You need to take six minutes now and watch this. This will send chills down your spine and make your hair stand on end. This is a Lincoln Project video made in January of 2022 to commemorate the one year anniversary of January 6, 2021. LP decided not to air it because it was too “on the nose,” according to Rick Wilson. But Wilson posted it today because Trump has in fact done what Wilson aka Rickstradamus said he would do, which is to rebrand January 6 into a heroic day when patriots sought to retain a lawful government. This is what Trump is doing. Just a few days ago he spoke of the “horribly and unfairly treated January 6 hostages,” the ones he calls “unbelievable patriots.” Unbelievable, yes, patriots, no. With Trump’s reframing of that dreadful day, this video makes complete sense.
In Trump’s era, there are two primary kinds of analytical perspectives.
The first, the “Normie Normalcy” viewpoint, is prevalent in the Republican party at scale. You’ve seen it before: “Take him seriously, but not literally.” “It’s just Trump being Trump.” “He’ll have people around him who won’t let him do anything too crazy.” “He’s just responding to the base.” “It’s just for show.” “Don’t worry, [Respectable Republican leader] will keep him under control.” “There are laws, guidelines, institutions, and norms that even Trump won’t bypass.” “Hey, we’ve got to win…we can’t without him…” “He’s better than Biden.”
The second and vastly more pernicious perspective is that Trump represents something good, that the corrupt ideal of Western liberal representative government has had its run, and that Trumpian nationalism (Christian, mostly, but also jack-boots-and-camps nationalism) and statist populism with a charismatic Strong Man at the helm is a necessary cure for a decadent America. This second is amplified by a MAGA media enterprise from Fox on down.
I told you from the beginning, in the dark days of 2015, that the first take was a comfortable lie. The institutional and legal framework that should protect America from an autocratic and unstable man like Donald Trump was always more fragile than we hoped. We were always more liable to the Black Swan failure modes because the deep normalcy bias about how power and politics work in America was wrong. Some people want to burn it all down, and they support Trump with a ferocious passion.
Nearly everyone got it wrong about Trump’s nature from the start. Now, they’re stacking the errors higher, concatenating the fault model by saying, “Oh, everyone already knows X about Trump…and Biden is so old,” with X being whatever the latest madness, cruelty, criminality, excess, or political arson he commits and “so old” being the latest attempt at both-siding the fate of our republic. […]
Back to the video above.
What we thought in the spring of 2022 was an overly broad but beautifully delivered dark and satirical monologue is the kind of thing you can see on any conservative news channel today.
It’s the rhetoric coming in every Trump speech, as the mob that attacked our sacred elections is reframed as a cadre of heroic patriots. Trump called the men and women who attacked the Capitol “…the horribly and unfairly treated January 6th hostages” and then said, “They were unbelievable patriots.”
They weren’t patriots, but their actions, and his, are all too believable.
I agree with Rickstradamus. I, too, have been calling Trump’s shots and have never been wrong. You don’t need to be a seer or even particularly wise. You just need to connect the dots that you see in front of you every single day. I knew beyond any shadow of a doubt that Trump would not simply turn over command to Biden. Michael Cohen predicted that when he testified before Congress and he doesn’t misjudge Trump’s next move, either.
My final clue was on Election Night 2020, when Trump came out into the ballroom and announced that he had won, when no such thing had been called. It was at that minute that I knew that he was going to attempt to stay in power. I knew that January 6 was coming — not the details, but that on that drop dead deadline day, when the election was certified, or before, that something explosive would happen.
Now let me share this with you. This came in the morning’s inbox to the [email protected] box.
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4:45 AM (7 hours ago) |
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Believe them when they say and show what they are.
It really is us or them.
Luckily for us, there are more of us. And we are still in a Democracy.
Depends on where you live. The South leans toward Trump. Our only hope there is to get out the Black vote. TX is so red it looks like an ER when someone has bled out. Get out the Latino vote there. The West? We must have Nevada, New Mexico,and Arizona.
There’s a P.O.S. Congress Critter from my hometown in southern Illinois who was/is a proud member of the Insurrection Caucus. A full-on Trump MAGA. He was a couple of years behind me in school so I never knew him all that well, especially since he wasn’t a ballplayer like me or in performing arts either. His older sister was a classmate of mine though and she and I were at least friends. Once upon a time at least but that changed five or six years ago too. Anyway, things have changed back there during my lifetime so you’d think he’d have no trouble getting re-elected back there, especially with the redrawn district that sliced out a lot of the “metro east” but he’s in real danger of losing his primary to someone who’s batshit crazy. As extreme a MAGA as Mike is, apparently it’s no longer enough for many folks back there! And to think that our hometown produced General John A. Logan who put his considerable personal and family reputation on the line prior to the civil war and prevented that part of Illinois from seceding! (Needless to say I won’t be attending my 50th high school reunion next year. I don’t worship the Mango Messiah and am not welcome anymore back there)
To Tom “redacted”: I’m easy enough to find. Well, a dumbass like YOU might need some help doing so. But do me a favor. When you “come for me” (like you’ve actually got the balls which you of course don’t) bring some friends. Because this ole jarhead intends to go to hell in a crowd. Back in the day I wouldn’t waste time shoving an enemy’s gun up his ass but in your case? It’d be worth the extra bit of effort.
Hey fatboy…bring your nazi ass to my door and you’ll get ur just deserts. I’m a ‘very fine’ person on the other side. Since you’re parroting every move Hitler made, I’m going to join the allies. You should find out how that went.