January 29, 2021: Full Blown Fascist, Surrender to Fantasy, Fascism Or Civilization

 

It has been a bit over three weeks since the failed coup attempt, two weeks since the son-of-a-bitch was, once again, impeached. With his trial slated to begin in ten days, the ReSCUMlickan Party, is quickly moving to sanction the failed putsch of our Caesar Disgustus.

On Tuesday last, Moscow Mitch McConnell, now the Senate Minority Leader joined 44 other fascists in the Senate in support of a resolution, put forward by Lee Harvey Oswald look-alike Ron Paul, declaring impeachment of this scumbag unconstitutional on grounds that he is no longer in office.  This coming on the heels of 95 percent of the fascist caucus in the House voting against impeaching the bastard. 

Never mind that there is precedent for so doing, the House impeached former Secretary of War Belknap during the Grant Administration and tried him before the Senate after he had resigned. Never mind that the swill was impeached while still in office, and that he didn't resign. Never mind that this same agent of Moscow declared, while he was Majority Leader of the Senate, that he would not convene the body until the day before Joe Biden's inauguration. Now 90 percent of his ReScUMlickan caucus, declare with a straight face, that it is now too late.

It takes two-thirds of the Senate to convict. This vote declares, as the ReSCUMlickans declared prior to last years' impeachment, that they will not hear the evidence, that accountability, like every function of government they lay their hands upon, will be rendered a cruel joke.

Then, of course, there is Kevin McCarthy, the fascist leader in the House who still hasn't acknowledged that Biden is the duly elected President of the United States. This is the same McCarthy, one will recall, who mentioned in a 2015 meeting of his ReSCUMLICKan caucus that there were two members then currently on Putin's payroll: Dana Reurbacher of California and Donald Trump. Now, in the immediate aftermath of the ransacking of the Capitol briefly murmuring something along the lines that tRUMP bears some responsibility for the attempted coup, we find him slithering down to Mar-a-Lago to genuflect before the golden swine in order to parlay his favors into future House majority. Ah, how strong the fiber of justice in fascist hands; how many the political principle that Ronnie Reagan can fit on the head of a pin. The vacuous conservative catechism is not revealed for all to see: unlimited political expedience; power by any means necessary; the ends justify the means.

Alas, as Paul Krugman reminds us, “The G.O.P.'s national leadership, after briefly flirting with sense, has surrendered to the fantasies of the fringe. Cowardice rules.” (1) Yes, they have; and yes, it does.

In the aftermath of tRUMP's failed White House Putsch, the Arizona Republican Party formally censured the state's Republican governor for measures he took to stem the pandemic. Then, in other fits of madness, moved to likewise heap opprobrium upon former Senator Jeff Flake for having the termerity to have criticized the former president**, and Cindy McCain, wife of the late Senator John, for having committed the cardinal sin of leaving the nascent fascist movement in favor of civilization.

Then there is always the Texas G.O.P., always in the hunt for the prize, adopting the slogan “We are the storm”, from Qanon. Not to be outdone are the Oregonians “endorsing the completely baseless claim, contradicted by the rioters themselves, that the attack on the Capitol was a left-wing false flag operation”, (2) a charge echoed in the halls of Congress by the likes of Louie Gomert of Alabama, and Matt Geatz of Florida echo, in turn, the attack by the Nazi's upon the German Reichstag as they blamed the 'left' as well.

Delirium now consumes the fevered mind of the emerging fascist party, awash in Qanon paranoia, reacting to every deluded pitch by Jones and Limbaugh, mesmerized in Murdoch's house of mirrors.

Krugman reminds us that this was once the party of Dwight D. Eisenhower. Gaetz, one may recall, now represents the same congressional district once held by none other than “Morning Joe” host Joe Scarborough.

And that poses a problem for all of us. This party, as Krugman reminds us, isn't getting any saner and is losing elections they should have easily won. The response to this, massive losses in California, Oregon and now, of all places Georgia, has been to introduce 106 new bills in 28 states further restricting access to the polls, as emerging fascism further assaults our electoral process and, ultimately, the legitimacy of the republic itself. Now the question is: will it simply destroy itself or will it take all of us down with it.? What will it be, fascism or civilization?

Meanwhile, reports surface from American intelligence that the Russians have been grooming our Caesar Disgustus for over 40 years.

An' Br'er Putin, he jus' laugh and laugh

Convict and Imprison.

January 28, 2021: The Socialist Bogey-Man, Day of Reckoning, Blinded By The Right

 

Thomas L. Friedman, quoting one of his favorite authors, wrote in Wednesday's New York Times(1):

“' Socialism for the rich and capitalism for the rest' happens...when government intervention does more to stimulate the financial markets than the real economy. So, America's richest 10 percent, who own more than 80 percent of U.S. stocks, hae seen their wealth more than triple in 30 years, while the bottom 50 percent, relying on day jobs in real markets to survive, had zero gains...

Quoting Ruchir Sharma, chief global strategist at Morgan Stanley and author of The Ten Rules of Successful Nations”, Friedman directs our attention to an essay written by Sharma and published last July in The Wall Street Journal entitled “The Rescues Ruining Capitalism” in which Sharma asserts, according to Friedman “that easy money and increasingly generous bailouts fuel the rise of monopolies and keep 'alive heavily indebted 'zombie' firms, at the expense of start-ups, which drive innovation'. And all of that is contributing to lower productivity, which means slower economic growth and 'a shrinking of the pie for everyone'. As such, no one should be surprised 'that millennials and Gen Z are growing disillusioned with this distorted form of capitalism and say that they prefer socialism”

Ah, yes, the old Socialist Bogey Man, always under the bed, always terrorizing the dreams of every good citizen. Never mind that Capital is here doing what Capital always does: constantly re-configuring itself into ever few hands; never mind that we are here paying homage to the gods of ongoing eternal 'growth' as if Mother Nature has no say in the outcome; never mind that the solution is always more of the same, always a question of growth and never a question of serious redistribution.

Friedman is quite right to point to the ossification of Capital, a point well documented in the works of Kevin Phillips, the card-carrying Republican consultant to Richard Nixon and author of his 'Southern Strategy'. Phillips spent years pointing to the parallels between the economic trends occurring during the postwar Age of Conservatism in the United States and the decline and collapse of the Spanish, Dutch and British Empires, pointing out that as money was given over from manufacturing and production to the financiers, the economies of the great modern empires ossified and then declined.

Friedman, by way of Sharma, however obliquely gets to the problem:

“In the 1980's,” he writes, 'only 2 percent of publicly traded companies in the U.S. were considered 'zombies,' a term used by the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) for companies that, over the previous three years, had not earned enough profit to make even the interest payments on their debt...The zombie minority started to grow rapidly in the early 2000s, and by the eve of the pandemic, accounted for 19 percent of U.S.-listed companies.' It's happening in Europe, China and Japan too.

“Before the pandemic, the U.S. was generating start-ups—and shutting down established companies—at the slowest rate since at least the 1970s...the number of publicly traded U.S. companies had fallen by nearly half, to around 4,400, since the peak in 1996....

“Alas, though big companies are becoming huge and more monopolistic in this easy money, low interest rate era. They can so easily use their inflated stock prices or cash hordes to buy up budding competitors and suck up all the talent and resources 'crowding out the little guys'”.

In what appears to be a Wall Street version of what is happening throughout the land on Main Street, where Big-Box giants are sucking the life-blood out of every town in America, Friedman simply observes that all of this “is actually making our system more fragile”.

Indeed it is, but is isn't simply that innovation is being stifled or that, as Friedman further observes...”that so many countries, led by the U.S. have massively increased their debt load, if we got even a small burst of inflation that drove interest on the 10-year Treasury to 3 percent from 1 percent, the money the U.S. would have to devote to debt serving would be so enormous that little money might be left for discretionary spending on research, infrastructure or education—or another rainy day.”

We are left with no choice, as Friedman rightly recognizes, but to spend money now in order to deal with a sagging economy (we are currently hemorrhaging three quarters of a million jobs a week), the pandemic (we need vaccines and a delivery system) and Mother Nature (the Climate Crisis is upon us). But there are already cries coming from ReSCUMlickans to reign in on spending, and soon there will be demands to cut, cut, cut and, given the sluggish nature of the economy, cuts will only prolong the agonies.

Yes, we can all agree with Friedman that the day of reckoning will soon be upon us. What will happen, of course, is that the reckoning will come in the form of an assault once again upon the New Deal; cuts in unemployment, food stamps, housing, education, environmental protection.

Friedman doesn't go into that, but we are familiar enough with the history of the last half century to know what is coming. Let me suggest another approach, one rooted in our collective experience, and one that works.

First, deal with monopolies by the rigorous enforcement of anti-trust and move to impeach any federal judge that delivers an opinion designed to weaken the law.

Second, and this is a big one: RAISE TAXES ON WEALTH. Here the experience of the Second World War is instructive. The taxes upon the wealthiest Americans reached a zenith of 94 percent by the late 40's setting the groundwork for an explosion of the Middle Class. Government invested in infrastructure: highways, schools, space, housing and prosperity was widely shared.

Third, Tax wealth at much high wages that work. As Adam Smith, the founder of modern Capitalism has pointed out, work produces wealth. Wealth being, in Karl Marx's words 'dead labor' does not replicate itself. How this works is that if individual income as well as capital gains are taxed at much higher rates than wages, capital will move from individual investments back into the industry that produces it. This was our experience coming out of Depression and War, when spending rescued capital and government taxation and regulation made it work.

Fourth, take another lesson learned from the War, sell bonds. By embarking upon a national campaign of selling savings bonds, we stop funding our debt by massive borrowing from foreign capitals and keep the money in the country.

Fifth, and President Biden already has begun to do this: government spending must at all costs be directed at domestic manufacturing, keeping much needed money and technology in the country.

Sixth, and again the Biden Administration, reversing the ignorant mendacity of Caesar Disgustus, has already instituted: invest heavily in our crumbling infrastructure, including high speed internet, highways, railroads, mass transit, education, housing and Green technology. Our ancestors, never so stupid as to openly declare that the government should not direct technology, would have long since used the immense power of government to move us from dependence upon the fossil fuel industry. They did so when they built canals to replace horse-drawn roads and paths, when they built railroads to replace canals, when they built highways to replace railroads, when they built aircraft to replace roads. All of these things were done with massive government assistance.

All of these lessons were lost on The Generation of Swine who, blinded by greed and mesmerized by the cheap pulp fictions of Ayn Rand, the pseudo-intellectualism of William Buckley, the charlatanism of Ronald Reagan and the demagoguery of Caesar Disgustus have wandered down the rat-hole of conservative sophistry. These are lessons lost. Lessons that, blinded by the right, we have refused to learn.

___________

1. Friedman, Thomas L. “Capitalism and Socialism, American-Style”, The New York Times,

   Wednesday, January 27, 2021. Page A23

January 20, 2021. Flushing the Turd, Greatest Lie Told, Every Russian Expectation

 

It has taken nearly four years. For four years Uncle Sam has been nailed to the stool, straining and grunting, in a desperate effort to shit the turd. Finally, on November 3^rd, he relieved himself. It was a close call, nearly busting a gut and inflaming the hemorrhoids in the process, but it was finally done. The problem, besides the overpowering stench, was flushing this turd from the forum. For nearly ten long weeks it has been circling the bowl driving the good and the decent from the public square to make room for those with too little olfactory sense and too much tolerance for the unpleasantness. In short, the barbarians stormed the citadel, ransacked the Temple leaving nothing but their feces smeared upon the monuments of the Republic. This is the enduring legacy of our Caesar Disgustus.

For Disgustus rose to fame and power upon the greatest lie told to the American people: that their president was not a true American; that their president was not qualified to be in office; that their president was foreign born and, therefore, illegitimate. He fell from power telling an even greater lie, that the election itself was illegitimate, that his 'majesty' had been stolen from him; and that his successor too, will be illegitimate.

The first lie called into question the legitimacy of the nation's head of state; the second lie called into question the legitimacy of the state itself.

Of course, in the interregnum, there were over 30,000 other lies.

You got to hand it to Putin, he well knew what he was getting in the grand bargain. And tRUMP, the useful idiot, fulfilled every Russian expectation. No, Congressman, Donald tRUMP is no superman, he is nothing but a parasite debasing everything he touches, vandalizing as no one before him Truth, Justice and the American Way. Donald John Trump is, and will remain, a clear and present danger.

An' Br'er Putin, he jus' laugh and laugh

Convict and Imprison.

January 14, 2021: Open Letter, A Blind Eye, Beneath Contempt

 

In response to the vote to impeach our Caesar Disgustus for a second time, I submitted the following letter to all of the major newspapers in my congressional district. My congressman, like any good fascist, has stood with his party throughout these last four years turning a blind eye to the serial crimes of the titular head of his party. Here, then, is the letter I sent knowing that to remain silent is to grant tacit consent to these outrages.

Editor:

Congressman Jack Bergman flaunts his military career as a qualification for office and defending, or as he puts it “utilizing”, the Constitution as his reasons for service. Really? Is this how a military man and now member of Congress defends our republic? He may have taken oaths, while in military service and now in Congress to protect and defend the Constitution, but it is clear he understands neither the Constitution he has repeatedly sworn to protect, nor service to same.

The Congressman, signing onto the amicus brief brought by the Texas attorney general questioning the presidential electors of the State of Michigan, and our votes by extension, and his failure to vote for either of the impeachment resolutions, constitute a serial violation of his oath of office.

By demonstrating a consistent lack of both judgment and courage, congressman Bergman has disgraced his military service, his constituents, his flag and his country.

Joe Camfield

I have no doubt whatever that registering outrage will have any impact whatever upon the scurrilous, sniveling little coward that now pretends to represent us in this Congress. He is a disgrace, but one of 137 members of the ReSCUMlickan caucus who likewise wet their pants and shit themselves to their socks at the prospect of confronting the bellowing blowhard posturing as president** of the United States. He, and they, are beneath contempt.

January 13, 2021: Impeached Again Naturally, ReSCUMlickan Rot, Openly Fascist Enterprise

 

The vote today in the House, where a mere five percent of ReSCUMlickans voted to impeach the swine, demonstrated beyond doubt the rot in the ReSCUMlickan Party. By their votes today, the ReSCUMlickan Party openly declared themselves to be a nakedly fascist movement. They voted to sanction not merely insurrection, but a coup d'etat.

Speaker Pelosi gave them the easy way out, charging our Golden Swine to be merely incendiary, a mere insurrectionist, as if a 'protest' had got merely out of hand. But this wasn't mere insurrection, it was a coup d'etat which, fortunately, like everything else our Caesar Disgutus lays his hands upon, was a failure, proving as successful as virtually everything this scum, in his grandiosity attempts.

Still the scum protest mightily his innocence

We may not be so lucky the next time. Like the assault upon Michigan's State Capitol last spring, and the invasion of the Oregon legislature later this year, this ugly trashing out the People's House may well be a rehearsal. For a major political party has now given sanction to the prospect which, in more competent hands, may soon reach fruition. What the scum did today, as they did in Michigan and elsewhere, is teach the swine what they can do.

January 12, 2021: The Music's Over, Stampede to the Exits, Turn Out The Lights

 

The pole cat has driven the dancer's from the barn. The stench is so overpowering The music has stopped; the band quickly flees the stage. There is now a rush as Donors and staffers, gasping for air, seek distance, any distance. The PGA and DeutcheBank cutting ties with tRUMP, begin a stampede to the exits. and staffers, hurriedly purging resumes, join the crush. At long last, the GOP, the Grand Old Prostitute herself, gagging and eyes watering. staggers from the floor, weeping and swearing that she doesn't know him and has never heard of him.

As the sun rises, the fumigators arrive, and the tRUMP banners and bunting comes down, an eerie quiet at long last descends upon the town. The music's over.

Cancel his subscription to the resurrection

send his credentials to the house of detention

he's got some friends inside.

"So when the music's over When the music's over, yeah When the music's over Turn out the lights Turn out the lights Turn out the lights" --The Doors

Good night and goodbye, Donnie boy, the music's over.

January 10, 2021: The Rampage, Failed Coup, Our Political Tradition

Former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich, commenting on the outrages of our Caesar Disgustus, posted the following remarks on Facebook today.:

" Call me old-fashioned, but when the president of the United States encourages armed insurgents to breach the Capitol and threaten the physical safety of Congress, in order to remain in power, I call it an attempted coup.

Last week’ rampage left six dead, including two Capitol Hill police officers. We’re fortunate the carnage wasn’t greater.

That the attempted coup failed shouldn’t blind us to its significance or the stain it has left on America. Nor to the importance of holding those responsible fully accountable.

Trump’s culpability is beyond dispute. “There’s no question the president formed the mob, the president incited the mob, the president addressed the mob. He lit the flame,” said Rep. Elizabeth Cheney, the third-highest ranking Republican in the House.

He should be impeached, convicted, and removed from office – immediately.

To let the clock run out on his presidency and allow Trump to seek the presidency again would signal that attempted coups are part of the American system. If Senate Republicans can install a new Supreme Court justice in 8 days, Trump can be removed from office within 10.

He should then be arrested and tried for inciting violence and sedition (along with Trump Jr. and Rudy “trial-by-combat” Giuliani).

Those who attacked the Capitol should also be prosecuted. They have no First Amendment right to try to overthrow the U.S. government.

Trump’s accomplices on Capitol Hill, most notably Texas Senator Ted Cruz and Missouri Senator Josh Hawley, should be forced to resign. Knowing Trump’s allegations of voting fraud were false, Cruz and Hawley nonetheless led an attempt to exclude Biden electors, even after the storming of the Capitol.

The United States Constitution says that “no Person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress” who “shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against" the Constitution, “or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof."

Both Cruz and Hawley are eyeing runs for the presidency in 2024. They should be barred from running.

Other abettors are now trying to distance themselves, but their conversions come too late.

Senator Lindsey Graham now says Trump must “understand that his actions were the problem, not the solution," and criticizes the White House for making “accusations that cannot be proven.”

Graham had been one of Trump’s key attack dogs, even bullying state election officials to change voting tallies. If Graham is not forced to resign, he should at least be censured and stripped of his ranking membership on the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Vice President Michael Pence finally broke with Trump, but only after remaining mute as Trump lied and bullied his way through the last eight weeks, thereby signaling agreement with his preposterous claims.

McConnell should also resign or be censured and stripped of committee assignments. Pence should be barred from any future public office.

Some administration officials have already resigned in response to the attempted coup. Many are distancing themselves, criticizing Trump.

Yet before Wednesday most of them defended Trump’s antics, lavished him with praise, and willingly did his dirty work. Their complicity should forever haunt their reputations and consciences.

Other accessories are Jack Dorsey, CEO of Twitter, Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook, and Sundar Pichai, CEO of Alphabet, YouTube’s parent company.

For four years, Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube have functioned as Trump’s megaphones, amplifying his every lie and hateful rant. When pressured to remove Trump’s fabrications about the election, they labeled them “disputed.”

Twitter has now permanently suspended Trump, preventing him from sending messages to his more than 88 million followers “due to the risk of further incitement for violence.” Facebook has banned him indefinitely. YouTube should be next.

But why did it take an attempted coup for them to act?

Many business leaders who are now denouncing the violence enthusiastically bankrolled Trump’s re-election campaign, knowing full well who he was and what he was capable of doing. And they’ve had no qualms about advertising on his largest megaphones, including Fox News.

All are complicit because they knew Trump would stop at nothing.

Fox News’s mendacious hosts and producers have no excuse. After repeatedly telling Trump supporters the election was stolen, they’re now saying the attempted coup was “understandable” because Trump supporters believed the election was stolen. Morally, if not legally, they share responsibility for this travesty.

All are all part of the ecosystem that led to Trump’s sedition. That ecosystem is still in place.

Those who say we should “look forward” to a new administration and forget or dismiss what occurred last week are delusional. Unless all who participated in or abetted the attempted overthrow of the United States government are held accountable, it will happen again.

Next time it may succeed."

By elevating this scum into the presidency, the entire ReSCUMlickan Party is responsible for making Donald J. tRUMP and tRUMPism part of our national political tradition. How this ends will also become an indelible part of the national fabric. This is why the outrage that is Donald John tRUMP must be confronted and expunged. The stench of this turd will linger in the forum for a long, long time.

January 9, 2021: Barbarians at the Gate

 

It has been a hell of a week.  Our birdbrain Caesar Disgustus, after tweeting to his followers, promising "it's going to be wild", called upon his scum to gather in Washington on January 6th, the day that the Congress would certify the election of his successor.  Let there be no doubt about it, Caesar Disgustus, like the little rat Mickey Mouse in "Fantasia" conjured up this mob and , in the end, swamped by it. 

There have been many events in the last week, featuring several impeachable acts by our Disgustus, and keeping up with his torrent of outrages, while always difficult, proved this week Herculean.  A repost by historian Heather Cox Richardson, by a friend of mine on Facebook, best summarizes the events of the last week.  

Here, in her words, is what has transpired. 

January 8, 2021 (Friday)More information continues to emerge about the events of Wednesday. They point to a broader conspiracy than it first appeared. Calls for Trump’s removal from office are growing. The Republican Party is tearing apart. Power in the nation is shifting almost by the minute.

[Please note that information from the January 6 riot is changing almost hourly, and it is virtually certain that something I have written will be incorrect. I have tried to stay exactly on what we know to be facts, but those could change.]

More footage from inside the attack on the Capitol is coming out and it is horrific. Blood on statues and feces spread through the building are vile; mob attacks on police officers are bone-chilling.

Reuters photographer Jim Bourg, who was inside the building, told reporters he overheard three rioters in “Make America Great Again” caps plotting to find Vice President Mike Pence and hang him as a “traitor”; other insurrectionists were shouting the same. Pictures have emerged of one of the rioters in military gear carrying flex cuffs—handcuffs made of zip ties—suggesting he was planning to take prisoners. Two lawmakers have suggested the rioters knew how to find obscure offices.

New scrutiny of Trump’s “Stop the Steal” rally before the attack shows Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani, Representative Mo Brooks (R-AL), Don Jr., and Trump himself urging the crowd to go to the Capitol and fight. Trump warned that Pence was not doing what he needed to. Trump promised to lead them to the Capitol himself.

There are also questions about law enforcement. While exactly what happened remains unclear, it has emerged that the Pentagon limited the Washington D.C. National Guard to managing traffic. D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser requested support before Trump’s rally, but the Department of Defense said that the National Guard could not have ammunition or riot gear, interact with protesters except in self-defense, or otherwise function in a protective capacity without the explicit permission of acting Secretary Christopher Miller, whom Trump put into office shortly after the election after firing Defense Secretary Mark Esper.

When Capitol Police requested aid early Wednesday afternoon, the request was denied. Defense officials held back the National Guard for about three hours before sending it to support the Capitol Police. Maryland Governor Larry Hogan, a Republican, tried repeatedly to send his state’s National Guard, but the Pentagon would not authorize it. Virginia’s National Guard was mobilized when House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called the governor, Ralph Northam, herself.

Defense officials said they were sensitive to the criticism they received in June when federal troops cleared Lafayette Square of peaceful protesters so Trump could walk across it. But it sounds like there might be a personal angle: Bowser was harshly critical of Trump then, and it would be like him to take revenge on her by denying help when it was imperative.

Refusing to stop the attack on the Capitol might have been more nefarious, though. A White House adviser told New York Magazine’s Washington correspondent Olivia Nuzzi that Trump was watching television coverage of the siege and was enthusiastic, although he didn’t like that the rioters looked “low class.” While the insurrectionists were in the Capitol, he tweeted: “Mike Pence didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our Country and our Constitution, giving States a chance to certify a corrected set of facts, not the fraudulent or inaccurate ones which they were asked to previously certify. USA demands the truth!” Even as lawmakers were under siege, both Trump and his lawyer Rudy Giuliani were making phone calls to brand-new Senator Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) urging him to slow down the electoral count.

After Trump on Wednesday night tweeted that there would be an “orderly” transition of power, on Thursday he began again to urge on his supporters.

With the details and the potential depth of this event becoming clearer over the past two days—Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’s wife, Virginia, tweeted her support, and state lawmakers as well as Republican attorneys general were actually involved—Americans are recoiling from how bad this attempted coup was… and how much worse it could have been. The crazed rioters were terrifyingly close to our elected representatives, all gathered together on that special day, and they were actively talking about harming the vice president.

By Friday night, 57% of Americans told Reuters they wanted Trump removed from office immediately. Nearly 70% of Americans disapprove of Trump’s actions before the riot. Only 12% of Americans approved of the rioters; 79% of Americans described the rioters as “criminals” or “fools.” Five percent called them “patriots.”

Pelosi tonight said that she hoped the president would resign, but if not, the House of Representatives will move forward with impeachment on Monday, as well as with legislation to enable Congress to remove Trump under the 25th Amendment. The most recent draft of the impeachment resolution has just one article: “incitement of insurrection.” As a privileged resolution, it can go directly to the House without committee approval.

In the Senate, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has no interest in further splitting the Republicans over another impeachment, or forcing them onto the record as either for or against it. Timing is on his side: the Senate is not in session for substantive business until January 19, so cannot act on an impeachment resolution without the approval of all senators. It can take up the resolution then, but more likely it will wait until Biden is sworn in, at which point the measure would be managed not by McConnell, but by the new House majority leader, Chuck Schumer (D-NY). A trial can indeed take place after Trump is no longer president, enabling Congress to make sure he can never again hold office.

Whether or not the Senate would convict is unclear, but it’s not impossible. Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), for one, is so furious she is talking of switching parties. “I want him out,” she says. Still, Trump supporters are now insisting that it would “further divide the country” to try to remove Trump now, and that we need to unify. Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX), who led the Senate effort to challenge Biden’s election, today tweeted that Biden was not working hard enough to “bring us together or promote healing” and that “vicious partisan rhetoric only tears our country apart.”

Trump, meanwhile, has continued to agitate his followers, and today began to call for more resistance, while users on Parler, the new right-wing social media hangout, are talking of another, bigger attack on Washington.

Tonight, Twitter banned Trump, stating: “we have permanently suspended the account due to the risk of further incitement of violence.” As evidence, it cited both his claim that his supporters would “have a GIANT VOICE long into the future,” and his tweet that he would not be going to Biden’s inauguration on January 20. Twitter says that Trump’s followers see these two new tweets as proof that the election was invalid and that the Inauguration is a good target, since he won’t be there. The Twitter moderators say that “plans for future armed protests have already begun proliferating on and off-Twitter, including a proposed secondary attack on the US Capitol and state capitol buildings on January 17, 2021.”

Twitter also took down popular QAnon accounts, including those of Trump’s former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn and his former lawyer Sidney Powell, who is having quite a bad day: the company that makes election machines, Dominion Voting Systems, announced it is suing her for defamation and asking $1.3 billion in damages. After taking down 7,000 QAnon accounts in July, Twitter continued by today taking down the account of the man who hosts the posts from “Q.”

While Twitter officials might well be horrified by the insurrection, the ban is also a sign of a changing government. With the election of two Democratic senators from Georgia this week, the majority goes to the Democrats, and McConnell will no longer be Majority Leader, killing bills. Social media giants know regulation of some sort is around the corner, and they are trying to look compliant fast. When Twitter banned Trump, so did Reddit, and Facebook and Instagram already had. Google Play Store removed Parler, warning it to clean up its content moderation.

Trump evidently couldn’t stand the Twitter ban, and tried at least five different accounts to get back onto the platform. He and his supporters are howling that he is being silenced by big tech, but of course he has an entire press corps he could use whenever he wished. Losing his access to Twitter simply cuts off his ability to drum up both support and money by lying to his supporters. Another platform that has dumped Trump is one of those that handled his emails. The San Francisco correspondent of the Financial Times, Dave Lee, noted that for more than 48 hours there had been no Trump emails: in the previous six days he sent out 33.

This has been a horrific week. If it has a silver lining, it is that the lines are now clear between our democracy and its enemies. The election in Georgia, which swung the Senate away from the Republicans and opens up some avenues to slow down misinformation, is a momentous victory. (1)

_________

1.     Richardson, Heather.  Facebook post, January 9th, 2021.                                                

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