The Twilight of Democracy-Thoughts on January 6th Insurrection

 THE TWILIGHT OF DEMOCRACY

THOUGHTS ON THE JANUARY 6TH INSURRECTION

What was the next stage following a successful Insurrection?

Imagine the Trumpists occupying the Capitol, with security forces stymied from removing them because they held the entire Congress hostage... including the three next in line to the presidential succession, Pence, Pelosi, and the President Pro Tem of the Senate. Threatening execution of all, and tossing their bodies out the windows one by one, should any attempt be made to remove them by force. What a scenario! Who would have accepted such a crazy fictional scenario before January 6th?

Meanwhile, Trump, sitting in the Oval Office, would go on TV and declare a State of Emergency, declaring (upon no legal authority) that he continued as Acting President (for life?), and ordering the armed forces, as the Commander in Chief, to stand down. More than a constitutional crisis..... the end of American democracy.

This was how Hitler and the Nazis came to power in Germany. In response to the Reichstag Fire (we still don't truly know the origins of that), the Reichstag declared a state of emergency, giving the Chancellor (Hitler) extraordinary powers until the end of the emergency. All other political parties were "temporarily" suppressed. Security forces rounded up Socialists, Commies, any other suspected terrorists, and sent them off to prison. Hitler ruled via these temporary emergency powers until his death in the bunker in 1945.
It could happen here....

The GOP is already rewriting the history of the Insurrection via the Big Lie that Trump won the 2020 election and that Biden is an illegitimate president. A New Lost Cause Myth is taking shape saying those who stormed the Capitol were true patriots protecting American democracy from an illegal takeover by Dems. False history works. The South lost the Civil War, but won the peace, by rewriting the history of what the South fought for (it was all about states' rights!) and the history of Reconstruction (a shameful period of misrule by ignorant former slaves!).

People should read my obscure book, "Radicals in Power," about how some of the New Left focused on taking power at the local level.... the origin of Bernie, among others. That's what the Radical Right is now in the process of doing....

.... while America sleep walks toward the death of democracy....

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