Is This, or Isn’t This, America?
It has now been two days since a mob of several thousand people breached the weak security perimeter around the U.S. Capitol building and stormed the Rotunda, the House, and the Senate from all sides. Members of Congress were hastily removed from the House chamber and escorted to “safe rooms” as the mob enjoyed the run of the building for hours. They appear to have enjoyed themselves, judging from the number of selfies they snapped – some along with members of the U.S. Capitol Police force, which is charged with the protection of the Capitol and its occupants.
How could this have happened? Below is our take, which represents a synthesis of others’ observations and our conclusions as drawn from the work DeedSpeakOut has been engaged in the past four years. As per our usual practice, a number of the opinion pieces / reporting we’ve consulted are listed below under “Further Reading.”
Proximate causes
The Capitol Was Insufficiently Protected
The U.S. Capitol is federal property and therefore, its protection and securing from threat falls within the jurisdiction of the federal government, not that of the city of Washington, D.C. Congress has its own police force – the Capitol Police – of 2,000+ officers. (Note: an unspecified number were out on Wednesday due to Covid-19.) Low metal barriers were in place around the building, but they were easily breached – there simply weren’t enough officers on duty to repel several thousand people once the President had proposed they take a walk down Pennsylvania Avenue.
If you saw the storming live, it had the aura of the surreal – at first you didn’t grasp what was happening, and once it happened, you couldn’t believe it had. And as it continued – hundreds of insurrectionists literally wandering aimlessly around the halls of Congress, stealing the House Speaker’s lectern, posing in her office, scattered about the House floor – it resembled a looting gone awry. There clearly was no plan for an actual coup – i.e., a government takeover. Mob participants appeared just as surprised as everyone else when they were allowed nearly free reign of one of the inner sanctums of the federal government.
City and Federal Officials Misjudged (?) the Threat
The Capitol was under-protected on Wednesday. The Capitol Police (2,000+ officers), anticipating a “free speech demonstration,” had vouched that they could handle any issues that might arise on their own, and the Mayor of Washington, Muriel Bowser, had not requested reinforcements from the National Guard (around 300 unarmed troops were milling about in the outer perimeter, largely for duties like traffic control), although the Pentagon had reached out to the Capitol Police three days earlier to offer assistance. Similarly, the FBI had offered help and been turned down. The city’s police force (D.C. Police, DCP) were assigned their usual tasks. Given that the Capitol Police operates with a budget of nearly half-a-billion dollars yearly ($426 million), there are a lot of people wondering where that money goes right now – including members of Congress, which oversees its own police force. [Note: On Thursday both the Chief of the Capitol Police and the House and Senate Sergeants-at-Arms were forced to resign.]
The DOD Hesitated to Deploy the National Guard
The National Guard in D.C. is typically activated at the request of the President, but it would appear that on Wednesday it was the Vice-President who put in the request via the Secretary of the Army. It turns out the National Guard was waiting to be deployed – but the order didn’t come through for a couple of hours (? – timeline remains murky), as rioters roamed the hallways and entered the offices of members of Congress. Once the Guard was deployed, it required several hours to clear the complex of rioters, who numbered in the thousands (no reliable estimate has been provided by media sources, but we’ve found “thousands,” not “tens of thousands.”). This isn’t on the Guard; they were impeded by a broken chain of command and inadequate preparation for the “rally” by the Capitol Police, although the FBI had been monitoring flight and hotel bookings for days and was anticipating a large crowd.
Caveats
But – and this is a big “but” – if there had been a sufficient show of force guarding both the outer and inner perimeters of the Capitol on Wednesday, given (a) the size of the mob and (b) the “marching orders” they’d been given by Trump and various members of Congress, a strong show of force would have been required to drive the mob away. In light of some of the groups which took part (QAnon, Proud Boys, assorted white nationalist groups and individuals), any confrontation would almost certainly have resulted in far more bloodshed than the confrontation with Capitol Police, most of whom were not disposed to use their weapons and in fact, in the face of overwhelming numbers, can be seen backing down in some cases – though by no means all.
Are there far right sympathizers inside the Capitol Police force (and, for that matter, the D.C. Metropolitan Police, the National Guard, and other law-keeping forces on the ground)? Yes, but there are also plenty of officers who aren’t sympathizers and who made a responsible though doomed attempt to uphold order. Let’s remember too that not a single member of Congress sustained injuries during the chaos. Around 15 policemen were injured, and one has now died of his injuries; 1 rioter was killed, and 4 people sustained medical emergencies to which they succumbed. “Medical emergencies” is used somewhat loosely here, as at least one victim was crushed to death in the melee.
Two things here: (1) the solution to what happened on Wednesday is not “more training,” “police reform,” or “more money for police.” What happened can’t be fixed by more, or better-trained, LEO, because what happened was an inevitable outcome of the inequality, racism, desperation, frustration, and raw anger of millions upon millions of people, represented by some thousands of their peers who had enough money to travel to D.C. (only one of the 50+ persons arrested was a D.C. native).
(2) Was racism part of the reason why the Capitol Police dealt so lightly with the rioters, almost all of whom were white? Yes, and that’s an issue U.S. society at large is going to have to reckon with, and do something about, in the very near future. But here too, there’s a big “but”: the answer is not to treat Proud Boys and QAnon members like Blacks and other POC (cf. Charlottesville, cf. Portland, cf. Minneapolis, cf. Chicago, cf. cf. cf.); rather, it’s to stop treating Blacks and other POC with excessive force during peaceful demonstrations and protests – and, ultimately, to eradicate the reasons why such protests are necessary in the first place.
There was damage to the Capitol, and it’s probably going to cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to repair the interior spaces the rioters ransacked. But the consequences of a violent confrontation with massive police forces (which is what would have been needed) would have been even more destructive to the already-rent fabric of the nation.
More violence, in other words, was not the answer (and never was).
Ultimate Causes
The Mainstream Media Never “Got” Trump
The MSM for the most part has treated Trump like a bad joke, or a severe case of heartburn, for the past four years, as well as a source of profit. They failed – or refused –to acknowledge that regardless of what they characterized as “incompetence,” “laziness,” “boredom,” and “indifference” to governing, he was far more dangerous than they imagined. In addition to major damage or potential damage to the environment achieved through Executive Orders, and ramming more than 240 far-right federal judges (3 for SCOTUS) through the U.S. Senate, he harmed the U.S.’ international prestige and authority (“soft power”) (Trump didn’t believe in diplomacy), damaged the image and reality of K-12 public education with a Sec of Ed who wanted to destroy public schools and replace them with private ones paid for by public tax dollars (just to start with that; she also refused to stop persecuting those who had borrowed money to go to failed for-profit colleges, and characterized public schools as outmoded and antiquated – “haven’t changed in a century,” etc.) Then there was HUD, headed by a pediatric neurosurgeon that knew nothing and cared less about public housing.
But more than that, this President contributed, on a daily basis, to the already-existing divisiveness in the U.S. between urban, suburban, and rural dwellers, whites and Blacks and Latinos and Native Americans, college-educated v. high-school educated, and – although this was not his focus, it festers everywhere just below the surface – between the top 5% – 10% and everybody else. The U.S. is probably as divided along racial, demographic, and socioeconomic lines as it has been since the Civil War and Reconstruction, and healing is by no means guaranteed under the Biden Administration.
Furthermore, the federal mismanagement of the pandemic, starting from a misrepresentation of the virus’ seriousness and potential to infect a large segment of the population (“it’ll be over in two weeks”), the mask procurement debacle, ditto for PPE, ditto for testing and testing materiel, the absence of national policies on mask-wearing and social distancing, on what type of businesses that would open-shut at various flash-points during the pandemic’s two courses through the U.S., and now, of course, the vaccine fiasco – for which the federal government, as overseer of distribution schedules, does bear final responsibility.
All of this – with leadership by a President who apparently doesn’t believe in the federal government whose administrative branch he leads – means that the pandemic will not be “conquered” in six or eight or ten months – in all likelihood, we will be well into 2022 before a substantial percentage of the population has been vaccinated, by which time it’s entirely possible that one or more vaccine-resistant strains will have evolved, and we’ll be right back where we started.
The people who stormed the Capitol are his acolytes: they have been cajoled, threatened, aroused, enraged and finally, prodded to action by him. But – another “but” – Trump did not create the conditions which made this divisiveness, racism and white supremacism, and frankly hatred possible. He gave these conditions and feelings an outlet – an ultimately ineffective one, true, but once Trump leaves office, his position as leader of the far-right segments of the American electorate will be ready for the taking.
And as some commentators have noted, we may not be so lucky with the next leader of this wing of the Republican Party – Trump’s successor may be far more driven, ambitious, capable, and well-versed in the methods of turning a disaffected electorate into a proto-fascist one. And there are such inheritors of Trump’s robes panting in the wing.
The Democratic Party Has Forgotten How to Play Hardball Politics
The Democrats like to portray themselves as “civilized,” “collaborative,” “willing to work across the aisle,” and other such ineffective banalities. This won’t work with Trump voters – and it certainly won’t work with far-right legislators like Mitch McConnell, who’s run a tight, disciplined voting bloc for the last four years and as Minority Leader for the previous eight – it’s amazing what lockstep discipline can accomplish even if you don’t control the Presidency or the House of Representatives.
Liberal Senators have claimed again and again that they were helpless against McConnell and his caucus, but there are ways to oppose even the majority. The prospect of Chuck Schumer (D-NY) as Majority Leader does not encourage us to believe that anything much is going to change, but perhaps he’s learned a few lessons about caucus management in the past four years – one can always hope.
Let’s take an example. Prominent Senators and Representatives have called either for impeachment or the invocation of Article IV of the 25th Amendment since Wednesday night – so, what did Nancy Pelosi do? She called for the Vice-President and Cabinet to invoke the 25th Amendment; only after she’s assured that they won’t will the House “consider” a second impeachment process. In the meantime, both houses of Congress have adjourned until Biden’s inauguration – when in fact, if they really meant what they said, both she and Schumer would have ensured that the entire Democratic caucus of both houses stuck around for the next ten days.
There’s no room for moderation right now at the national legislative level. Seven Senators and more than 120 Representatives voted to object to the certification of the Electoral College vote in Pennsylvania – they need to be dealt with, forcefully, by Democrats (and some Republicans, hopefully), pronto.
The Role of Socioeconomic Factors and Racism
The underlying causes of 70 million people voting for Trump (twice, no less) are deeply rooted in the U.S.: racism (white supremacy) is the foremost ultimate cause, intertwined and interlocked with phenomena more recent such as automation and deindustrialization – offshoring of the country’s industrial base in the past 30-40 years, which has largely eradicated the blue-collar middle class in the Heartland. If you’ve been forced from a job that paid your father $25 an hour in middling times to one that pays you $10 in the best of times – and you’ve lost hours or the job itself in the past 10 months – things don’t just look bleak, they are bleak. If you’ve seen the rise of the professional managerial class – some of them classmates, perhaps, others distant cousins or friends of friends – which has migrated to urban centers and now looks down on you with its identity politics devoid of concrete policies to make your life better, you’re going to resent those people, who by and large vote Democratic. And what of the Democrats themselves? Where’s Medicare for All? Where’s the $15 an hour federal minimum wage? Where’s universal day care? Where’s public housing for all those who need it?
People living in a country where economic inequality is well-regulated by federal and state taxation systems, inheritance laws and other mechanisms, and where there is a general sense that everyone can have a good – a decent, honorable, fulfilling – life, that they can live in relative comfort, have a decent home, educate their children, and live out their final years in dignity, don’t become followers of authoritarian would-be fascists.
Take heed, Democrats.
Further Reading:
“Is It Still Fascism if it’s Incompetent?”
“Capitol Breach Prompts Urgent Questions about Security Failures”
“Trump Has Always Been a Wolf in Wolf’s Clothing”
“Let’s Remember How Authoritarianism Takes Hold”
“Why Is Trump Still President?”
“We’ve Seen the Ugly Truth about America”
“Capitol Riots: Who Broke into the Building?”
“Capitol Police Rejected Offers of Federal Help to Quell Mob”
“How the Storming of the Capitol Was – and Wasn’t – about Police”