As eyes turn to Trump’s social media bans – Twitter, Facebook, You Tube, Reddit etc., and the online obliteration of Parler, thousands of fingers dance across keyboards piling out furious denunciations and babbling about impingements on free speech.
One-time White House press secretary (there have been four during Trump’s presidency), Sarah Sanders moaned that she had lost 50,000 followers on Twitter since Trump’s ban on the platform had been made permanent. Whether Sanders’ followers had left of their own volition or been banned themselves, was not immediately clear. One of Sanders’ followers offered some uninvited advice. “Calm down. Five people are dead.”
Our own federal government was concerned. Treasurer Josh Frydenberg was concerned. Acting Prime Minister, Micheal McCormack, tossed word salads madly about until he admitted that he was concerned. The member for Wentworth, Dave Sharma, on his Twitter account believed Trump’s Twitter ban was necessary under the circumstances but he, too, was concerned.
Such reactions should be seen as a magician’s trick; misdirection, a distraction from the issue that frankly, everyone should be talking about. How the Right in the US has veered so close to fascism.
The major reason that journey was not complete is that US institutions stood firm, most of all the US military.
Congress may have wavered. 142 GOP representatives in the House sought to stop the certification of the election result in Pennsylvania. Ten more in the Senate did likewise. The majority won out.
The judiciary, including its highest court, held no truck with Trump’s lies that he had been robbed, defrauded of a victory on November 3, 2020. The conspiracists pointed to bizarre theories, anecdotal evidence supplied by a cast of the delusional but could not come up with any hard evidence.
Whipped into a frenzy
As a mob whipped into a frenzy by Trump stormed the US parliament, the Capitol, shouts of “heads on pikes” resonated around the building. There are genuine questions about the lax security around the Capitol building that need to be answered and how the few officers who kept their vigil were left exposed to the mob. Two officers died in the discharge of their duty. One was dragged down a flight of steps and beaten to death.
Pipe bombs and homemade napalm were found around DC.
Surely the FBI must invoke US terrorism laws for the more serious culprits. The wing nuts who cavorted around the Capitol building taking selfies in an orgy of self-righteousness are now being rounded up. Perhaps the oddest scene was a group who, having smashed their way into the Capitol, walked respectfully between the red velvet ropes as run of the mill tourists would.
Trump: the instinctive autocrat
Trump may be an instinctive autocrat with fascist tendencies but without the support of the military or federal law enforcement, the attack could not be sustained. It was a grab for power that could do nothing but fail.
Back in 1974, just weeks before his resignation, President Richard Nixon would drunkenly wander the West Wing and engage in one way arguments with portraits of presidents on the walls. Obviously, these were not the actions of a stable and sane POTUS.
His Chief of Staff, General Alexander Haig and Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger contacted the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, US Air Force Four Star General, Scratchley Brown who Nixon had appointed a little more than a month before. The two most senior aides to the President issued an instruction that under no circumstances should Brown follow an executive order issued by Nixon.
It was almost certainly unconstitutional, but it was the right call. Nixon had lost his mind. Given that he had seriously countenanced a limited nuclear strike on Vietnam, the threat of him actually doing so in a drunken funk was real.
Where is the nuclear football now? Is it sitting behind a couch largely ignored while Trump rails about witch hunts and snarls at news reports? Perhaps someone sensible enough (if there is anyone sensible left in the White House now) has ripped out the electrics from a microwave in the staff kitchen and bunged it in an overnight bag to convince Trump he retains the power to destroy the world.
An almost solitary figure
What we do know is Trump is now an almost solitary figure, Twitter-less and shouting at the walls. The US military in its own discrete way made it clear it was not going to fall in behind Trump’s great lie.
Biden inauguration must be moved inside.... Capital Dome appropriate. Secret Service extremely effective. However, too much probability of DISRUPTION. Drones. Laser attack. Bursting fireworks. OR .. law enforcement confrontations with armed Trump militias. https://t.co/ZJSzxlauyu
— Barry R McCaffrey (@mccaffreyr3) January 11, 2021
US Army General Mark Milley had been appointed Chairman of the Joint Chiefs by Trump in 2018. In a speech made at the opening of the US Army Museum ten days after the election, Milley made it clear where the military’s allegiances lay.
“We are unique among armies,” General Milley said. “We are unique among militaries. We do not take an oath to a king or a queen, a tyrant or a dictator. We do not take an oath to an individual. We do not take an oath to a country, a tribe, or a religion. We take an oath to the Constitution.”
Peril not over
It took a vast apolitical institution to confound Trump.
The peril is not over. January 20 remains a very dangerous day for the US. The FBI has issued warnings of violence in all 50 states. Retired Four Star US Army General, Barry McCaffrey tweeted yesterday, “Biden inauguration must be moved inside … Capitol Dome appropriate. Secret Service extremely effective. However, too much probability of DISRUPTION. Drones. Laser attack. Bursting fireworks. OR … law enforcement confrontations with armed Trump militias.”
We all knew Trump had toxified politics. He has been facilitated by commentators, urgers and barrackers who dismissed Trump’s critics as partisans, socialists or witless victims of Trump Derangement Syndrome – remember that? The Right in the US took a hard turn and kept on going all the way to Trump’s Götterdämmerung. Like all fascists and wannabes, he promoted lie after lie until came the big lie, that he had won the 2020 election. It was baseless, mad, dangerous but his supporters in the media continued to prosecute the big lie all the way until its denouement last Tuesday.
That’s the real story. But you wouldn’t know it because the magicians are at it again.
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