America has gone Coup Coup
Seriously...WTF Just Happened?
Note: This is a special edition of the Lost Lefty newsletter based on today’s events at the Capitol Building.
The least surprising thing occurred today in downtown DC. A bunch of angry white people were allowed to do whatever they wanted, and no one stopped them from doing it. The mainstream version of this story is a bit more dramatic. Today, a bunch people, among whom are a mix of MAGA chuds, Proud Boys, and various white nationalist affiliate groups attempted an insurrection against the Federal government. Part of me doesn’t even want to refer to this as an insurrection, because technically Donald Trump is constitutionally in power for 2 more weeks, and these people are technically rallying in favor of the current political force in power. The term I would use to describe the actions of today would be a government crackdown. Yes, a government crackdown. What we actually saw today was a group of militant extremists, softly facilitated by state and police forces, forcing their way into the Capitol Building in order to stop the counting of the electoral college votes, which was underway at the time the insurrection “breached” the barrier set up by the Capitol “Police”
The only people who seem to be surprised by what transpired today are white people, particularly of the super liberal variety. This isn’t surprising. This “shock” is coming from the same ideological strain that thinks you can vote away fascism, or that a liberal Democrat in office will magically solve all of the problems on the face of the Earth. Today should not surprise anyone, especially if at any time in the history of your life you paid attention to black people, particularly black organizers who formed abolitionist groups and organized against police corruption over the last 10 years. Today we saw police not only calmly escort an army of fascist insurrectionists, many donning confederate flags and some even carrying nooses, into the Capitol Building so they could prevent the remaining electoral votes from being counted. During their siege of the Capitol Building, Hill staffers had to barricade themselves into rooms with only a couple of armed guards available for a last line of defense.
This was the result:
Now let us remind ourselves how police handled a single black woman in a green dress:
By the way, when I say that Capitol Police calmly escorted the MAGA insurrection into the Capitol Building, I am not being hyperbolic. This was caught on camera, and is the clearest proof we have of collusion between the insurrectionists and the police.
Watch as police calmly escort MAGA insurrectionists into the Capitol Building
And the Capitol Police are really full service fascists. Not only did they calmly escort them into the building, they were calmly walking them down the stairs after they were let out of the building unscathed.
What a shithole fascist banana republic we live in. Are you surprised? I am NOT.
I live in DC, and not only did I see the MAGA brigades handled with kid gloves during their previous two invasions of DC, but I saw the DC Police, along with the Park Police, National Guard, and the Secret Service mobilize literal martial law in the streets of DC last summer when protesters were organizing for racial justice. They put so much firepower in the streets last summer to quash those who came to protest against police brutality and police fascism that DC would at times resemble a military base. We know why the police handle these fascists with kid gloves, but many are too afraid to say it.
84% of police officers voted for Donald Trump. There is numerous evidence available that suggests that police officers have become radicalized in right wing fascist propaganda. One example of this is the leader of the Metro Police Department Union, who clearly has a fascination with right wing conspiracies, and white supremacist propaganda.
Are we really going to sit around and pretend we don’t know why a group of fascists were allowed to storm the Capitol Building with complete cooperation of the “authorities”? As heard through direct testimony gathered by reporters who were on the ground, these people thought they were fomenting a revolution. There is no doubt in my mind that police officers in DC figured they would do their part to assist in this revolution, albeit in a very covert way (although they are getting sloppy hiding their outright support for these fascists).
What should also strike people is the absolute worthlessness of the so called “opposition” party, who in the face of rising fascism has done nothing but legislatively capitulate to the demands of their “Republican colleagues”, and continue to issue calls for “bipartisanship” and “unity” while offering nothing but a fleet of empty promises and platitudes. The Republicans AND Democrats have done nothing over the past century but allow the neoliberal, oligarchic class to destroy every aspect of American society, leaving a population that is largely desolate, poor, increasingly unhealthy, and without basic living conditions. They managed a global pandemic into the dirt, and have basically left people to fend for themselves. In the middle of this, another manifestation of the fascist militarist state came down on the neck of a black man named George Floyd, while putting many bullets into a black woman named Breonna Taylor and galvanized the entire country into unprecedented rage.
When you think about it, fascism is inverted imperialism, because in order to have a successful empire all over the globe, you have to prevent the domestic state from degrading. Not to mention that when in pursuit of a global empire, you develop the weapons, surveillance technology, and general apparatus to make it happen. That same apparatus can be turned on those living in the center of the empire in a heartbeat, and that is what has been slowly happening over the duration of the lifespan of America. Militarized police have been created not to squash domestic dissent, but to squash black power and liberation movements, indigenous liberation movements, along with any allied affiliated movements. That’s it. Police serve two real purposes, which are to protect property and squash any movements that dare to question the legitimacy of American exceptionalism. Because the MAGA insurrectionists represent everything this country actually is, the police will treat them as if they are legitimate actors of the state. That is what they really believe!
The silver lining to all of this is the exposure of the United States of America as a paper tiger. You cannot undo the image of your Capitol Building being easily breached by a group of disgruntled white trash fascists. The rest of the world will undoubtedly see only weakness coming out of the US today, and in a geopolitical sense, today will serve as the complete destruction of American exceptionalism. Honestly, we should celebrate, because the American century was always doomed to fail. America was always doomed to fail. A democracy that was established with most of its population in shackles, built on land that was harvested with the blood of those who inhabited it from time immemorial, would always contain irreconcilable contradictions that would never be properly addressed due to the chauvinism and imperial arrogance of the tiny group of white supremacists who founded it, and the numerous bastard children they birthed.
Again don’t be surprised by what happened today. In the end, what happened today was the exposure of real America to the rest of the world. Today was also the day America joined the rest of the world, a world on fire due to climate catastrophe, and the many wars fomented by US imperialism. The fire has been slowly burning, but today the flames started to rage in a way that tends to reduce buildings to ashes.
What will emerge from the rubble?