In the Spirit of Jefferson Davis (part five)

 

Part five.

 

Early in his Presidency, Trump picked Retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn as his first National Security Advisor, and he did so despite being warned by former President Obama and ranking members of the US Intelligence community warning that Flynn was up-to-his eyeballs in National Security risks.

 

Flynn didn’t even last a full two months, he holds the record of being the shortest-serving in that post in US history. He resigned in disgrace in 2017 after he was caught lying to Vice-President Mike Pence about his associations with Russian officials. He became one of the people the Russian Investigation most focused on and, before that year was out, pled guilty twice to lying to the FBI about his Russian relationships and other questionable foreign associations. Federal Judge Emmet Sullivan told Flynn in 2018, “You sold your country out.”

 

In early 2020, Flynn would hire Attorney Sidney Powell, later a key player in the post-Election chaos, and withdrew the plea. Trump and Powell were in close communication and Powell influenced Trump put pressure on AG Barr, and Barr then directed the DoJ to drop all charges against Flynn, not the first time he disgraced himself by politicizing Federal Law Enforcement on Trump’s behalf. The Judge on the case was highly dubious of the DoJ’s eleventh-hour move, but the Judge’s umbrage became a moot point when Trump pardoned Flynn just weeks after it was clear he’d lost the election. By then, Flynn had become prominent in RWN circles, was a leader in the QAnon community, and a big-booster of the Big Lie.

 

On December 1^st, Flynn went on Twitter urging Trump to declare Martial Law and re-conduct the 2020 election. “Freedom never kneels except for God.”

 

The same day, on Parler, Lin Wood wrote, “Our Country is headed towards Civil War … Trump must follow the precedent of Abraham Lincoln and Declare Martial Law.” It should be noted, Lincoln declared Martial Law during an on-going, Civil War, not because of the threat of one, and took no militaristic actions regarding any election, including his own re-election during that same war. Moreover, those calling for Martial Law in 2020 were also those threatening to start, not trying to avoid, a Civil War.

 

Also on this day, AG Barr, repeatedly tasks by Trump to do so many things that politized the DoJ, and specifically tasked with proving the non-esistant voting fraud, finally, publiclly, admitted there was no evidence of it.

 

By this point, in Georgia, the Election Officials who had been largely been Republican and Trump supporters before Election Day had thrown their lives into a hell of harassment and threats, directed not only at themselves but their families, had had enough.  One of them, Gabriel Sterling, held an emotional press conference in which he appealed directly to the still defiant, Trump, "Stop inspiring people to commit potential acts of violence. Someone's going to get hurt. Someone's going to get shot. Someone's going to get killed."

 

On the 5^th, two months after the arrests in the plot to kidnap the Governor of Michigan, and two weeks after the State Certified Biden’s win there, dozens of armed protesters surrounded the home of Michigan Secretary of State, Jocelyn Benson, “Stop the Steal.” Activist Genevieve Peters streamed the event of Social Media with the caption that was loaded with mispellings, “Michiganders head to Secretary of States Jocelyn Benson’s HOUSE in dead of night to let her know: WE AIN ‘T TAKING THIS CORRUPT ELECTION!! FORENSIC AUDIT PERIOD!” And she stated in the video, "We will not stand down, we will not stop, we will continue to rise up, we will continue to take this election back for the president that actually won it by a landslide. This is not over. It is far from over – in fact, it's just beginning."

 

Benson described the incident this way, "As my four-year-old son and I were finishing up decorating the house for Christmas on Saturday night, and he was about to sit down to watch ‘How the Grinch Stole Christmas,’ dozens of armed individuals stood outside my home shouting obscenities and chanting into bullhorns in the dark of night.

 

“Their threats and their attacks are aimed at the heart of democracy itself, trying to erode the public's confidence in the democratic process, trying to sow seeds of doubt among everyone that their votes counted, that their voices were heard, that the results of the election are accurate."

 

Another important even happened the same day. In desperation, Trump got on the phone with the Governor of Georgia, Brian Kemp, who was been a Trump supporter before election, and pressured Kemp to “find” more of votes for himself. That call was made public within hours and is now part of a criminal investigation against Trump. Part of the absurdity here is that, even if Kemp had caved to Trump, and broken the law him, Trump would’ve still needed to “find” votes in several other states to avoid defeat.

 

On the 6th, there was a pro-Trump rally in Des Moines, Iowa, Michael McKinney, a twenty-five-year-old White male and fan of the Proud Boys, approached a car with four Black teenage girls, pulled handgun and opened fire. He wounded a fifteen-year-old girl and was quickly captured.

 

On the 7^th, Ali Alexander became more famous still after Tweeting that he was, “willing to give my life for this fight,” and quickly the Arizona Republican Party chose to share the post, adding, “He is. Are you?”

 

Tuesday, December 8^th, 2020, was, under Federal law, Safe Harbor Day. It comes from the Electoral Count Act of 1887, which attempted to resolve the issues of a disastrous, fraud-ridden, Presidential Election that unfolded less than a generation after the end of the Civil War. Up to that point, Trump’s frivolous lawsuits had to all be taken, exhausting, seriously, but after Safe Harbor Day, Judges were more empowered to throw the suits out with fewer proceedings.

 

In 2000, the Safe Harbor Rule was essential part of the SCOTUS decision stopping the Vote Count in that heavily contested (but contested without violence) Presidential Election, where the problems with Election procedure were obvious to all, the recount was unfinished, the apparent Electoral winner clearly lost the popular vote, and the margins were razor thin. None of these things were true in 2020.

 

Yet Trump’s team remained defiant. In a joint statement, Trump Attorneys Giuliani and Jenna Ellis stated, "Despite the media trying desperately to proclaim that the fight is over, we will continue to champion election integrity until legal vote is counted fairly and accurately."

 

 

On the 9^th, Blogger Andrew Anglin, not only a White Nationalist, but a full-on Neo-Nazi, advertised the second Million MAGA March (scheduled for the 12^th) on the Daily Stormer website. “There is nothing you could be doing that could be more important than this.”

 

The Proud Boys pledged their presence at the same event the next day.

 

On the 11^th, as part of their promotion of the rally, the Proud Boys of Philadelphia shared violent threats, including a meme that read, “SHATTER THEIR TEETH.” 

When the rally took place on the 12th, Trump triumphantly flew over the scene in a helicopter on his way to the Army/Navy Football game. White Nationalist Nicholas Fuentes led the crowd in a chant of “Destroy the GOP!” Conspiracy Masturbater and multi-millionaire pillow salesman Mike Lindell stated, “The Republicans out there that were cowards, now’s your chance. We’re not going anywhere and you better stand up.” Before the night is over, several people are stabbed, and the Proud Boys vandalized four Black churches and their leader, Enrique Tarrio would eventually be arrested related to this. Meanwhile Oath Keepers’ leader Stewart Rhodes again called on Trump to invoke the Insurrection Act, adding that failure to do so would result in a “much more bloody war.”

On the 13th, an online “Enemies List” of Politicians, Cyber Experts, and Election Officials who didn’t support Trump’s Big Lie begins to circulate on Social Media. The FBI eventually traced it back to Iranian Intelligence, apparently seeing the USA as weakened, and encouraging further violence to further their own ends.

 

 

On the 14th, Right-wing pseudo-news outlet One America News ran a video “Exclusive: Stop The Steal Organizers Discuss Reelection Efforts.” Its voiceover stated, “Supporters of President Trump are continuing to fight for four more years, storming the nation’s capital to participate in dueling rallies.” OAN also shared a statement from Boris Epshteyn, a Trump 2020 Campaign Adviser, that the fight against Biden’s election would continue “through January 6^th.”

 

 

December 15^th, 2020, was the day the Electors in State Capitols across the country cast their votes in the Electoral College to formally confirm Biden. Those results were then sent to Washington D.C. to be formerly certified before a joint Session of Congress on January 6th. In D.C, Senate Majority Leader McConnell, who never made a public statement explicitly supporting the Big Lie, tried to pull the plug on it once and for all, "Today I want to congratulate President-elect Joe Biden." When the Senator Majority Leader, from the opposing party, publicly acknowledged Biden’s victory should’ve been the end of this, just like Safe Harbor Day this should’ve been the end of this.

 

Of course, it wasn’t.

 

That day, Lin Wood Tweeted, “Better safe than sorry. Make sure you have PLENTY of water, food, flashlights & batteries, candles, radio, 2nd Amendment supplies, & a plan to meet with leaders of your communities.”

 

 

The Three Percenters are one of the nation’s oldest and largest anti-government Militia groups, though they are so fractious they should really be seen as several separate organizations with the same name. They take that name from an assumption, that only three percent of the Colonists of the original Thirteen Colonies fought against the British during our War of Independence. On the 16^th, The Three Percenters - Original issued a statement:

 

“We stand ready and are standing by to answer the call from our President should the need arise that We The People are needed to take back our country from the pure evil that is conspiring to steal our country away from the American people. We are ready to enter into battle with General Flynn leading the charge. We will not act unless we are told to. And we will not act on our own as TTPO, but rather as a united body of American patriots.”

 

December 17^th, proved a particularly important day for fermenting anti-Democratic Revolution.

 

Ron Watkins, co-creator of the extremist bulletin Social Media site 8chan, and broadly believed to be the original “Q” of QAnon, urged Trump to “cross the Rubicon.” He was referring to Julius Caesar’s army crossing of the Rubicon River in 49 BCE, intent on destroying the Roman Republic, and installing Caesar as Emperor; this act triggered a bloody Civil War. Only a few days later, Arizona GOP Chair Kelli Ward (likely responsible for the endorsement of Ali Andrews inflammatory statements of December 7^th) started using the same language.

 

Leaders of the Women for America First, one of the largest and best organized of the pro-Trump groups, essential in organizing several of the above-mentioned rallies, visited a gun-training school near Nashville. They posted a video of themselves, Jennifer Lynn Lawrence, Kylie Jane Kremer, Dustin Stockton and Amy Kremer posing with rifles. This was picked up by the website Tactical Response with the tagline, “We teach good people to kill bad people.”

 

 

Federal Representative Paul Gosar of Arizona claimed on Twitter, without a shred of supporting evidence, that 700,000 votes were compromised in his State and that Trump had actually won. He tags Ali Alexander in his post.

 

White House Staffer Peter Navarro released a 36-page document outlining Trump’s case for the Big Lie. It is met with derision. Journalist Philip Bump wrote, “This might be the most embarrassing document created by a White House staffer.” Bump noted that in the footnotes, Navarro cited the Right-wing pseudo-news outlet Epoch Times more than The Washington Post and the New York Times combined. “In fact, he celebrates his reliance on biased and flawed sources of information:

 

“‘From Steve Bannon’s War Room Pandemic and John Solomon’s Just the News to Raheem Kassam’s National Pulse, to Newsmax, and One America News Network,’ Navarro writes, ‘Americans hungry for facts and breaking developments have been able to find such critical information only by following this alternative coverage.’”

 

Speaking of Newsmax, they had Michael Flynn as their guest this very day, and he repeated him call for Trump to declare Martial Law. His language was odd, saying he wasn’t advocating it, but that was exactly what his prescription entailed. He said, Trump, “could immediately on his order seize every single voting machine in the country [overriding State Laws, State Courts, Federal Laws, and Federal Courts] … He could also order, within the swing states, if he wanted to, he could take military capabilities and he could place them in those states and basically rerun an election in each of those states … It’s not unprecedented,” he insisted Martial Law had been used dozens of times in American history.

 

This was obviously dishonest, because Martial Law had never been used before to reverse the results of an election. It had been used a few times because fear of violence, or quell violence, it was usually applied to deal with national disasters.

 

This grotesquery been scarier when disgraced and convicted Flynn was welcomed into the White House by Trump himself, where he made his case before the most powerful lame-duck, head-of-State on the planet. Trump was clear toying with “crossing the Rubicon.”

On the 19^th, Trump Tweeted about the upcoming, January 6^th, joint session of Congress that was a usually only a pro forma event.  “Statistically impossible to have lost the 2020 Election … Big protest in DC on January 6th. Be there, will be wild!”

 

I’d argue that he was already, publicly, calling for a violent insurrection, but that Tweet, and especially the phrase, “Be there, will be wild!” will prove special. That Tweet alone could not bring criminal charges down on his head, but it is important evidence, and there was far more to come.

 

Ali Alexander was at a rally in Arizona the same day and bragged that he was get a call from “people from the White House.” He also hinted at using violence against Republicans in Congress who did not fight to overturn election results.

 

And Kylie Jane Kramer of Women for America First launched a new website to organize January 6^th attendance. “The calvary (sic) is coming, Mr. President!”

 

 

On the 21^st, incoming Representative Madison Cawthorn says at a conference hosted by Right-wing Turning Point USA, “call your congressman and feel free — you can lightly threaten them. Say: ‘If you don’t support election integrity, I’m coming after you. Madison Cawthorn’s coming after you. Everybody’s coming after you.’”

 

 

On Christmas Day, Ali Alexander continued to urge people to attend the January 6^th rally, and even register their attendance at WildProtest.com, which name is borrowed from Trump Tweet of the two weeks earlier. That brand new platform included a clip of Trump declaring, “We will never give in. We will never give up, and we will never back down. We will never ever surrender.”

 

On the 29^th, Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio writes on Parler his group would be in DC on January 6^th in record numbers, but will be “incognito” and “will spread across downtown D.C. in smaller teams.” He also complains about DC Hotels closing their doors in fear of the influx of violent insurrectionists. (Trump owned a financial struggling hotel in DC, it stayed open for the rioters, but jacked up their room-rates from less-than $500 an night to about $8,000, and later bragged that requests for in-room dining were record breaking).

 

Ali Alexander claimed he was involved in the planning of the January 6^th protests with Federal Representatives Andy Biggs, and Mo Brooks, and Paul Gosar.

 

Built into our system is the ability for the Congress to challenge the Electoral Vote even on the day of its Certification and force a debate before the official count can take place. By design, getting that challenge off the ground is complicated, because though these objections are supposed to be to about assuring the system’s integrity, they are generally used only in the service of partisan hackery. To force the debate, current members of both Houses of Congress have object to the Certification in writing. By December 30^th, Representative Mo Brooks and Senator Josh Hawley had done so, and they would not be the last to sign on. They both cited Trump’s groundless fraud claims. This action would prove essential to the coming attempted Coup, firstly by creating an illusion of legitimacy to Trump’s fantasies, and secondly by slowing the process down, allowing the attackers to get in place.

 

On the same day, Representative Gosar confirmed he would be part of the January 6^th pro-Trump protest for the sake of “the rest of America,” and that he would “fight back against the leftists who’ve have engaged in sedition to run a Technology Coup.”

 

And on New Year’s Eve, the Terrorist Group the Oath Keepers shared some details of their January 6^th pro-Trump protests and Senator Josh Hawley issues a fundraising email amplifying his stance against Certifying the results of the election.