Barack Obama’s 2008 inauguration ceremony generated the largest crowds ever. Donald Trump’s 2016 ceremony generated a week of bizarre lying about the numbers at his much smaller event. And now there will be no public inauguration at all, with the National Mall, stretching from Congress to the Washington monument, to be closed to the public.
It would be hard to overstate the symbolic significance of such a move. Washington, the city, was laid out in such a way as to emphasise the new federal/imperial republic arising from the motley collection of colony-states that had made a revolution.
Its design is explicitly occult; long avenues making sacred secular sites visible from each to each. The monument itself is startling, at once pharaonic, but also more modern than the steadily more kitsch monuments that followed.
John Adams, second president, nearly abandoned the new capital when he found that the White House was being built with slave labour. A few years later, Thomas Jefferson made the Louisiana purchase, which changed the country and the presidency, defining the latter’s executive powers — by buying half a continent — as anything not explicitly ruled out of doing.
The empire — the projection of expansion as the unfolding of enlightenment in the world, rolling out from its marble capital — had begun. That empire is far from over, but something within it is, if the new government so fears a section of its people that the general public has been replaced by 26,000 soldiers in camo, camping out in those polished white halls.
The logic is hard to refute: the event would be such a target rich environment, and the usual ratio of actually violent crazies to the merely angry and disgruntled — usually in the tens of millions to one — has been so upended in the Trump era, that a political event like a mass inauguration is now unpoliceable.
Or maybe it isn’t, who knows?
But it would be a daring new administration willing to find out. This is an extraordinary wrecking operation, led by one man and his sycophantic enablers. A country founded in principle, on a set of principles, evolving out of instituted state racism, a place with extremely open settings of free speech, a court system that for decades enforced a secular liberalism beyond the beliefs of much of its population — all this has held together.
Its great recent upheavals — the civil rights/black power movement, and the Vietnam/new left movement — cut with the grain of its spirit, holding it to account on its own terms. Somehow, a general collapse of mutual consent — such as had occurred in 1860 — was avoided.
In four short years, Donald Trump and his enablers have taken that to the edge of destruction. It is an extraordinary anti-achievement. Trump’s willingness to mobilise refusal of consent, based on phantasms of electoral fraud, so greatly assures him of the worst president ever status, that no one else comes close.
The usual contenders — Lincoln’s predecessors, James Buchanan and Franklin Pierce, from the 1850s — usually get the wooden spoon because, as pro-slavers, they meddled and connived in negotiations around a dying system, emboldened the South, and made the Civil War inevitable. But that was a clean break, which led to emancipation — sabotaged by another wooden spooner, Andrew Johnson, a virulent racist, who’d been Lincoln’s VP for political reasons.
Trump’s genius has been to lend state power, the voice of sovereignty, to the process by which the culture and history was atomising the minimal consensus on which it relied. Yes, worse than the civil war crew. Other contenders — Warren Harding, Zachary Taylor — no longer come close.
In Crawford, Texas, Dubya must be yelping with relief. He gave away US hegemony and crashed the economy. But that now counts as mere incompetence, compared to a president who widened the fissure running through US society itself. The question is, how far and how irrevocably?
The next few days will give some answer. It is yet another sign of the great shift that what has in the past been a ceremony of legitimating celebration is now a moment of unique apprehension in which the US finds out what it now is.
Between 1968 and the end of the ’70s the country was subject to several thousand political bombings. Several thousand. It was potentially not as close to a fracturing event then, as it is now. Such a possibility may prove, in the years to come, pure chimera.
Politics may return to the realms of elite technocracy, the condition of large sections of the public to the state of permanent dissatisfaction and steady material decline for the bottom quarter, that appears to be the long-term condition in much of the West.
Trump may prove to have been the ultimate diversion, Joker a political movie as expressive of its era as The Battle of Algiers.
Or… that may be the throat-clearing. We are seeing the Trump carnival parade as the end of a certain type of right-wing redemptionism which was born in the mystique of Reaganism, and could only maintain such mystic force by going deep into the gnostic extravaganza of the Q conspiracy.
But mystical movements can precede a re-rationalised politics. What if, out of Trump’s spectacular rise and fall, a fully rational, cell-structured but well-organised national movement of right-wing violence emerges? That would be a self-selecting movement. As the crazies and fantasists go back to carbs and sitcoms, the more committed find a new resolve that arises from the fiascos they were fooled by.
Such a movement would only need to have 1000 or so “resolved” soldiers out of the millions of fringe crazies, Dunkin’ Donuts militias, and out of the 320 million Americans, to sow havoc.
They would be paralleled by a political movement in certain states that would be neo-secessionist, as a serious movement — seeing in president Biden’s centrist administration, the great horned beast of permanent progressivism. Why, in Texas or Idaho, stick with a United States that offers only that? Secessionism with mass support now seems at least plausible, and that is another product of Trump’s reign.
Either he just disappears, as he said COVID would, or he turns out to be history on a golf cart, in slacks both shit-stained, and white as imperial marble.
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An important point missing here is Covid-19. Biden and his party have studiously avoided major public gatherings as the virus runs rampant in the US. The fact the public are not invited to the inauguration has as much to do with that public health stance as it does with the potential for more mob violence. Let’s not forget, we’re still engaged in a global pandemic, and America is ground-zero.
I was thinking along the same lines regarding Covid-19…Even the ‘ridiculous’ thought that the inauguration could’ve been ‘zoomed’ in the interests of public body politic health n safety..
I wondered, during the ”campaign”, whether Biden’s ‘basement bunker’ was the product of some supa-smart political ops. whose reasoning combined Schadenfreude with the obviously Darwinian result of large MAGA gatherings of spit & heavy exhalations.
Cheating, as alleged, was unnecessary if sufficient deplorables attended and spread the good news to those who couldn’t make the venue but would have voted Trump in those very few, relatively minor districts which swung the Electoral College in 2016 .
Had they lived.
What it means is these criminals are back in power. The Top 100 Most Damaging WikiLeaks – The Millennium Report
Excellent, Tony – hadn’t seen that, so many thanks.
Notable mention, prior to getting to O’Bomber at No 1;
2. Can we believe WikiLeaks?
In short, yes. In its 10 year history, not one single leak has ever proven to be false, something WikiLeaks prides itself on. If the leaks were false, everyone implicated in them would have immediately and aggressively denied their claims rather than simply change the subject in speculating if Russia did it….”
You may like this. The quantum leap forward: On birthing the world’s fastest, most advanced internet network, China claims supremacy over the US — RT Op-ed
EXCEPT that ‘quantum events’, pertaining particuarly to size (e.g. Plank size) ARE NOT MEASURABLE because the act of observation alters the condition of what is being measured.
A quantum leap has no ‘real-world’ meaning or, at best, is immeasurably small.
May I respectfully doubt that anyone has built a genuine quantum computer yet. UNSW were world leaders in quantum computing in 2020 and they were years away from getting a functioning quantum computer. Some fundamental hurdles exist which nobody has yet theoretically solved let alone actually engineered. I’m certain that google hasn’t built one. America is way behind in quantum computing research.
The remark, DB, accrues from the characteristics of basic quantum theory or quantum mechanics (both searchable)! The remark does not require an appeal to a Quantum computer.
Hawking had a crack at describing Heisenberg and Plank characteristics in his book (for the layman) “The Grand Design”. Feynman Paths (p. 100) come to that.
Is it a fake article?
Yeah – Hillary’s taking time off from her pedo pizza shop and is out the back of her local Chinese takaway with a bunch of illegal Mexicans busy changing Republican votes to Democrat.
TonyP and David, why not post your thoughts on QAnon? They’d go down well there.
Problem with QAnon is they don’t like facts, they would get hold of that and juice it up until it has no relationship with reality.
TonyP, that Millennium Report link of yours goes to a loony far-right conspiracy-addled site which doesn’t like facts and seems to have no relationship with reality. The first paragraph of an article dated 15 December starts:
There’s a very good reason (actually very BAD reason) why THE GREAT SCAMDEMIC, THE GREAT RESET and THE GREAT STEALECTION were all carried out by the New World Order globalist cabal in 2020. It’s the very same reason why 2019 saw the military deployment of 5G in key power centers around the globe.
Their view of the ‘Storming of the Capitol’ was so crazed the needles of my satire and irony detectors started moving, momentarily:
The Democrats were desperate to shut down the congressional objections to the Electoral College votes… So, they staged a dramatic swarming of The Capitol Building (TCB) in order to DISTRACT everyone’s attention. This black operation was led by AntiFa anarchists disguised as Trump supporters. That’s why the security at TCB was so lax—to permit the storming of the building so that Trumpsters would look bad. It’s true that there were many MAGA protesters among those who entered TCB, but they were there to STOP THE STEAL. Given the “soft coup by stolen ballot” that was being rubber-stamped by the U.S. Congress, the MAGA protesters have every right to shut down the unlawful, treasonous process.
Very entertaining, but I won’t be ordering a Pedo Pizza soon.
I’m not a fan of the new world order thing while Putin and Xi are giving them the finger. Remember those with the most nukes are the rulers of the the universe. I’m not sure if Americans have the brains to organise a complicated riot like you mention.
Capt’n, I’m surprised you managed to post so much italics without the ModBot intruding.
It was a fun read, in brief, so thanks for posting.
I can’t imagine the fevered morass from which that came so I hope that you have had time to recover your equanimity.
And, Wikileaks, Cap’n? Any ‘errors’ in what they brought to light? Any ‘conspiracy theories’? Any pizza menus?
And, do you have any view on why so many keep missing the freakin’ point, when it comes to Assange and Wikileaks?
Just today, the most signed petition in its history was submitted to the International Criminal Court, in The Hague, calling for an ICC investigation into what Nils Melzer, the UN Human Rights Council’s Special Rapporteur on Torture (and other human rights abuses) defines as the ‘Joint Political Persecution’ of Julian Assange.
Melzer is a Professor of International Law, and he describes the persecution of Assange as the worst case of political persecution of an individual he has ever come across.
The petition put before the ICC outlines the specific clauses of international law breached by the US, UK, Sweden, Ecuador and Australia, in pursuit of Assange. There is a team of highly qualified legal and political experts who have advised those behind Assange on the framing of the petition, and Nils Melzer has supported the pursuit by those behind the petition.
Simply put, I don’t give a rat’s freckle about what happens in or to Amerika. I do give a rat’s freckle about what happens to Julian Assange, because a) the man has been set up by a rotten system that cares only for its own maintenance, and b) he ‘disappears’, and there will be very, very few remaining with the guts to take the personal risks necessary to expose ‘radical truth’ to the ordinary sods with enough interest in their own rights and welfare to take note.
And, imbeciles who prefer to ‘theorise’ about conspiracy theorists, like Qanon, instead of facing the bald basic facts about Assange’s plight can go f*** themselves, for they are for evermore, pig ignorant rubes.
I am sure that I had occasion, recently, to point out that ‘fact’ for Oldie is what his favourite political actor says is the case; be it Sanders or whomever.
Oldie does not permit himself to be distracted by such inanity as judgements from ICC decisions or authorities on International Relations; quite the reverse (indeed) should such ‘uninformed’ persons possess the temerity to contradict the ethos of a right-thinking person.
I have been intending to inquire of Oldie as to what what work he deem authoritative that does occupy his bookshelves but, alas, I have been too preoccupied pursuing fact.
In fairness to Olide, he has many more friends on this site than do I!
As to Assange, damned pity that the guy is a wet-blanket; a bit of a Rudd personality when in the office (I have met some who have worked with him – if ‘worked’ is the word; ‘endured’ might fit better). He ought to have faced the Swedish stuff head-on and would (now) be in a much stronger position.
Nevertheless, uncle Sam (as with Manning or Snowden) does not care for knit-pickers or whistle blowers (neither does Oz – a fair few careers destroyed there) and are thus considered less than equal. That is what the issue is about.
For his sake, I hope the prison library has an introductory Russian text on its shelves.
This ‘Millenium Report is bogus, promoting conspiracy theories, supposedly based upon Wikileaks materials:
‘STORMING OF THE CAPITOL BUILDING: False Flag Operation Executed by Deep State to Crush the Patriot Movement‘
‘Pizzagate is so big it will eventually take down the U.S. Federal Government, just as Pedogate will collapse the World Shadow Government’
‘5G Roll-out Greatly Endangers Every Person in the USA“It must be stopped before it’s too late!”’
Not helpful.
The Millennium Report might be bogus, champ, but Wikileaks revelations never, ever have been.
That’s why there are such determined to efforts to kill the founder in Belmarsh prison.
Or, do you hold with the ‘rape allegations’, and the rest of the trumped up crap non-facts about Assange?
Can you read (what I wrote) about ‘The Millenium Report’ versus claiming otherwise and deflecting?
Generally, any source should satisfy the CRAAP test: currency, relevance, authority, accuracy and purpose.
Are the wiki emails right or wrong?
Always have been (see Chalmers Johnson’s ” Sorrows of Empire”).
Holy cow Tony, does this mean that Hillary was a crooked politician? Read up to point 25 and then gave up. She was 1. A Clinton and 2. A politician.
Of course she played dirty politics and played fast and loose with the law. They all do. Seemed like such a lot of work to go to to build an evidence brief for something that is blithely accepted as normal political bastardry.
No different to our current government here really.
I agree, the loons may have posted that list but the content was factual.
The next few days… things are so fluid. On the 6th I thought the peak had passed, the right had done its worst. But 20 minutes before today’s Crikeyarrived, a detailed Washington Post account of the riot landed in my inbox. I can’t get over this:
“Looking over the chaotic scene in front of him from the Capitol steps, Glover grew concerned as the battle raged. There were people caught up in the moment, he said, doing things they would not ordinarily do. But many appeared to be on a mission, and they launched what he and the police chief described as a coordinated assault.
“Everything they did was in a military fashion,” Glover said, saying he witnessed rioters apparently using hand signs and waving flags to signal positions, and using what he described as “military formations.” They took high positions and talked over wireless communications.”
That’s what twenty years of war fighting will give you.
One of the first, recorded, great blowbacks was the return of Wellington’s victorious troops, having deferated Napolean and aved Britain, heading home to hovels after having seen the gay lights of Bruxelles, in not gay Paree.
The Established Order was terrified, to put it mildly.
Luckily there was a growing empire requiring battle hardened troops but it was still “..a close run thing” as the Iron Duke said of another, minor matter.
This is a most compelling report, though on a quite different level to Guy’s very insightful analysis. That such a level of apparent organisation has become evident–even before a full analysis of all the pictorial evidence of Jan 6 has been done–is a cause of very deep concern. If we connect this with the reports that there would be demonstrations/riots in all the state capitals over the next few days, then what we are witnessing is a well organised campaign, not necessarily centralised, but still effective if decentralised.
Social media could allow the necessary coordinated communications to be made, but to undertake riots at specific points across the entire country implies serious organisational capacity and prior experience at carrying through such a campaign.
If such a campaign does come to fruition and is widely reported–as the rioters will want–it will be most interesting–and hopefully not alarming–to observe the reactions of the police and the various National Guards.
“though on a quite different level to Guy’s very insightful analysis”
True, but I was responding to GR’s “The question is, how far and how irrevocably?The next few days will give some answer.”
It can appear, if not every 1st person, then every 2nd person in the USA, is connected to the military.
WaPo didn’t happen to mention the 100 odd strong group, led by a serving Captain from ‘Army Psyops’, that made their way from up from her base at Fort Bragg, did they?
No, but a Wash Times report today does mention ex-Capt Emily Rainey in passing. It implies that there is no evidence to dispute her story that she led a mainly civilian group and wasn’t involved in the violence. The article provides much more info than the Wa Po abot those involved, which is based mainly on interviews with officers who defended the Capitol. It has a Jan 6 visual of a military-style formation “stacking up” used when entering houses.
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2021/jan/15/capitol-rioters-included-highly-trained-ex-militar/
She just resigned her commission.
Violent or non-violent participation isn’t the most relevant point.
I find it more relevant to compare the ‘defence’ of the Capitol, when BLM and Co were approaching their protest day last year, with the ‘defence’ assembled last week.
Seen the pics of the comparison? Why was that, would you think?
And, golly gee, the very next day, last week, the next chapter in the ‘Patriot Act’ (sub-headed ‘Domestic Terrorism’) was already being rolled out (Shiff had it drafted and parked last year), and it was a continuation of what Biden promoted in the ’90’s, which was used for the Patriot Act by Bush, Cheney etc after 9/11.
Lack of prep, deliberate or otherwise, is relevant. Comparison with BLM is relevant. Military tactics by elements in the crowd are relevant. Violence and preparation for violence by those elements is particularly relevant.
You are entitled to your inference about Biden and Shiff, though I think it is about as likely a conspiracy as Trump teeing things up directly with the Proud Boys – i.e. not very, and contrary to Occam’s razor.
As for Rainey (yes I know she resigned after), she is pretty much irrelevant. I don’t understand why you deflected in her direction, when there is now very specific and clear evidence that military elements (long feared, as Oldie points out) are now centre-stage.
A histogram of occupations overplayed with political allegiance is required to determine what is ‘centre stage’
Military-style preparation and behavior is the most relevant category, not political allegiance. “Centre-stage” is still the Washington DC event, but this will probably change over the weekend with right-wing armed protests predicted at the 50 state capitols. Lets hope they fizzle. The worst case would be that each right-wing armed protest is confronted by a left-wing armed group, though this appears to be on no-one’s radar. Rather than construct histograms of past events, I think I’ll keep up with the news.
Some military-style preparation certainly but also “rent-a-crowd”.
Apparently, buses had been charted from the airport some days in advance. I’m unsure if that initiative qualifies as ‘military’ or otherwise.
I doubt if something like 48% support is going to “fizzle” – but we shall see.
As R. pointed out the brigade is not from a single disaffected sector. There are shared similaities AND contradictions.
I’m trying to find that in today’s WashPo could you post a link for that account or is it only in a mail out?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2021/01/14/dc-police-capitol-riot/
Keith1, it’s true that things look more disturbing as more details come out. On the other hand, many of us have been aware of the existence of these underground white terrorists for a while. This event has brought them to the surface and flushed them out so they can no longer be ignored. Let’s see what happens from now on.
I wonder if Trump will get the credit for all the innovations to social media, democracy, campaign finance etc that will have to come about in order to prevent a repeat of Trump.
Social media as we know it has just become redundant, there will be a new internet controlled by no one, no hackers, no secrets. Imagine you home computer a million times more powerful than the worlds biggest super computer. Credit to China. The quantum leap forward: On birthing the world’s fastest, most advanced internet network, China claims supremacy over the US — RT Op-ed
After his much scaled down inauguration, perhaps Biden, as a bit of a joke, could send out his newly appointed press secretary, to proclaim, “President Biden’s inauguration had the greatest crowd ever. Period!” And then walk off.
Actually, now that I think of it, that might be a fairly effective bit of political satire? Leave it for a few minutes, while the sections of the media that were most supportive of Trump, go into apoplexy, about how could anyone make such outrageously false claims. Then send the press secretary back out, to explain that, no, President Biden does not believe that to be true, and really, the days of the White House trying to spin such deranged fantasy, have now come to an end.
Unfortunately, in my experience, Americans don’t get satire or irony.
But they would get the irony of Rupert Murdoch being a big promotor of The Simpsons. No ?
And yet they do some of the best political satire in the world. There is certainly a large element over there that don’t get it, but it also has a solid very appreciative audience, who pick up on the subtleties.
There is some comedy stateside but it is mainly slapstick, or Jackass pratfalls.
I can think of no examples of amerikan ‘satire’ nor its progenitor, ‘irony’.
The species seems to lack the gene.
The Office?
I always thought the US version simply desatirized (sick) the UK version to match the market.. thankfully Blackadder was never syndicated!
Impossible surely!