There are many troubling aspects of yesterday's act of violence at the U.S. Capitol by Trump supporters. Among the things which troubles me is that I underestimated the possibility would come to pass.
Mind you it's not that I was unaware that such a thing could happen. Indeed, I feared the possibility in the days leading up to the election:
Violence in voting is something one usually associates with countries like India or Nigeria.
But with President Trump calling upon his supporters to become "poll watchers" we could have election day violence in the United States. If armed Trump supporters are willing to use vehicles to try to drive the Biden campaign bus off the road is it really a stretch to imagine that armed Trump supporters would shoot voters in predominantly minority communities in cities like Detroit, Milwaukee, Philadelphia or here in Atlanta?
I think even among the staunchest of Trump supporters there is a realization that he will probably lose this election on the up and up. Trump supporters like the power they have and want to keep it at any cost - including the lives of their fellow Americans who they see as enemies because they do not worship at the altar of Trump. From the perspective of these Trump supporters, if a few Americans or a few hundred Americans die so that Trump remains in power then those dead Americans are collateral damage, if anything at all.
Thankfully there was no violence on Election Day. So I put the possibility of it in the recesses of my mind. Yes, I was aware the Proud Boys had engaged in violent behavior in the days leading up the Electoral College certification last month. Of course, I knew Trump supporters were going to gather in D.C. yesterday because of the ratification of the Electoral College certification. But I figured the authorities would have things well in hand. Evidently my faith was misplaced.
The day before yesterday's cataclysmic events I had an exchange on Twitter with Philly based writer Melissa Quinn Amour. She predicted that January 6th would be "a rough one". She wasn't so much concerned about Congress. "It’s the reaction of Trump and his dipshit supporters that concerns me," Amour tweeted.
I replied, "Biden won!!! Trump lost!!! Let Trump & his quislings be dipshits!!!"
Melissa replied, "I’m talking about violence. These folks are deeply deluded, and Trump & Co. have been misleading them and stoking their outrage for months. I don’t think my concern is an overreaction."
I responded by stating, "It isn't a overreaction. There is cause for concern. If there is violence committed by Trump supporters which results in loss of life it will backfire on them as their champion is no longer in office."
After all hell broke loose, she tweeted to me, "Are you watching this shit? Do you see what I meant?"
All I could say was, "Just seeing it now. I knew there were violent Trump supporters but not this many. God help us."
A little over 24 hours after the fact I wish I had felt the same sense of foreboding as Melissa. Not that I would have taken any comfort in it. But perhaps I would have been better prepared for what was to come.
With that said, I did make the point of saying that if there was violence committed by Trump supporters it would come back to bite them and boy has it ever.
Do I regret saying, "Let Trump & his quisling be dipshits!!!"? Naturally I wish they hadn't behaved this way. But the fact they did demonstrates who they are. And those who ever had any doubt about what Trump and his supporters represents had that doubt permanently removed.
Of course, it isn't to say that Trump supporters are going to go away. 74 million people voted for him scarcely two months ago and many of those 74 million would still vote for him now and do considerably more than that. But there will be a vigilance for some time to come with curfews in D.C. through Biden's inauguration and a non-scalable fence around Capitol Hill.
While I might have misread the tea leaves yesterday, I can proudly say that I could not countenance the possibility of a Trump presidency. Trump's tendency towards tyranny and the idol worship of him caused me to want nothing to do with American conservative political movement or the Republican Party at large and to get as far away as possible. I'm glad I did because the Trump presidency was so much worse than I imagined.
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