenya. He was never born in Hawaii. You kidding me? He lost his US citizenship in 1981. He's really Indonesian.

Predictably, the Obama administration earnestly tried to squelch the phantom firestorm by posting his birth certificate online in June 2008, as his re-election campaign kicked into gear. Just as predictably, the rhetorical goalposts shifted: Why isn't there a state seal on it? Nope, they faked it, with Photoshop. Case closed, folks. it reminds of the classic Joe Walsh album title: You Can't Argue With A Sick Mind.

The laughs continued to rack up, as Trump announced his candidacy in June 2015. Ha, ha, ha. He's just a reality TV star. His businesses go belly up. Heh, heh, heh. He doesn't pay his own bills, let alone most of his contractors, or his own workers. Yuk, yuk, yuk. He can't be serious, can he? Gimme a break! Then came Trump's election, and the laughter abruptly stopped, replaced by a half dozen, more brutally relevant words: What...The....F#ck...Just...Happened...Here?

The laughter soon rang duller and hollower, as we gingerly poked our way through the annum horribilis of 2020, and we all watched the American social fabric seemingly unravel before our eyes, as the death toll of COVID-19 barreled up, up and out of control, amid the Minneapolis police's murder of George Floyd, and the long hot summer that played out to a soundtrack of rubber bullets, the crackle of nightsticks and firearms, and rattle 'n' hum of tear gas guns.

The economy also continued to unravel, as Trump bullied his red state allies into reopening their businesses against any (and all) medical advice, when he wasn't threatening the (perceived) blue state enemies who refused to buckle. The Grifter In Chief soon discovered that viruses don't care about political agendas, nor the ignorance that drives them. 

As CNN incredulously noted recently, Florida now ranks fourth, in our nation's COVID body count, where its Trumplike Governor, Ron DeSantis, has not imposed a statewide mask mandate, let alone mustered a coherent response to the pandemic. Then again, given that a fair chunk of Trump's assets are located in the Sunshine State -- including his Koresh-style compound, the notorious Mar-A-Lego -- maybe it's time CNN stopped wondering so incredulously aloud. 

Either way, the Republican Party, and the toxic individualism it's come to represent, has reached its final, unhappy, yet all too logical conclusion. The GOP bears less resemblance to Darth Vader's celebrated Death Star, than a Death Cult that fears any kind of centralized authority, even as it bullies and rages against anyone who dares to question its self-presumed right to wield power indefinitely, no matter the cost to the country it claims to celebrate. The end result is a sickened and scared skeleton of nation that's down on its luck, and down on its knees.

Then came January 6th.

<"Trump Decay,

Take II"/The Reckoner>

<iii.>

And so, what do we make of January 6th, America's latest day "that will live in infamy," to borrow FDR's famous description of the 1941 Japanese air attack on Pearl Harbor? Well, one of the more obvious takeaways is not to laugh off any clowns, no matter how empty the suit, no matter how silly they look. As Pennywise will remind you, the silliest-looking clowns pack the sharpest claws, and the sharpest teeth, and they're never shy about using them.

What strikes me, though, is how so many of the so-called Adults In The Room, as I called them, ignored the menace lying behind the buffoonery. The relatively muted press response to Trump's revival of his "birther" scam against Vice President-elect Kamala Harris is a classic example. Most of the mainstream press's energy went into laboriously debunking the claim, as if reason and logic equaled the only price of admission to Trump's MAGA-ville Paradise.

Yet the sinister aspect is impossible to overlook unless you're not looking for it, or simply don't want to accept the reality it represents, which is the characterization of Harris, Obama -- any prominent nonwhite leader, for that matter, will do -- as the demonic Other, the deviant non-citizen who's inferior from the get-go.

Hence, any response to prevent these "Others" from gaining power is fair game, whether it's gerrymandering, redlining and voter suppression, or simple intimidation, verbal and physical assault, or outright murder. Both responses are forms of violence, whether it's committed with paperwork and procedures, or explosives and firearms. 

It's a reality we've seemed unwilling to face since the 1990s, when the nation's political class scurried to shake off the fallout from the disastrous immolation of Branch Davidians in Waco, TX, the ghastly carnage of the Oklahoma City bombing, and the botched 11-day siege at Ruby Ridge, ID, to name three events that became fixtures of far right recruiting fodder.

The toxic cocktail of aggrieved white nationalism and racism -- coupled with the embrace of command and control-style Christianity, as the default religion of the United States -- seemed hard to miss, yet wound up submerged under a different narrative that painted its participants as mere buck-teethed and bug-eyed extremists, social misfits lacking in social graces, who'd seemingly missed the greater memo for good. 

Ha, ha, ha, the narrators guffawed. Such maroons. See how fast we squashed them? Heh, heh, heh. They don't know how it works around here, do they? Ho, ho, ho. Guess they got what they deserved. Those who heard that laughter ringing in their ears had other priorities, however, as they searched for the right face -- and voice -- who could unite the far right's ever-squabbling factions, and mold them into an activist army, one capable of delivering a political earthquake, that even the political class couldn't ignore. 

The unhinged, unscripted rantings of a David Koresh wouldn't pass this test, of course. Nor would anyone have mistaken the camouflage-clad drabness of a Timothy McVeigh, nor the stolid, grandfatherly blandness of the late William Pierce, author of The Turner Diaries (1978), for any kind of American-style Fuehrer. 

Then came January 6th.

<iv.>

The more we learn about the Capitol melee, the more disturbing its reality gets, starting with the cast of characters involved. Few seem to fit the profile of self-styled "QAnon Shaman," Jacob Angeli Chansley, whom news reports have identified as a failed actor living with his mother -- if that's not a classic stereotype, what is? 

What's striking is how well-heeled and well-off many of the participants seem. An associate general counsel here (Westlake, TX), an occupational therapist there (Cleveland, OH). In this corner, a former state representative, Rick Saccone, who threw in the towel and stepped down from his adjunct professor's gig, once his involvement became known. In that corner, a Brooklyn Supreme Court Judge's son, and a Chicago marketing company CEO who claimed he only entered the Capitol "to see what was taking place inside."

Even more disturbing, however, are the reports of collusion by Capitol Police officers, and willingness by "people who should know better" to join the mob. That they didn't has prompted agencies like the Seattle Police Department to investigate two of its own officers for their alleged participation. But it's hardly just a matter of cops grabbing an ill-considered selfie or two with their new insurgent buds, as one Capitol cop did. 

Reports of collusion at higher levels are rife, such as one fingering Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall, who runs an entity called the Rule Of Law Defense Fund, a dark money group that allegedly blasted out robocalls to insurrectionists in waiting (see link below). Of course, Marshall has no clue; for all he knows, those robocalls were just offering MAGA cookie recipes. if you believe that one, I have some swampland you can help me drain.

Trump supporter Ali Alexander has also claimed that three Republican Congressmen, Andy Biggs and Paul Gosar, of Arizona, and the now-infamous Mo Brooks, of Alabama -- who, like Trump, spoke to the crowd, to whip up the resulting mayhem -- actively assisted in planning the so-called protest rally. New Jersey Democrat Mikie Sherrill has caused a sensation by claiming that on January 5, she saw several colleagues allegedly taking people on "reconnaissance tours" of the building.

Biggs has already loudly, repeatedly denied any involvement, which rings hollow, once we consider one key fact. As House Majority Whip James Clyburn has pointed out on CNN, the rioters bypassed his public office (the one with his nameplate on the door), and headed right to where he spends most of his time (the unmarked second office, with no nameplate). Those maneuvers require some type of inside knowledge. How did they get it, and who gave it to them?

How did such a wild-eyed mob, if that's all it was, get inside the building so quickly, as they coordinated their movements with bullhorns and radios? A good percentage must also be ex-military, judging by how many remembered to wear helmets, and body armor, while bringing along plenty of chemical sprays, tasers and zip ties. How deeply have certain police agencies or service branches been infiltrated or compromised, a goal where many far right fringe leaders claim major successes?

The timing, coming so soon after the Democratic runoff victories, is also impossible to miss. Yet how did our top federal law enforcement agencies miss weeks of open chatter, like this nugget from the 8kun fringe message board: "You can go to Washington on January 6 and help storm the Capitol. As many Patriots as can be. We will storm the government buildings, kill cops, kill security guards, kill federal employees and agents, and demand a recount."

How ambiguous does that message sound, exactly? It's one of many questions, I suspect, where we're not going to like the answers.

<v.>

Now comes the morning after, January 7th, starting with the million dollar question. How do we deal with those found responsible for unleashing this orgy of death and destruction? How should we, exactly?

Start with Trump, the Inciter In Chief, and the second impeachment trial he faces in the US Senate. We'll see if his Republican enablers finally muster some semblance of courage to tell him, "This far, and no farther." In many ways, Trump's meteoric rise from merely annoying rich jerk to unrepentant far right messiah represents the final failure of a system that automatically defers to people like him, because they deem it too inconvenient or time-consuming to do anything else. 

That's the argument advanced by the likes of former National Security Adviser John Bolton, whom I saw recently popping up on CNN to make that case. Let it go, we hear the Boltons urge. What's the point of impeaching a man whose time is up? What more harm can we do?

A fairer question might well be: should justice follow a calendar? Fugitives like Leonard Moses, convicted after 50 years on the run, have learned this question the hard way. So did ex-Nazis like Klaus Barbie, who ended up swapping his swank South American hideaway for the unforgiving confines of a prison cell in Lyon, the same city he'd terrorized as a willing Gestapo torturer and killer during World War II.

That a monster like Barbie spent far less time in prison (eight years, from 1983, till his death in 1991) than he ever did on the run (nearly 40 years, mostly in Bolivia) is beside the point. When the system creaked into gear and finally, caught up with him, he could not escape its judgment, nor the larger verdict it represented. Neither should Trump, even if he occupies a different moral plane of darkness than the man deemed responsible for the deaths of 14,000 people. 

Barring Trump from ever holding office again -- as the Senate can do, if it actually does the unthinkable, and votes to convict him of inciting insurrection -- would do more than merely spare his party the unappealing dirty work of ploting a future without him. If nothing else, disqualifying Trump would prevent him from inflicting further harm, procedural or otherwise, on the democratic system that he's tried so hard to destroy. 

Next, we turn to those who seemed ready to enable Trump's dictatorial aspirations, like Alabama Congressman Mo Brooks, who urged the crowd to "start taking down names, and kicking ass"; Senators Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz, who poured gasoline on the fire, by continuing their objections to certifying Biden's victory; and their 147 House colleagues who voted to do likewise, in spite of the stake it would have driven through the heart of our democracy, had any of their ill-intentioned challenges ever succeeded.

Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV) has already outlined a suitable remedy, namely, expulsion under the 14th Amendment of the Constitution which clearly states that no officeholder "shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability." 

Again, whether or not the Democrats can muster the required two-thirds majorities to expel the likes of Brooks, Cruz and Hawley is beside the point. So is the suggestion that the fates of these morally bankrupt men are best left to their voters. As noble as that idea sounds, it falls woefully short of the reckoning that's required. Participating in a democracy means accepting your role as a member of the "loyal opposition," including the institutions that sustain it. 

Does this standard describe reptilian politicians like Cruz and Hawley, who fist-bumped the assembled mob, and didn't forget to send out fundraising emails on their behalf, even as the chaos unfolded? I think not. The same goes for those 147 Republican Congressmen and women. Whether it is practical to expel all of them, I'll let the House leadership decide, but their desertion of democratic norms should not go unnoticed, nor unchallenged. 

Nor should any of these political performance artists be coddled for acting out, as some are choosing to do, by not wearing masks on the House floor, or skipping around its newly-installed metal detectors. Fining them is appropriate and overdue, but if the toddler behavior persists, they shouldn't be seated until it stops, simple as that. 

Finally, the same standard should apply those who actually tried to take the names, and kick the ass, as Brooks urged them to do. Federal courts and prosecutors will have to decide who thought they were participating in actual "battles," or simply participating in far right cosplay, while reserving stiffer punishment for the worst of them, like those who injured Capitol police officer Daniel Hodges by crushing him into a doorway. They should not expect to walk away from their crimes unscathed, anymore than those who enabled them.

Going after the authoritarian core that undoubtedly represents Trump's base is a much bigger job, which is why I consider all the pleas for "unity" sorely misplaced. The hard, cold fact is that a solid majority of Republicans polled by ABC News are either ready to live in an authoritarian state, or impose one on those who disagree with them (see link below). 

For example, 56 percent of Republicans feel Trump bears no responsibility at all for the Capitol siege, while an additional 22 percent are only to willing to say he bears "some." Fifty-two percent feel their leadership went too far in supporting Trump's efforts to overturn the election, yet another 51 percent say they didn't go far enough, and 27 percent feel they got it right.

Dispiriting and discouraging as these findings undoubtedly are, we should not let them distract us from the greater task that still awaits us: ensuring that our democracy lives to fight beyond the short term dictates of today, tomorrow, and next week, not necessarily in that order. Holding those who sought to destroy it accountable is the first step in that process, followed by the need to ask the uncomfortable questions that invariably go with it. 

Unity without either of these qualities is mere "both sides"-ism of the sort that Trump invoked in 2017, after the madness and ugliness of Charlottesville, when he suggested that there were "good people on both sides." So long as this type of rhetoric circulates, I am willing to put any dreams of national unity on hold, until we finally arrive at some measure of justice. For those who oppose that ideal, I say, "Shame on them"; but if we succumb to some of collective amnesia, and forgo it, then shame on us. The choice is ours. So is the responsibility. --The Reckoner

Links To Go (Hurry, Hurry,

Before The Fourth Reich Springs To Life)

CNN

People At The US Capitol Riot

Are Being Identified And Losing Their Jobs:

https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/07/us/capitol-riots-people-fired-jobs-trnd/index.html

Hawkeye Report

Trump's GOP Has An Ugly Authoritarian Core:
https://iowa.forums.rivals.com/threads/trump%E2%80%99s-gop-has-an-ugly-authoritarian-core-a-new-poll-exposes-it.345167/

MEDIAite:

Trump Organizer Ali Alexander Says...

https://www.mediaite.com/news/trump-event-organizer-ali-alexander-says-reps-gosar-brooks-and-biggs-helped-plan-march-that-led-to-capitol-riot/

Los Angeles Times

The Turner Diaries Didn't

Just Inspire The Capitol Attack:

https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/books/story/2021-01-08/kathleen-belew-on-the-turner-diaries

MSN.com

Convicted Murderer On The Run

For 50 Years Captured In Michigan

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/convicted-murderer-on-the-run-for-50-years-captured-in-michigan/ar-BB1b0aPY

Wall Street Journal

'The Before Time': A Sci-Fi Idea

That Has Made Its Way To Real Life:

http://www.americannamesociety.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/BeforeTime.pdf

Yahoo News

Capitol Protests Organized By Alabama AG's Nonprofit Group:
https://www.yahoo.com/news/capitol-protests-organized-alabama-ag-221426092.html

Yahoo News

Errol Morris On The Specter

Of Steve Bannon In The Capitol Assault:

https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/errol-morris-specter-steve-bannon-173042696.html

Yahoo News

FBI, NYPD Told Capitol Police

About Possibility Of Violence...

https://www.yahoo.com/news/fbi-nypd-told-capitol-police-204510631.html

Yahoo News

Here Are Some Of The Noteworthy People

Identified And Arrested For Storming The Capitol:

https://www.yahoo.com/news/here-are-some-of-the-noteworthy-people-identified-and-arrested-for-storming-the-capitol-194434845.html

Yahoo News

Several Congressional Democrats Claim

The January 6 Capitol Insurrection 

Was Aided By "Insiders":

https://www.yahoo.com/news/several-congressional-democrats-claim-january-092936502.html

Tomorrow And Tomorrow And Tomorrow Creeps (Take II): Election Day 2020 Slides Sideways

<"Fade To Black...And Then Gray":

The Reckoner>

<i.>

And so, it ends. Election Day 2020 has come, and gone. America's slide into fascism, greased along the skids of remorseless minority rule, will wait another four years, if you're an optimist. The "free fall to hell," as Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez told the New York Times this weekend, is off the table, at least for now. "We paused this precipitous descent. And the question is if and how we will build ourselves back up."

Judging by the latest results, there's plenty of rebuilding ahead. Democratic nominee and President-elect Joe Biden shattered all records, in garnering 75.4 million votes (50.7%) -- the highest popular vote total for any candidate -- while Vice President Kamala Harris made history as the first female and woman of color to occupy the second slot. Yet Donald Trump continued his penchant for defying political gravity, by earning 70.9 million votes (47.7%), even as he refuses to add "ex-President" to his job description.

What's more, 26% of Trump's overall vote came from nonwhites, the best such showing by any Republican nominee since 1960. Trump further defied gravity with strong turnouts among Latinos, as the punditocracy has endlessly noted, and notably improved his share among African-American women (from four to eight percent), African-American men (13 to 18%), and gays and lesbians (14 to 28%).

I can attest to the last statistic, at least anecdotally. There's a guy in my building whom I've seen wearing a T-shirt that reads, "Gays For Trump." This, despite a newly hardened conservative supermajority on the Supreme Court, that seems poised to snatch away the right to marry granted in its 2015 Obergefell v. Hodges decision. What can I say? Disconnect is one mighty, mean motherfucker, apparently.

Most disturbing of all is seeing Trump racking up some of his biggest percentages in states hardest hit by the COVID-19 wrecking, ranging from lows 48.8% (Wisconsin), to highs of 62.7% (Arkansas), 63.7% (Idaho), and 65% (North Dakota). Either people's affinity for misery is wider than anyone cares to admit, or the mental gravitational pull of Trump's alternate universe -- one that requires no masks, no social distancing, no tough decision-making -- is too strong to resist. I'm plumping for the latter.

None of these results feel good to anyone who really cares about democracy. My feeling is that Biden won because of his promise to better handle the pandemic that Trump and his cronies have botched so grievously, and so catastrophically. Yet, despite the pandemic, and the predictable social unrest it unleashed -- the cratering economy, protests of police brutality, and skyrocketing COVID-19 death toll -- "Almost half of the country looked at the way Donald Trump has functioned as president since 2017 and said, definitively, that they wanted four more years of it," as Klein notes.

How else to explain an outcome that ground on, grimly and tortuously, right into the weekend? Yes, the Democrats finally speared their white whale, but it took an enormous, concerted effort to make sure the harpoon finally hit its mark. Even then, it might not have landed, without the final four states that pushed Biden over the top (Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, and of course, Pennsylvania).

In the final analysis, an authoritarian wannabe almost returned to power once more, bolstered by his capture of the Republican Party machinery, and its cultish following. As Ian Bassin, co-founder of the nonpartisan legal group Protect Democracy notes: "If that doesn't tell you that something is completely rotten in the foundations of our democracy, I don't know what would."

Honestly, I don't want to hear that cliche, "This is not who we are." The cold, hard fact is, this is who a whole hell lot of us are, at least for the immediate future. 

<"Going..."

The Reckoner>

<ii.>

Democracy shouldn't be synonymous with sclerosis, yet it's equally clear that 240-some years on, the American experiment is suffering some serious hardening of its arteries. Start with the notorious Electoral College, and all the insufferable ambiguities that go with it. As many Election Night commentators noted, if the popular vote determined the outcome, Biden could have gone home to Delaware, and started working up his transition plan, right then.

Instead, the nation hung on tenterhooks, as vote counts slowly ticked in, first from Wisconsin...now from Michigan...and finally, from Arizona, Pennsylvania, and Georgia. Once again, as it did in 2000, and 2016, a handful of states determined an outcome that hinged on voters' preferences in those some handful of states. "That's the system," we hear its defenders say. "That's the problem," respond the critics, who then struggle to gain any traction to change it.

The nearest success came in 1969, when U.S. Senator Birch Bayh co-sponsored an amendment to replace the Electoral College with a French-style, two-round system that would require the winner to earn at least 40% of the popular vote. If that didn't happen in round one, the nation's top jobs would go to the presidential and vice presidential candidates receiving the largest number of votes.

The House of Representatives passed the Bayh-Celler amendment, as it was known, by a 339-70 vote in September 1969. Even President Richard Nixon got behind it, having barely warded off a strong challenge from Democrat Hubert Humphrey, and George Wallace's insurgent third party campaign. (Presumably, Tricky Dick whipped out his slid rule and figured he'd have fared better under Bayh-Celler in the 1968 race, the closest and mostly hotly contested, up to that time. Otherwise, I doubt that he would have endorsed it.)

All systems seemed go until Bayh's fellow Senators soon schooled him in how things really work around here, as the tired old phrase goes. The Bayh-Celler amendment advanced 11-6 out of the Senate Judiciary Committee, only to die after a handful of Southern "boll weevil" and small state Senators filibustered it to death. Two attempts at breaking the stalemate failed, prompting Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield to abandon Bayh-Celler for good.

Bayh tried once more, in 1977, but his second attempt met the same fate as its predecessor. There's something poetic and ironic about a small in-group using an obscure legislative tactic to ensure the survival of an institution that increasingly favors minority rule. In that respect, Bayh's comments from Every Vote Equal (2013) seem especially prescient:

"Today more than ever, the Electoral College system is a disservice to the voters. With the number of battleground states steadily shrinking, we see candidates and their campaigns focused on fewer and fewer states. While running for the nation’s highest office, candidates in 2004 completely ignored three-quarters of the states, including California, Texas, and New York, our three most populous states. Why should our national leaders be elected by only reaching out to 1/4 of our states? It seems inherently illogical, and it is."

I wonder how Bayh, who only died just last year, might feel about the spectacle of Trump, the Orange Menace, preparing to blitz the nation with more of his signature Nuremberg-style rallies, even as he refuses to concede, and gropes for straws to overturn a narrow result that hurt his party this time. In that respect, these additional comments from Bayh feel right on point:

"The election of President of the United States should not be a contest between red states and blue states. The President should be chosen by a majority of our citizens, wherever they may live. Direct popular election would substitute clarity for confusion, decisiveness for danger, and popular choice for political chance."

<"Still Going..."

The Reckoner>

<iii.>

Of course, the current artificial political game of Cowboys and Indians seems fated to continue, too, because the oft-ballyhooed "blue wave" ended up as a blue ripple. Nowhere did this seem clearer than the U.S. Senate, where Democrats only picked up two seats (Arizona, Colorado) -- and those against two  incumbents (Martha McSally, Cory Gardner, respectively) who'd never led a poll, and had been essentially written off by the fall.

Otherwise, voters allowed some of Trump's biggest enablers (Susan Collins, Joni Ernst, Lindsay Graham, Thom Tillis) to escape unscathed. It's a particularly depressing outcome when you ponder the darkness of a shape shifter like Ernst, who rode to fame among the GOP Class of 2014 with a TV ad boasting of how she'd make Washington's pork barrel merchants "squeal," like the hogs she couldn't wait to castrate on her farm.

A bit rich, isn't it, coming from someone who fumbled a debate question about the cost of soybeans. Yet there Phony Joni sits, basking in the last laugh, for six more years, at least. In a truly just world, she'd find herself chained to a chair, with every British anarcho-punk animal rights broadside blasting into her tone deaf ears: "Just think how the animals feel! Just think how the animals feel!" 

The long arc bends toward justice...my ass. 

Outcomes in the House of Representatives proved equally dim, with Democrats bracing for a net loss of seven to 11 seats. They'll still hold a majority, though one leaving far less room for error. Nevertheless, the withered mummies and zombies who pass for senior Democratic leadership these days are already out in force, as they moan and maunder, peep and mutter: "Bad progressives...You cost us our seats...Bad lefties...you cost us our seats...Democratic socialists, darken this crypt no longer....you cost us our seats..." 

However, a quick check of the old box score shows, without exception, all the losers fell into the so-called "Blue Dog" category of Democrats -- you know, the kinder, gentler Republicans who pride themselves on smoking the occasional joint, even as they wink at the exploitation of the poorer classes they hope to con into voting for them, so they can forget their inconvenient excuse for another two years. 

In contrast, the progressive class -- led by its marquee attraction, Ocasio-Cortez, along with her familiar Squadmates, Ilhan Omar and Ayanna Pressley, and newer faces, like Jamaal Bowman -- all cruised to re-election. Any of the mummies care to explain that? 

I'm not expecting it, simply because the neoliberal crowd and its cronies never cop to their mistakes. It's easier to "shuck and duck," as I call it, and pass the buck somewhere else. I think Ocasio-Cortez has the most relevant answer, as her New York Times interview suggests:

"We need to do a lot of anti-racist, deep canvassing in this country. Because if we keep losing white shares and just allowing Facebook to radicalize more and more elements of white voters and the white electorate, there’s no amount of people of color and young people that you can turn out to offset that.

"But the problem is that right now, I think a lot of Dem strategy is to avoid actually working through this. Just trying to avoid poking the bear. That’s their argument with defunding police, right? To not agitate racial resentment. I don’t think that is sustainable."

Not to worry, though. Illinois Congressman Cheri Bustos, the architect of the failed House strategy -- or, roughly translated, "Vote for us, because we're not Trump, but forget about anything meaningful happening to improve your life" -- barely hung on against a Republican who received no major financial help. 

Yet Bustos is reportedly under consideration for a Cabinet post! What's that saying? Failure falls upwards. If you've got a better example, I'd love to hear it.

<"...Gone!"

The Reckoner>

<iv.>

Amid the gray puffs of gloom, some bright spots made themselves felt, which the mainstream media missed in its haste to bury the Democratic progressives. As Bernie Sanders noted in his weekly email, progressive ballot measures passed in several states, including proposals to increase taxes on those making $250,000 or more to fund public schools (Arizona), provide 12 weeks of paid family leave (Colorado), and raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2026 (Florida). 

None are California-style liberal havens, by any stretch of the imagination, yet the success of these campaigns belies the Blue Dog narrative that throwing genuinely different ideas into the mix is an automatic deal breaker. People on the ground know better what's working for them, and what's not, than the donor classes and the talking heads who loudly declaim otherwise. How else did emerge Trump in the first place? Work it out, folks. It's not complicated.

Other bright spots included Adrian Tam, who beat an established incumbent, and a leader of the Proud Boys far right hate group, to become Hawaii's only openly gay state lawmaker. I'd also nominate Cori Bush, a single mother and ordained minister who became an organizer after the 2014 unrest of Ferguson, Missouri, and also raised two children as a homeless single mother. If that's not the definition of a hero, what is? 

What's more, Bush's victory ended the Clay family's 52-year dominance of her St. Louis area district. She did so, while supporting all the key Democratic progressive positions, including the $15 an hour minimum wage, Medicare for all, free college, and cancellation of student debt. Again, Missouri is hardly a liberal place, even if Bush will represent a district that Democrats have dominated since 1909, except for 17 months. She knocked off longtime incumbent Lacy Clay on her second try -- no small feat, since rematches typically favor the officeholder. If that's not a giant killer, what is?

The problem, though, is that Cori Bush isn't the type of candidate that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her Senate counterpart, Chuck Schumer, seem to want. We covered this in our October 2019 post, "The Windowless Basement Hustle," referring to Schumer's brusque dismissal of a would-be Senate candidate, who proposed holding "100 town halls in 100 days," and go from there. "Wrong answer. We want you to spend the next 16 months in a windowless basement raising money," Schumer allegedly responded, in part. 

As we saw last week, that "windowless basement" strategy led to a lot of money getting flushed down the drain, or $626 million in 14 races, including $90 million alone for Amy McGrath's vanity campaign against the GOP Senate Majority Leader, Mitch The Mummy (McConnell, that is). 

This, despite McGrath barely surviving a primary against her progressive rival, Charles Booker; this, despite her burning up $8 million in a previously unsuccessful Congressional race; this, despite fumbling basic questions, like whether she'd have confirmed Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh (first she said no, then "probably," then no yet again). It's not surprising that McConnell rarely leaves the Senate floor these days without a crooked Joker-style grin. Why shouldn't he, with opponents so lacking in street smarts?

I'd also question why Democrats went all in with $70 million for Sarah Gideon in Maine, and $90 million for Jamie Harrison in South Carolina, who wound up losing to incumbents Susan Collins and Lindsay Graham by nine and 10 points, respectively. Both ran reasonably adept campaigns, particularly Harrison, yet in the grand scheme of things, a loss is still a loss, no matter how inspired you allegedly made people feel.

The runaway spending spree also backfired spectacularly in one other way: it allowed Republican reptiles like Graham and McConnell to shroud themselves in the mantle of democracy, even though it's hard to imagine two people who have done more to undermine it. 

Seeing gushers of money flowing from shadowy donors fighting over territory like a Louis Vuitton handbag isn't energizing; to many people, it's a numbing and depressing reminder of everything they detest about the system in the first place. Note to Chuck and Nancy: the Constitution starts with, "We the people." Not, "We, the people, in a windowless basement." There's a slight difference that you're not appreciating. 

With so much money flowing here, there and everywhere, you'd think the challengers and their campaigns would also have spread it further down the ballot, where it might have actually done more good. Amid all the national hoopla, it's easy to forget that tons of local and state candidates run with a fraction of the attention, money and organization that flows to a Gideon, or a Harrison. That's where tomorrow's national political stars typically start, yet nobody thinks that far ahead. 

As long as the Democratic leadership remains wedded to this peculiar model of cyber-corporate campaigning, with its cookie cutter messaging and tepid armada of hand-picked candidates, it can hardly expect stellar results. In contrast, the Republicans responded more nimbly to events, and made better overall strategic decisions, such as where to host Trump's rallies, or send his surrogates to attack rivals. Having less cash forces you to think more creatively. It feels downright weird to view the Republicans as the party of punk rock improvisation, but that's what last week seems to bear out.

Most relevantly of all, Democratic candidates need to up their game dramatically in the 2022 midterms, and 2024 Presidential race, if they ever hope to get out of the penalty box, and get a shot at finally passing some of those cherished priorities, like the Green New Deal, for instance, or Medicare For All. 

As we saw last week, merely telling voters, "We're not Trump," wasn't enough. What will the Blue Dogs and the donor classes who so eagerly subsidize them do when Trump inevitably departs from the scene, without the accompanying fear of his shadow, and the license to print money that it offers? It's a question well worth considering, before the failure to provide a decent answer dogs us forever.

Honestly, we can, and must, do better than trotting out the standard bromides and platitudes that the donor class feeds its hand-picked heroes ("We feel your pain, we have a plan, we'll get it right next time"), as Ocasio-Cortez told the New York Times: "This isn't even just about winning an argument. It's that if they keep going after the wrong thing, I mean, they're just setting up their own obsolescence."

I couldn't have said it better myself. Or, as Jimi Hendrix told his questioners, when they asked why he chose to play "The Star-Spangled Banner" as he did, with an array of feedback, and high decibel string bending: "We play it the way the air is in America today. The air is slightly static, see?" 

And therein lies the problem. See, I just can't shake the buzzing of all that static out of my eardrums, and neither should anyone else who cares about what's happening to our nation. Because the biggest fights lie ahead of us. -- The Reckoner

<Coming Soon...

To A Superspreader Rally Near You!:

The Squawker>

Links To Go (Hurry, Hurry,

Before The MAGA Convoy Honks In Your Ear Again...)

Down With Tyranny

Folie a Millions: Nearly Half The Voters

Looked At The Last Four Years...:
https://downwithtyranny.blogspot.com/2020/11/folie-millions-nearly-half-voters.html

Down With Tyranny

In The States With The Worst COVID Situations

MORE People Voted For Trump This Time Than In 2016!:
https://downwithtyranny.blogspot.com/2020/11/in-states-with-worst-covid-situations.html

Huffington Post

Joe Biden Ran On Character:

That's Not Going To Fix What's Broken In America:
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/joe-biden-character-election-2020_n_5fa2fb14c5b660630aedd074

Ramen Noodle Nation

Guest Cartoon: "The Windowless Basement Hustle":

https://ramennoodlenation.blogspot.com/search/label/Highwayman%20cartoons

Matt Taibbi

Which Is The Real  "Working Class" Party Now?:
https://taibbi.substack.com/p/which-is-the-real-working-class-party-cc3

Yahoo News

Meet Adrian Tam, The Gay Man

Who Beat A 'Proud Boys' Leader In Hawaii's Election:
https://www.yahoo.com/news/meet-adrian-tam-gay-man-093451604.html