Well, that was fun. The Donald invites his craziest supporters to Washington, tells them to march on the Capitol, and then is transpired by what transpires.
Eventually, after much begging from his own advisors, Trump released the following video on Twitter (see below) — which Twitter promptly removed for violating its guidelines (and which was already removed from YouTube once and may not last long here either) — which sort of told his followers to go home. In that video Trump also tells his supporters that “we love you,” that they are “very special people,” and that people will “remember this day” forever (but probably not for the reasons that he thinks).
I don’t view this as a serious attempt at insurrection, and I fear there will be a lot of hysterics and histrionics about what happened yesterday. But it does beg a lot of questions:
- How is it that the Capitol Police and the city of D.C. were not prepared for what happened? Trump had been advertising for weeks that he wanted his supporters to gather in Washington D.C. and protest the election.
- How would law enforcement have responded if this had been a Black Lives Matter protest or a Million Man March? Let’s just say that it would not have been pretty.
What Trump and the protestors did will (of course) prove to be counterproductive, as the House and Senate unify around the certification process in view of the very visceral attack on their home turf.
It finally seems to have shaken loose a few of Trump’s acolytes — like Lindsay Graham — but far too late, and after pretty much having frittered away their integrity.
I hope to wake up this morning having heard that Biden’s election has been certified.
