Eleven Observations on the Capitol Protest

On January 6, 2021, the United States Congress held its quadrennial joint session to count the votes of the Electoral College and certify the 2020 presidential election results. Many thousands of supporters of incumbent President Donald Trump gathered in Washington, D.C. beginning on the previous day to protest the election results and advocate for Vice President Mike Pence to use his power of reading the electoral votes to side with Republican electors in states which had anomalies in their popular vote results. At a rally on the Ellipse on the morning of January 6, Trump and others addressed the crowd. Trump encouraged his supporters to “fight like hell” to “take back our country” and to march towards the Capitol, while his lawyer and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani called for “trial by combat”.[1]

The crowd marched to the Capitol, made their way past police lines, and entered the building during the Electoral College vote count, forcing the postponement of the proceedings for several hours.[2] Capitol security evacuated the House and Senate chambers. Several buildings in the Capitol complex were also evacuated and locked down. Protesters managed to enter the Capitol rotunda, the Senate chamber, and the offices of several members of Congress. Guards prevented entry to the House floor, killing a woman in the process.[3,4] Four others died during the events of the day. Improvised explosive devices were found in several places, but none detonated. Eleven observations follow on these events and the likely path forward.

1. Blame placement for the violence should be widespread, but will not be. Ever since the election on November 3, 2020, there have been legitimate questions about the procedures, conduct, and results. But rather than attempt to answer those questions, the lügenpresse and Big Tech have dismissed such questions and gone out of their way to ridicule and silence anyone who persists in asking. The courts have mostly punted, whether out of mistaken legal doctrines, loyalty to the Cathedral, or sheer cowardice. Those who sought to petition the government for a redress of grievances were told in no uncertain terms to sit down and shut up. Some did, but of course others would not. Had a fair hearing been granted at any level, few would have felt a need to resort to force.

Of course, the Cathedral is pathologically incapable of self-reflection, and would never consider truly holding itself accountable. Predictably, all blame was placed squarely on Trump. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) called on Pence to invoke the Twenty-Fifth Amendment and threatened to impeach Trump for a second time.[5] Many sources described the event as a coup d’état, though its effects were far from actually displacing the US Government in favor of another authority, Trump or otherwise. Multiple Trump administration officials resigned in response, and mainstream social media companies permanently suspended Trump’s accounts.[6] Only dissidents and a scant few at the edge of the establishment press dared to suggest any other fault.

2. Power belongs to those who take it, and does not belong to those who fail to take it or choose not to take it. These truths were demonstrated along multiple avenues in the events surrounding the storming. First, there are significant legal arguments to be made that Pence did in fact have the power to hand Trump a second term.[7–10] Namely, the Constitution vests the power to perform the vote count in the President of the Senate, who is the sitting Vice President. Part of this power is to decide which slates of electors are valid and which are invalid, if more than one slate is submitted from the same state. Had Pence interpreted the Twelfth Amendment in this manner and used his power accordingly, there is a strong possibility that Trump would have prevailed, though martial law may have been needed in many cities for several weeks to stop leftist riots.

Second, Trump could have used the Insurrection Act and the Militia Act to “cross the Rubicon,” the phrase which has emerged from the Dissident Right for dispensing with the current system and taking power by force. As Alexander Macris explains[11], these Acts provide the means for a President to call forth the armed forces and the militia while sidestepping the Posse Comitatus Act, the War Powers Act, and every other usual restriction on a President’s use of force. He instead chose to “march up to the Rubicon, then sit down to fish,” as Ernst von Salomon would say. He did not even accompany the supporters he had called forth, leaving them to their own devices and, more importantly, their own consequences, including federal charges of insurrection, rioting, and seditious conspiracy.[12]

Third, those who occupied the Capitol could have accomplished far more than they did, if there were actually some kind of realistic plan to do more than simply protest or disrupt. But as Curtis Yarvin explains,

“Since they were only fishing in the Rubicon, not making any kind of practical plan to actually cross it, if they accidentally do cross it—they are lost. They will just wander around in the endless fields of Chianti, ‘wondering why the level isn’t ending,’ until some Roman asswipe finds them and kills them with a spear.

They certainly will not ‘declare a new government.’ How? What government would that be? After Trump sets up his new basilica in the Rotunda, what is his next step? Even if the Supreme Court steals the election back for him—if he thought he was at war with Washington in his previous term, how about now?

And if he actually takes power by force, on the back of this mob—what exactly goes on in that Rotunda? What is his next step? What would he do tomorrow? Next week? Next month?”[13]

Fourth, the contest between Trump and Big Tech came to a head after the storming, with Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram deplatforming him. While Trump hinted at eliminating their Section 230 protection, which shields them from liability or accountability as they censor content and deplatform users however they see fit, no decisive action was ever taken and no serious attempt was made until it was too late. With Trump only days away from leaving office and appearing defeated and isolated, Big Tech made its move.

3. This is the end of Mike Pence’s political career at this level, if not any level. Regardless of how much power Pence actually had, or thought he had, a significant portion of Trump’s base expected him to step up and do something. His failure to do so will not be forgotten by them, and will remain unforgiven by enough of them to cost him the Republican presidential nomination in 2024. By 2028, the landscape of American politics likely will have left him behind. Pence may be able to continue his political career at the state level in his native Indiana, but even a role as Governor or Senator is questionable after such a perception of betrayal and lack of context recognition.

4. This is the end of Donald Trump’s direct political career, but his role will continue in another fashion. If still alive and free by the 2024 campaign season, neither of which are certain given the Cathedral’s vindictive streak, he will not be in a position to run again. The actions of January 6 are too alienating to the Republican establishment, and just as they did after the Ron Paul 2012 campaign, they will change the rules to make life more difficult for an outsider such as Trump seeking the nomination. It is also likely that Big Tech will use every means at its disposal to suppress and defund a third Trump campaign. That being said, his supporters are so numerous that it is unlikely for a Republican candidate to win a general election without them. Trump’s movement will outlive his presidency, and possibly his natural existence, but it will need a new face, and Trump will be in a position of kingmaker in this regard.

5. It is not conclusively proven that the entire event was staged, but would make sense. A claim circulated among Trump supporters after the storming that Antifa members were mixed into the crowd that broke through security and forced their way into the Capitol. However, there were posts on Parler by Proud Boys recommending that its members dress like Antifa to provide a means of shifting blame if something went awry.[14]

Evidence later surfaced of CNN photojournalist Jade Sacker entering the Capitol with John Sullivan, a known Antifa/BLM activist, and celebrating the fact that they helped incite civil unrest.[15] Sullivan was arrested in Utah on January 14[16] for his role in the Capitol breaching and charged with “obstructing, impeding, or interfering with a fireman or law enforcement officer lawfully engaged in the lawful performance of his official duties incident to and during the commission of a civil disorder,” “knowingly entering or remaining in a restricted building or grounds without lawful authority,” “knowingly, and with intent to impede or disrupt the orderly conduct of Government business or official functions, engaging in disorderly or disruptive conduct,” and “willfully and knowingly engaging in disorderly or disruptive conduct, at any place in the Grounds or in any of the Capitol Buildings with the intent to impede, disrupt, or disturb the orderly conduct of a session of Congress or either House of Congress, or the orderly conduct in that building of any deliberations of either House of Congress.”[17]

The end result of sweeping away most of the planned objections to the electoral vote count and demonizing all Trump supporters was possible to predict beforehand, and the breach of the Capitol seems to have been too easy for something that the establishment really did not want to happen. It certainly appears from multiple viewpoints that the events of January 6 were deliberately allowed to occur.

6. Ashli Babbitt will be a martyr if dissident propagandists are smart. During the protest inside the Capitol, Babbitt, 35, was fatally shot in the neck by Capitol Police.[18] She was a 14-year veteran of the US Air Force, and had been on several overseas deployments.[19] She was the model of someone who had bought into the system and played by the rules. She was there, like many others, because she saw the American oligarchy doing otherwise. Again, as per point #1, had any effort been made to address concerns over the election processes rather than suppressing and dismissing them, then there would be no legitimate motivation for such a protest.

The lügenpresse will do its best to ignore her and ensure that her name is forgotten. Its talking heads are certainly not above demonizing her and denigrating her memory, but her history before becoming a Trump supporter and QAnon adherent[19] would pull on other threads of Cathedral propaganda. A smart team of Dissident Right propagandists would do well to elevate her to the status of martyr and make her name a household one, at least in rightist circles. But a martyr needs a cause greater than that of seeking election fairness, which is the true task at hand. As Christopher Zeeman writes,

“Dissidents need to remember her so we never forget why we are angry and why we are dissidents. We are angry with a system that thinks it is okay to murder citizens who play by the rules and exercise their rights as citizens to petition their government for redress.”[20]

7. The real offense committed by the protesters is lèse-majesté. This phrase is French for “do wrong to majesty,” and describes an offense against the dignity of those who hold power. Historically, this applied to insults against monarchs and their families, and still does outside of liberal democratic countries. In its beginnings in Roman law, this offense was indistinguishable from what are now called blasphemy laws, as the emperors were deified and afforded the same legal protections as the gods of the state cult. In the medieval period, other crimes were construed as lèse-majesté due to their connection to the sovereign; e.g. counterfeiting coins that bore the king’s face or coat of arms.

The events of January 6 were a pseudocoup at best, as there was never any real chance of the protesters acting as a military force behind which Trump could become an American Octavian. They only managed to delay the inevitable by a few hours while providing pretext for a crackdown against dissidents. The real offense is that the unwashed masses dared sully the most sacred synod of Our DemocracyTM with their nasty feet, Viking costumes, Confederate flags, and other such symbolism as would make a mockery of the ruling class and its machinations. Their theft of the ceremonial lectern[21] and Pelosi’s laptop[22] added insult to injury, and perhaps more if the latter has any valuable files on it that the thief can access and transmit to Wikileaks.

With the separation of church and state and the disappearance of governing monarchy in the West, lèse-majesté came to be viewed as less of a criminal offense in and of itself, so the protesters do not face this charge directly. But the charges they are facing are only properly understood in this context. As Yarvin explains,

“[T]he crime of sedition is literally and directly the crime of mocking the regime. And let there be no mistake: the primary effect of the Insurrection was to hugely wound the dignity of the System. This dignity is no cosmetic nicety; it is crucial to sovereignty.”[23, emphasis in original]

8. Power is hypocrisy plus impunity, and double standards are not in use. It has long been the fashion among television-friendly conservatives to rail against “leftist hypocrisy” and “double standards.” It is understandable for a normal person in possession of a moral fiber and some basic logical faculties to be angered by a cabal of elites which offers praise and favorable news coverage to violent rioters affiliated with leftist causes throughout 2020 (and 2017, and 2015, etc.) while demonizing anything similar from the Right. But the governing elites have always had one set of rules for themselves and another for everyone else, at least as early as the Code of Hammurabi. Sometimes it is formalized, which is a superior arrangement, but in our society it is not. False notions of egalitarianism have led the masses to believe that there is a clear set of rules which should apply to everyone, thus they become upset when they learn that they have been deceived. Hypocrisy is simply unimportant to rulers with secure power. In fact, a useful method for finding out who is in charge is to look for those who are saying one thing, doing the opposite, and suffering no apparent ill effects.

As for double standards, it is not one to treat different things differently. Carl Schmitt referred to this as the friend-enemy distinction, and Herbert Marcuse turned this into the practical strategy for contemporary leftism. One treats friends one way and enemies another way. Marcuse writes,

“Surely, no government can be expected to foster its own subversion, but in a democracy such a right is vested in the people (i.e. in the majority of the people). This means that the ways should not be blocked on which a subversive majority could develop, and if they are blocked by organized repression and indoctrination, their reopening may require apparently undemocratic means. They would include the withdrawal of toleration of speech and assembly from groups and movements which promote aggressive policies, armament, chauvinism, discrimination on the grounds of race and religion, or which oppose the extension of public services, social security, medical care, etc. Moreover, the restoration of freedom of thought may necessitate new and rigid restrictions on teachings and practices in the educational institutions which, by their very methods and concepts, serve to enclose the mind within the established universe of discourse and behavior–thereby precluding a priori a rational evaluation of the alternatives. And to the degree to which freedom of thought involves the struggle against inhumanity, restoration of such freedom would also imply intolerance toward scientific research in the interest of deadly ‘deterrents’, of abnormal human endurance under inhuman conditions, etc.”[24]

9. The Cathedral will attempt to exact retribution along many avenues, with varying degrees of success. The Capitol protest provides a pretext for progressives, especially in Big Tech, to double down on what they were already doing, or wanted to do, as explained in point #8. A multitude of mainstream social media sites banned Trump from using their services, some until he leaves office, but most permanently. The alt-tech social media site Parler, popular with Trump supporters, was deplatformed by Amazon’s webhosting as well as the Google and Apple smartphone app stores. Shopify and Stripe refused to sell merchandise and process payments for Trump’s campaign organizations going forward.[25] Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey told his employees in a leaked video that the company’s censorship of Trump and his supporters is only beginning, saying,

“We are focused on one account right now, but this is going to be much bigger than just one account, and it’s going to go on for much longer than just this day, this week, and the next few weeks, and go on beyond the inauguration.”[26]

On January 13, the House impeached Trump for a second time on the article of “incitement of insurrection” by a 232–197 margin, with all Democrats and 10 Republicans voting to impeach.[27] There is no time for the Senate to try to convict him before he leaves office, and doing so once Trump has left office is unconstitutional, but the Constitution means nothing if those tasked with enforcing its provisions do the opposite. The purpose of seeking conviction is to prevent Trump from running in future elections. Meanwhile, a movement at Harvard University seeks to rescind the degrees of prominent members of the Trump administration, as well as other people who supported him. The Lincoln Project is compiling a database of Trump officials and staff, presumably for SJW-style professional hit-jobs.[28]

Some of these efforts will succeed, others will fail completely, and still others will appear to succeed on the surface while only driving discontent and pushing it underground to boil over in future.

10. There will be no unity. The United States is a deeply divided nation, and no options that are politically palatable will do anything other than exacerbate tensions and harm innocent people. Already, the Cathedral is taking measures that will throw gasoline on the fire at best and TNT on it at worst. First, the breaching of the Capitol was described in the lügenpresse as the first time since the 1814 Burning of Washington by the British during the War of 1812 that the building had been overrun.[29] While factual in a strict sense, it has the underlying implication that the people who did so are a foreign enemy that threatens to conquer America from within, does not belong here, and must be removed. Second, the actions discussed in point #9 will be performed overzealously, causing further division and anger.

Likewise, the lügenpresse sang in unison that evening that “this is not who we are,” as if to convince themselves. As Wolfgang Pauli would say, “Not only is it not right; it is not even wrong!” Certainly, it is not right, as America has a long history of political violence, with its founding strongly steeped in it. Then there is the fact that politics is necessarily a form of violence, as it is a struggle for control of the state, which is the institution which monopolizes the use of force within a territory. But it is not even wrong because there is no “we” anymore, and there has not been for a long time, whether one wishes to discuss elite-commoner relations, racial tensions, religious differences, or other clear dividing lines that substantively falsify the statement “we are all Americans.”

The uniform response from progressives makes clear that they hate anyone to their right and seek only their death and/or submission. Only a fool would seek unification under those circumstances, and while the Republican establishment is that foolish, the rest of the Right is increasingly not.

11. This event will not be significant for what it accomplished, but for what it foreshadowed. Many political revolutions are foreshadowed by a failed overthrow of government which occurred years earlier which demonstrated the already extant weakness of the establishment for all to see, giving other (or even the same) rebels a blueprint upon which to improve. Notable examples include the Catiline conspiracy, the 1905 Russian Revolution, and the Beer Hall Putsch.

Looking backward on this event from decades hence, it is likely that the Pseudocoup of 2021 will be viewed as the precursor for the real (counter)revolution in our short-to-medium-term future. It posed no threat to the Cathedral in and of itself, but it changed the way the Dissident Right and the broader coalition of American conservatism view their struggle, formulate their tactics, and choose their targets. In Zeeman’s words,

“The Jan. 6 protest was a foreshadowing of the new political reality. If there is no way within the system to effect change, then the system is the problem. That means the only way forward is to attack the system, which is what happened in Washington. Psychologically, many people on the right crossed an important line. They went from being at war with people in charge of the system to being at war with the system itself. They went from reformers to rebels.”[30, emphasis mine]

By the timetable of the three aforementioned examples, one should expect the American Republic to end and the next system of governance to begin sometime in the first half of the 2030s, but there are enough differences between those contexts and our own to be skeptical about any date-setting for such an event.

References

  1. “Before mob stormed US Capitol, Trump told them to ‘fight like hell’ –“. The Boston Globe. Jan. 7, 2021.
  2. Barrett, Ted; Raju, Manu; Nickeas, Peter (2021, Jan. 6) “Pro-Trump mob storms US Capitol as armed standoff takes place outside House chamber”. CNN.
  3. Macias, Amanda; Mangan, Dan (Jan. 6, 2021). “U.S. Capitol secured hours after pro-Trump rioters invade Congress”. CNBC.
  4. “Man says San Diego woman killed in Capitol siege was his wife”. KXAN Austin. Jan. 7, 2021.
  5. Pramuk, Jacob (2021, Jan. 7). “Pelosi and Schumer call for Trump’s immediate removal from office for ‘insurrection’”. CNBC.
  6. “Twitter permanently suspends Trump from its platform, citing ‘risk of further incitement of violence’”. KWWL. Associated Press. Jan. 8, 2021.
  7. Foley, Edward B. “Preparing for a Disputed Presidential Election”. 51 Loyola University Chicago Law Journal 2018.
  8. Harrison, John. “Nobody for President”. 16 J.L. & Pol., 2000.
  9. Ackerman, Bruce; Fontana, David. “Thomas Jefferson Counts Himself into the Presidency”. 90 Virginia Law Review 2004, 551-643.
  10. Kesavan, Vasan. “Is the Electoral Count Act Unconstitutional?”. 80 North Carolina Law Review 2001-2002.
  11. Macris, Alexander (2020, Nov. 18). “Trump at the Rubicon”. Contemplations on the Tree of Woe.
  12. “Capitol riot: Trump commits to ‘orderly’ transition of power”. BBC News. Jan. 8, 2021.
  13. Yarvin, Curtis (2021, Jan. 7). “Epitaph for pure wind”. Gray Mirror.
  14. Zitser, Joshua (2021, Jan. 3). “Far-right group Proud Boys claim they will attend January 6 DC rally ‘incognito’ and wear all-black to blend in with antifa protesters”. Business Insider.
  15. Boyd, Scott (2021, Jan. 15). “‘We Did It!’: CNN’s Jade Sacker caught celebrating with BLM instigator John Sullivan during Capitol riots”. NOQ Report.
  16. Hoft, Jim (2021, Jan. 14). “FBI Arrests Antifa Leader John Sullivan in Utah After Storming US Capitol”. Gateway Pundit.
  17. United States of America v. John Earle Sullivan
  18. Swaine, Jon; Bennett, Dalton; Sohyun Lee, Joyce; Kelly, Meg (2021, Jan. 8). “Video shows fatal shooting of Ashli Babbitt in the Capitol”. The Washington Post.
  19. Barry, Ellen; Bogel-Burroughs, Nicholas; Philipps, Dave (2021, Jan. 8). “Woman Killed in Capitol Embraced Trump and QAnon”. The New York Times.
  20. Zeeman, Christopher (2021, Jan. 7). “The Blood of Patriots”. The Z Blog.
  21. Chheda, Marathan (2021, Jan. 8). “Was Nancy Pelosi’s Podium Listed on Ebay After Being Stolen from the Capitol?”. International Business Times.
  22. Eustachewich, Lia (2021, Jan. 8). “Laptop from Nancy Pelosi’s office among items stolen in DC riot”. New York Post.
  23. Yarvin, Curtis (2021, Jan. 9). “The resistance and the insurrection”. Gray Mirror.
  24. Marcuse, Herbert (1965). “Repressive Tolerance”. In A Critique of Pure Tolerance (Boston: Beacon Press, 1969), p. 95–137.
  25. Cuthbertson, Anthony (2021, Jan. 14). “Trump ban: Every app, website and company to take action against the US President and his fans”. The Independent.
  26. Eustachewich, Lia (2021, Jan. 15). “Jack Dorsey warns Twitter crackdown will be ‘much bigger’ than Trump ban in leaked video”. New York Post.
  27. Segers, Grace; Quinn, Melissa; Becket, Stefan; Watson, Kathryn; Baldwin, Sarah Lynch; Albert, Victoria (2021, Jan. 14). “House impeaches Trump for Capitol riot in historic bipartisan rebuke”. CBS News.
  28. Ng, David (2021, Jan. 9). “Lincoln Project Says It Is Building Database of Trump Officials, Staff: ‘They Will Be Held Accountable’”. Breitbart.
  29. Lofton, Justine (2021, Jan. 6). “Last U.S. Capitol breach was by British during War of 1812”. Mlive.
  30. Zeeman, Christopher (2021, Jan. 11). “From Reformers to Rebels”. Taki’s Magazine.

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