A tower of lies
Republicans are now pushing the fiction that the attack on the Capitol was no big deal
It’s really hard to keep up with them, isn’t it? First, there was the lie that the Big Lie isn’t a lie at all – they’re sticking with the fiction that the election was stolen and that Trump is the real winner. Then there was the lie that Trump didn’t inspire or instigate the attack on the Capitol on January 6. Now they’re adding new lies to the pile: What happened at the Capitol was no big deal, the riot wasn’t led by Trump supporters, and all the violence was caused by Antifa and fake Trump protesters.
It’s all over right-wing media and conspiracy websites, this new revisionist history. Tucker Carlson was on his show last week claiming the assault on the Capitol wasn’t “an armed insurrection,” and that Democrats are engaged in a “relentless and coordinated campaign” to blame the riot on Republicans. Fox News host Maria Bartiromo claimed on her show that Democrats didn’t call witnesses at the Senate impeachment trial because they were afraid Nancy Pelosi would be asked “what she knew and when.”
Laura Ingraham has used her show to spread rumors that the rioters weren’t right-wing Trump supporters but rather fake protesters bent on discrediting the president. Right-wing Florida Congressman Matt Gaetz stood on the floor of the House just hours after the attack ended and claimed that the attack on the Capitol had been launched by “members of the violent terrorist group antifa.” Ron Johnson of Wisconsin took his time at a Senate hearing last week to read into the record a piece of pure fiction published by the right-wing website The Federalist that “fake Trump protesters” stormed the Capitol and were to blame for violence against Capitol police.
In fact, of the more than 270 people arrested and charged in the violence at the Capitol, none have been confirmed to be associated with any left-wing groups. Dozens of those arrested are affiliated with right-wing groups like the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers, and those charged with organizing and planning the attack are leaders in both right-wing groups.
Folks, we’re in yet another of those “who you gonna believe, me or your lyin’ eyes?” moments. We should have known we’d end up right here because the whole thing can be blamed on Donald Trump, a man who constructed his entire life on a tower of lies. I was trying to figure out the other day when Trump seized on telling lies as the way he was going to get ahead in life, and it must have been when he lied about how many stories there were in Trump Tower and got away with it. He put up a building with 58 stories and declared it was 68 stories tall. That number can be found in Trump Tower promotional material and in Google searches for news stories about the building to this day.
So why not lie about everything else? When you can tell a lie that defies physical measurement not to mention mathematics, why not just go for it and call your record on COVID, which has killed 500,000 Americans, one of your greatest accomplishments as he did in his CPAC speech on Sunday?
Republicans have been paying close attention to Trump, because they’re not only lying along with him, they’re adding to his lies every day. Now it appears that we’ve reached an apotheosis of sorts with the lies they’re spreading about January 6. Videos of what happened at the Capitol that day have been played hundreds of times on cable television. They were played at the Senate impeachment trial. They’re all over Twitter and Facebook and everywhere else online. Today FBI Director Christopher Wray appeared before a Senate hearing and confirmed that the attack on the Capitol was an act of “domestic terrorism” carried out by “what you would call white supremacist domestic terrorists” who “assaulted law enforcement officers…and used violence to interfere with the lawful operation of our government.” Wray’s statement was about as clear an assignment of blame as any law enforcement official has made to date.
But Republicans now want you to believe that you didn’t see a massive crowd of Trump supporters shouting Trump’s name as they assaulted the Capitol and fought with Capitol police and ran through its halls waving Trump flags. It’s like saying Alabama state troopers and Sheriff Jim Clark’s deputies didn’t assault civil rights marchers swinging billy clubs on horseback at the Edmund Pettus bridge injuring dozens on what became known as Bloody Sunday. The infamous event was filmed by television news crews and appeared on news programs for days after the assault.
That was then, when racists and white supremacists didn’t think they could get away with simply denying that what you saw with your own eyes actually happened. The busted heads and blood at the Edmund Pettus bridge were real, not a figment of your imagination.
But this is now. You were just dreaming!It wasn’t us! It was those nasty leftists! We didn’t attack any cops! We were just funnin’ around! Blue lives matter! What about her emails!
Trump’s tower of lies is getting taller and taller every day. Just watch as Republicans keep piling them on.
What’s going on here is not complicated.
Think of this entire situation as a civil war, a clash between two civil societies.
On the one side, the old society of racism and sexism, the society where whites are on top, men are on top, straights are on top. We are all familiar with the old society.
On the other side, we have the new society of diversity and equal rights, where everyone has equal power and equal standing.
The January 6 Trump Rioters fall into guess which category.
Notice that the Republican pollsters always talk about the demographic of “White males with no college degree” for example. The Senate is tilted towards rural states, that’s why it’s easier to keep it Republican.
Obviously, white males and rural people are predominately old social order.
The old social order wants to keep things as they were in the past. And they don’t want to take responsibility for it. Everybody in the world can see that the January 6 Riot is Trumpsters and old society adherents. But those people think they are the kings. They think they come first. They think anything non-white comes second. So who are they going to blame for problems in society, even problems that they themselves caused? They are going to blame BLM, antifa, progressives, Pelosi and Biden and Kamala Harris et al for their problems. Those are the forces and the people which are destroying their old social order.
They are enraged. They are deluded, making up all kinds of fantasy stories. They are actively actively actively engaged in voter suppression of those diversity groups, so that their old system can stay in power via elections.
There is no mystery here. The old social order of racism and sexism and anti-gay society is dying, and the Republicans and Trump and QAnon and everybody in that old order is fighting to keep it alive, making up any excuses that they can in the process.
The lies are just the ranting of sick minds. The old social order is like an insane asylum. Racism, sexism, misogyny, anti-gay and anti-Jewish values and beliefs, are illnesses. They rot your mind. They make you spew that rot in your depraved mutterings.
Let’s just welcome in the new society. It’s a beautiful thing. 🏳️🌈
I asked my Congressman Greg Steube, FL-17, who is a Big Lie proponent, to get me the corporate and regional addresses and cell numbers of ANTIFA...crickets.
I only want the staffers to lie on a regular basis...see if politics is their chosen profession.