The Inept Insurrection
Raise the issue of election injustice and suddenly you are a traitor.
I first published this in July, 2021 in the Escondido Times-Advocate. They subsequently stopped publishing any of my op-eds because they considered me to be a dangerous “Election Denier” ‘
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It is entirely disingenuous to suggest the “Stop The Steal” march on the Capitol on January 6th 2021, was in any way different than the Civil Rights March in Selma Alabama, and the Watts Rebellion in 1965, the Los Angeles Riots in 1992, or the George Floyd riots in Minneapolis last Summer. In fact, all of them have much in common: They were instigated, not by political speeches or YouTube videos, but by what citizens believed to be “institutional injustices”. They were all expressions of mass frustration, anger and helplessness. None of them were designed to destroy the union! They were all inspired by a desire to fix the union!
It would not be disingenuous to say all of those protestors were patriots!
Americans have a patent on civil disobedience and violent protests. Why? Because we can! Because our system of limited government and the rights of its citizens to gather, express, and defy our rulers is the very essence of Americanism. Nowhere else on this planet is the sovereignty of its citizens exalted like it is in our country.
Democrats want to characterize the Capitol Hill protesters as rioters and seditionists that were determined to “overthrow” our Democracy. How is objecting to election corruption any less moral than protesting racial injustice? For 245 years Americans have taken to the streets to protest injustice. Until now, we never called them traitors.
It is not unusual for Democrats to fabricate unsubstantiated claims and pretend they are indisputable facts. But the FBI said they found no weapons among any of those arrested, detained, interviewed or just video recorded in or around the Capitol Building. They found no evidence of a coordinated conspiracy, either. If that is an insurrection, it was the first time anyone tried to overthrow any government without leadership or weapons. Some were carrying knives, or clubs, or brass knuckles. But those can also be defensive weapons. People I know who attended the protest said they were prepared to engage in brawls with ANTIFA or other leftist instigators like we have witnessed at other Trump rallies.
There is no dispute that the people on the steps to the Capitol were emphatic, angry and agitated. The protest in Washington was fomented by four years of political abuse. Washington insiders fought Trump using every tool in their war chest to undermine his agenda. They attacked his family, his friends, his business and his character. They ignored or dismissed his amazing successes, and publicly announced they would “do anything” to remove him from office. They were in effect doing everything in their power to disenfranchise anyone that supported the Trump ‘America First’ agenda. The ‘Stop The Steal’ protesters were pissed about that, and about the evidence that the election was corrupted. So the marchers went to Washington to demand an investigation before the electoral college vote was certified. They wanted it delayed for ten days, so evidence could be reviewed by the various electoral college representatives. We can argue till the cows come home about the “truth” behind their motivations, but nobody has a monopoly on the truth.
When Trump supporters asked Vice President Pence, who was presiding over the Electoral College vote certification process, for an election investigation, they were marginalized and characterized as “right wing crazies” or sore losers. No matter what evidence was presented, it was dismissed as “baseless”.
Imagine telling Black people that their perception of racism is “baseless”? Do you think that might stoke some violence? Isn’t that essentially what segregationists told blacks in Selma and Watts?
When folks take to the streets to protest racial injustice, few challenge the assumption that injustice exists. But raise the issue of election injustice and suddenly you are a traitor.
The most recent Rasmussen poll shows that 47% of voters polled think there was election fraud and nearly 30% of Democrats agree! That is not an insignificant number!
Everyone knew going into the 2020 election that much of our conventional voting process was being changed. Democrats claimed most of the changes were to accommodate COVID restrictions, but this ignores the fact that they have been pushing for unimpeded voting, any time, anywhere, without ID and even after the polls close, for years! And they have effectively legalized ballot harvesting inviting fraud, and made after-election audits nearly impossible. Democrat campaign officials didn’t help when they tweeted Biden supporters, “Don’t be concerned early on election night. It will look like Trump is winning. Just be patient.”
And we all know how serious cyber warfare has become. You would have to be naive to think major corporations like Facebook, Yahoo, Sony and First American Financial can be hacked, but voting machines connected to the worldwide web cannot? Come on, man!
If election fraud does exist, wouldn’t it be more egregious than systemic racism and police brutality? As unfair as an involuntary draft to fight in an unjust war? As repugnant as the trafficking of women and children? Wouldn’t it be equivalent to poisoning our water supply or destroying our electrical grid?
If the world-wide web was used to manipulate election results, wouldn’t that qualify as an act of war conducted and directed by forces outside of our borders? Wouldn’t anyone involved be considered accessories to that war crime?
If Trump supporters didn’t express their fear that the election was fraudulent, I would have been surprised. Look how Hillary supporters flooded the media and even used schools to tell children that the Russians interfered and helped Trump get elected. Americans never roll over and play dead.
Listening to some media and Democrat talking heads, you would think the protesters on Capitol Hill were carrying AK47s instead of American flags. Capital Police case managers made it sound like protesters were threatening to kill everyone in the building, and that Trump was leading the charge. But video evidence is that many protesters were gallivanting around like children, bumping fists with Capitol police officers and Senate attendants. Some rifled through desks and ripped down pictures on the walls, but no one threatened anyone with a weapon.
What happened was angry vandalism. That in no way qualifies as insurrection.
Don’t get me wrong, I am not justifying violence, but I am trying to illustrate how emotions can get out of hand. Using violence may make a protester a criminal, but it doesn’t make them traitors. The worst offense committed by protesters was breaking windows, trespassing, occupying a government office, and stealing some personal office supplies. In the meantime, an unidentified Capitol Police Officer pulled out a pistol and randomly shot an unarmed woman who was trapped between a dozen men, some of whom were also Capitol Police Officers. She was not threatening anyone. She was caught up in the squeeze of a crowded hallway and some over enthusiastic adventurers who were surrounded by officials. She was the only fatality recorded as a result of the breach.
I was shocked and dismayed as I watched the whole event unfold on TV. I noted that of the 100K demonstrators, only a tiny minority actually mounted the steps. In fact, as cameras panned the crowd, most were in shock just like me. No American wants to see our fellow Americans physically assault each other. I suspect there were thousands of moms and dads that watched their young black men go out into the streets of Selma and Watts, preying they didn’t get themselves killed. Knowing they had a righteous cause but fearful they may get caught up in extenuating circumstances.
I knew several folks who flew to Washington to participate, and no one was worried they might be killed. They had no expectation of destroying our democracy. All of them said they were going to support the idea that the election needed to be investigated. That they believed the Deep State was pushing Trump out and ushering a fabricated administration into the White House.
In the “Stop The Steal” march on Washington, patriotic Americans were there to restore integrity to the American voting process. They were there to protect our sovereignty, to save or Democratic Republic, not to overthrow it.
Democrats vigorously insist what they call “rioters” were there to overthrow it. By claiming the election was rigged, protesters are suggesting their administration is illegitimate, and therefore they are seditious. Because, they claim, any suggestion that the election was fraudulent has been debunked. But that is itself fraudulent, because there has not been any serious audit conducted by any third parties. They say Republicans that challenge the accuracy of the voting process have no proof. But at this point Democrats have no proof it wasn’t corrupted, either. It makes no rational sense for autocrats to block bipartisan investigations of election corruption. It is in every American’s best interest to be assured that our system functions properly and provides our citizens with an accurate and fair election process. And that only qualified citizens vote and that no foreign countries influence the outcomes.
There have been some recounts, but the exact same machines were used to recount, so that doesn’t prove anything. As for cyber adulterations, no state government or federal officials have conducted any comprehensive audits. All of the court cases brought by states, or by individuals, were dismissed before the evidence was examined, mostly on legal process shortcomings, not based on any evidence. Not one court in America has actually allowed evidence to be submitted and properly vetted.
Politicians occasionally need to be reminded, they are not Aristocrats or Royalty. They are nothing more than the people’s representatives. If and when they begin to act autonomously, they must be stopped. We use our election system to do that. Should the election system become corrupted, the only other method for Americans to take back their government is petition and assembly. Or if that is throttled by government fiat, then and only then, revolution.
Benjamin Franklin, while walking out of Independence Hall at the conclusion of the Constitutional Convention in 1787, was asked, “Well Dr. Franklin, what have we got, a Republic or a Monarchy?”
He responded somewhat sarcastically, “A Republic, if you can keep it.”
He knew instinctively that the nature of a citizen managed government would be an experimental work in progress. And he also knew that powerful interests, land barons and old family financial conglomerates would never relinquish their control. At least not without a fight.
The history of America is defined by violence and conflict. But in the end, it is the people of America that demand it’s government recognize who they work for. The march on Washington on January 6th was a warning shot across the bow of the Beltway’s Ship of Fools.