INSURRECTION

Friends, some thoughts regarding insurrection,

Some correspondents have expressed skepticism or disagreement regarding use of “insurrection” to describe what happened at the 6 January joint congressional assembly convened to accept the Electoral College ballots. I also note some news reports use words such as angry mob, rioters or other such descriptors to avoid using insurrection or attempted insurrection.

I must point out that it is difficult to remedy a problem if you fail to identify the problem in the first place.

I argue we are in the late stages of an insurrection begun decades ago with Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher (“government is the problem” “There is no society only individuals”) and the adoption of neoliberal ideology and cruel capitalism which continue to dominate our society today. Successive Republican administrations have pressed for reduction of regulations governing public safety and environmental pollution. These changes often effected by hobbling the government agencies responsible for the oversight.

Part and parcel of the plan is destruction of labor unions, in part, because such collective action violates Ms. Thatcher’s dictum. Those individuals (read workers) who toil as Uber drivers, food delivery drones, various gig workers and nomadic camper-living Amazon temporary workers, are examples of the atomized work force with no claim to community. The atomized have no weight, no power and likely feel no commitment or loyalty to community or nation. That is the desired effect described by some observers as alienation.

Five years ago two knowledgeable Eastern European historians warned us of the authoritarian tendencies of Donald Trump. They didn’t use the insurrection label (or the fascism label at the time) but the warning they offered included the clear, if only implied, description of a possible take over of the government by that authoritarian.

January 2017 we got Donald Trump as President and he immediately began to install his loyalists and donors in positions of leadership in various government agencies, agencies which are our government, agencies which we expect to work for us, agencies we need for our security, health protection and education. The obvious example is Postmaster General DeJoy who crippled the Post Office to slow the mail of absentee ballots. Some observers describe America as having fallen to third world status for some parameters (poverty, life expectancy). This destruction of government services should be understood as an assault and a continuation of the ongoing insurrection.

We watched Trump spit out his vile hate and bigotry for four years. The message was embraced by those citizens who were susceptible for whatever reason. His big lie propaganda and demonization of others, particularly Democrats, instructed his followers who their enemies were and continued right through to the January 6 assault on Congress.

Consider what might have happened if the hate motivated mob had been able to take control of the building and seize political leaders that day. What might have developed if VP Pence had done what Trump wanted, that is to reject the electoral ballots from several states sufficient to deny any candidate to necessary 270 votes. The plan was to then shift the selection of President to the House of Representatives and if several of the progressive house members were detained and unable to vote, the House would then vote to declare Trump President.

It failed for several reasons. Trump apparently assumed he had greater support of police and military. He was counting on Pence to do his bidding. His “army,” probably a small percentage of the people who actually entered the building, were prepared to take custody of some legislators (zip ties in hand) but were stymied by the legislators having been secured elsewhere. And, maybe Trump thought some of the Republican legislators would help neutralize Democrats however, they didn’t have the opportunity and might have been too cowardly to do so anyway.

In closing I must remind everyone the history of Europe in the last century. Adolf Hitler was such a threat in the first years of the 1930s and was actually jailed for a time. He came back big time in 1933 being named Germany’s Chancellor in and then Führer in 1934. The Reichstag was neutered at that time and Hitler was then allowed to function as a dictator. The lesson for us here is that the threat of insurrection remains. Trump is not going away and so we must consider the Insurrection as ongoing.

Consider the recent efforts by Republican controlled states to restrict voting opportunities. Over 250 such laws have been introduced in 43 states in recent weeks. Laws aimed at reducing the availability polling places,restricting early voting and requiring citizen identification documents. Such laws should be considered continued acts of insurrection in so far as these actions are intended to control election outcomes.

I will leave it the reader to identify America’s enemies in this whole terrible process. I have my opinions, implied in the above analysis, but prefer to invite others to offer their observations.

Dr. Bandy X Lee, a forensic psychiatrist and editor of "The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump" has written a second book Profile of a Nation: Trump’s Mind, America’s Soul, a psychological assessment of the president against the backdrop of his supporters and the country as a whole.

“I ...emphasize in Profile of a Nation that we should consider the president, his followers and the nation as an ecology, not in isolation. Hence, what he does after this presidency depends a great deal on us. This is the reason I frantically wrote the book over the summer: we require active intervention to stop him from achieving any number of destructive outcomes for the nation,” Read the whole report here: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-shared-psychosis-of-donald-trump-and-his-loyalists/

Perhaps Dr. Lee’s analysis will help us understand how to defend our country from the fascist insurrection.

Wayne