January 6 is forever damnable.
Unrepentant Republicans cannot be forgiven their sedition.
The Christian God has chosen to commemorate the fourth anniversary of January 6, 2021, which former Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) described as a “violent insurrection for the purpose of trying to prevent the peaceful transfer of power, after a legitimately-certified election, from one administration to the next,” by aiming a major snowstorm towards Washington, D.C., giving Republicans in the House and Senate one last chance to repent, refuse to certify, and resign in disgrace for the evil they have enabled—perhaps then they could be forgiven.
But until his last breath, President-elect Donald Trump, the Mandarin Mussolini, will try to lie away the plain realities of the Capitol Insurrection (what he calls “a simple protest that got out of hand.”) He will never succeed.
Even as the 🍊🤡 prepares to pardon and release those violent criminals back onto America’s streets—no doubt they end up back in the slammer soon enough—history will not be revised to his liking, because facts refute delusions. Each time I see some Republican prevaricator excuse the riots, my mind turns to Lady Macbeth:
“Out, damned spot, out, I say! One. Two.
Why then, ’tis time to do ’t. Hell is murky. Fie, my
lord, fie, a soldier and afeard? What need we fear
who knows it, when none can call our power to
account? Yet who would have thought the old man
to have had so much blood in him?
…
The Thane of Fife had a wife. Where is
she now? What, will these hands ne’er be clean? No
more o’ that, my lord, no more o’ that. You mar all
with this starting.
…
Here’s the smell of the blood still. All
the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little
hand. O, O, O!”
So, too, are those small, bronzed hands stained with the blood of Officers Brian Sicknick, Howard Liebengood, Jeffrey Smith, Kyle DeFreytag, Gunther Hashida, as well as insurrectionists Kevin Greeson, Benjamin Phillips, Rosanne Boyland, and Ashli Babbitt.
Nobody fingers the pulse of America better than Jordan Klepper, and nobody did better on-the-ground reporting that day than the Daily Show:
CNN did an excellent job (back when they did excellent jobs) breaking down some of the symbols and groups flying flags in our Nation’s Capital that day: Three Percenters, Proud Boys, Confederates, QAnon, Oath Keepers, 4chan-enjoyers, the Groyper Army, Neo-Nazis, et al. One might infer that no good can come to a place where such a diverse assembly of militiamen and racists gathers.
We can assume the violence was not impromptu, that it was not a “simple protest that got out of hand” because these “very fine people” designed and sold sweatshirts celebrating their “CIVIL WAR” early enough to have them printed and ready to wear day-of. New York Times reported that it was not until days later Internet retailers such as Amazon, Shopify, Etsy, and Zazzle started to take down this incendiary merchandise promoting civil war.
To be clear, despite the imagery referencing the popular Marvel Comics crossover event, CIVIL WAR (which ended in the death of Captain America), I am inclined to assume this “swag” is meant to evoke the American Civil War of 1861-1865, which ended with at least 620,000 dead Americans.
The United States Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs titled their report on the intelligence failures: “Planned in Plain Sight.” National media reported on the impending violence in advance of the events:
For weeks to months before the riot, anyone could watch the planning and organizing on social media:
On January 05, 2021, the FBI’s Norfolk office warned: “An online thread discussed specific calls for violence to include stating ‘Be ready to fight. Congress needs to hear glass breaking, doors being kicked in, and blood from their BLM and antifa slave soldiers being spilled. Get violent. Stop calling this a march, or rally, or a protest. Go there ready for war. We get our President or we die. NOTHING else will achieve this goal.’”
An entire Wikipedia article is dedicated to “Predictions of violence ahead of the January 6 United States Capitol attack.” It was widely predicted and predictable. Hell, some people were calling that shit in 2019—Michael Cohen testified as much to Congress. Not to self-congratulate, but I knew things were going to get ugly when the 🍊🤡 bragged to Breitbart that he “[has] the tough people, but they don’t play it tough until they go to a certain point, and then it would be very bad, very bad.”
“A simple protest that got out of hand,” Mr. Trump says, but before it even began there were pipe bombs left outside the Democratic and Republican National Committee headquarters. Liars have repeatedly claimed that there were “no weapons” in the crowd, but besides pitchforks, flags used to beat Capitol Police, bear spray, batons, stun guns, poles, knives, swords, steel whips, machetes, crowbars, tomahawk axes, a crossbow, baseball bats, shields, zip-tie handcuffs, gas masks, a fucking gallows, metal-plated body armor and tactical vests, there were guns and explosives:
A Running List of Gun Arrests Tied to the U.S. Capitol Attack
Yes, Capitol Rioters Were Armed. Here Are the Weapons Prosecutors Say They Used
Stun guns, 'stinger whips' and a crossbow: What police found on the Capitol protesters
Arrested Capitol rioters had guns and bombs, everyday careers and Olympic medals
Evidence of firearms in Jan. 6 crowd grows as arrests and trials mountMan accused of firing gun from scaffolding during Jan. 6 Capitol riot arrested
Arrest of armed Jan. 6 rioter does new harm to GOP talking points
Coming to terms with just how armed Trump followers were on Jan. 6
What sort of “simple protest” requires Molotov cocktails? Why wear gas masks and body armor if you are planning on a peaceful day? As the Great Communicator, the late-great President Ronald Reagan, might have said, “the trouble with” Mr. Trump, disgraced Fox Host Tucker Carlson, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Weird-Anime-Guy Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ), Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI), and others who insist the riot was unarmed, “is not that they’re ignorant, it’s just that they know so much that isn’t so.”
At least 140 police officers were assaulted on January 6, 2021, making it, according to United States Attorney Matthew Graves for the District of Columbia, “the largest single-day, mass assault of law enforcement officers in our nation’s history.” Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) said that the insurrectionists: “need to go to jail. And the President should never have spun up certain Americans to believe something that simply cannot be.” Mr. Trump’s nominee for Secretary of State, Senator Marco Rubio, called it: “3rd world style anti-American anarchy.” Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) stressed the assault on the Capitol was: “anti-America, and must be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”
One Year Since Capitol Riot, Republicans Try to Shift Blame. But Here's What They Said at the Time
Today? All those quoted now simper for Mr. Trump, who forces his worshippers to stand, hand-to-heart, and listen to his imprisoned thugs’ maudlin prison choir.
These are not “political prisoners,” as liars and lunatics suggest; they have been jailed for crimes. They might be painted as kitsch, but when they are loosed and let feel vindicated after whiling away four years in D.C. jail by brainwashing each other into believing they are hindered heroes, we should expect their likelihood of recidivism to be severe.
I know some percentage of my readership is employed in the dark arts of political consulting and messaging. I would encourage those Machiavellians to jot down the names of those J6 prisoners who receive clemency and set up Google alerts for those names. When one inevitably hurts someone—congratulations! We will have our own Willie Horton to hang on the neck of Mr. Trump and his every sycophant.
A favored excuse of late has been to insist the Insurrection was in fact the fault of Democrats, generally, and Speaker Emeritus Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), specifically, because they ought to have anticipated the day’s violence. I can agree with this, although it surprises me to hear Republicans admit their voters, if left unchecked, will break windows, beat police, threaten lawmakers, loot, steal, and shit on the furniture.
Then again, it was never a secret how little regard Mr. Trump held for his supporters; the Daily Mail reported that “when [the Donald] saw pictures of the half-naked guy in the fur hat[,] he started complaining [the rioters] looked ‘cheap and poor.’”
Some apologists insist Capitol Police let the rioters brush past the barricades, and therefore the whole thing was a setup. This hardly makes sense—should we believe, then, that holding a door open for a Republican might cause him to imagine he has implicit permission to start rampaging?
Another fun canard is the insinuation that federal agents went undercover in the mob and convinced them to storm the building. Mr. Trump’s squawking henchman and nominee for FBI Director, Kash Patel (D.C. insiders call him “Kush Patel” because this dumb mf has got to be smoking something) believes this. This suggests that the Party of Personal Responsibility believes MAGA voters are willing to engage in domestic terrorism and insurrection—they need another guy to go first, but they will do the violence if commanded.
One final lie makes me giggle each time it is told: Actually, Antifa did the Insurrection. This is fantastic. The insinuation that hundreds of hardcore leftists went undercover among Trump-loving families for years, grew beards, bought all sorts of paramilitary gear and MAGA merchandise, and convened for one special day to impersonate a frenzied mob to make the orange man look bad, becomes more hilarious each time you imagine the logistics.
Nobody sane believes this. Would that mean the jailbirds, who, again, are cooped up for violent crimes, secretly Antifa? In which case, why free them? Why mourn Antifa Ashli Babbitt? And suppose the prisoners are not antifascists, but were merely criminals arrested alongside Antifa, inspired by or emulating the infiltrators in their ranks. In that case, they are no more innocent than if they acted alone.
There is no absolving this. The Capitol Insurrection on January 6, 2021, really happened. However Republicans want to mythologize it, stubborn facts will not be cleansed. Those who participated in the assault on our Capitol, through violence or rhetoric, will not be absolved. The dead will not be erased, the injured will never be perfectly healed, and the rioters will never be forgiven. The nation would be best served letting those irredeemable fools be punished and rot.
Now, if your blood is boiling—if you want to stand up for our American traditions and oppose these villains when next they mob one of our great cities, I recommend taking a page from their playbook and purchasing some hard-hitting swag from the Partisan Hex merchandise store, home of the “Trump Is a Bitch” shirts and hats.
