There wasn’t really anything all that new in yesterday’s January 6th Committee hearing, but it is still very helpful to hear the way that the committee is laying out the details.
By now it’s clear that Trump wanted his own private army to march into the Capitol and stop the certification of the election. It appears that Trump wanted to march with them — this is why he had such a conniption when his secret service would not drive him up to the Capitol — and to essentially occupy the House chambers along with his supporters.
While I continue to believe that one has to be very careful with analogies to the NAZIs — reductio at Hitlerum — there is an interesting parallel here to the Freikorps, the German paramilitary units that emerged from the rubble of World War I to become the NAZIs’ virtual police force, and who eventually became the people who founded and populated the Sturmabteilung (SA) and Schutzstaffel (SS).
That’s why Trump did not call them off. These were his people. He was loving it, loving when his people trashed the Capitol. That’s why he couldn’t help telling his people that “we love you” and that “you’re very special” when he finally, finally, told them to go home.
