They're white, they're racist, and they're stupid

More disgusting news about Trump's disgusting people

Bring on the stupid: Trump’s people recording their crimes

You’ve seen the footage from the assault on the Capitol on January 6.  Did you see any black people who weren’t Capitol cops or Metro police from Washington, D.C.?  I didn’t.  It was a violent riot by hundreds of violent white people, most of them men.  Did you see anyone waving flags reading “BIDEN-HARRIS”?  I didn’t either.  I saw plenty of Trump flags, several “Don’t tread on me” flags, and at least one Confederate flag being paraded through the interior of the Capitol building by a white man.

Did you hear anyone chanting “I’m for Biden” or “Vote Democratic”?  Me neither.  I heard plenty of people loudly chanting Trump’s name over and over, and “Fight for Trump,” and “Hang Mike Pence,” and “Stop the steal,” a slogan Trump himself had chanted from the podium at his rally outside the White House only a few hours earlier. 

They were Trump people who assaulted the Capitol building and beat cops with flag poles and metal pipes and stolen riot shields and even a hockey stick.  They were Trump people, every one of them, rifling through the desks of senators in the senate chamber.  They were Trump people photographing themselves and each other as they posed in Nancy Pelosi’s office and at the desk of the president of the senate. 

And boy were they stupid.  More than 400 of them have been arrested by the FBI.  Of that number, at least 45 of them were women.  How has the FBI caught them?  Well, mostly they’ve been able to identify the suspects who breached the Capitol in video footage from various sources, some of it Capitol CCTV, some police body cams, but by far the most of it came from personal electronic devices and social media accounts taken from the arrestees themselves.

Yep, you heard that right.  They filmed themselves and each other in the act of committing federal crimes, and they either saved the footage on their own phones or posted it on their social media accounts.  Federal prosecutors have cited this evidence repeatedly in charging documents filed in federal courts around the country.  Prosecutors have also cited evidence of phone calls and other electronic communication between the insurrectionists while the attack on the Capitol was underway.  They didn’t try to hide what they were doing.  They shared photos of themselves inside the Capitol while they were there.  They sent text messages.  They used Snapchat.  They used WhatsApp.  They posted live videos on Facebook.

Who were these fools, and why did they attack the Capitol?  Well, most of them had been to Trump’s rally on the Ellipse and were responding directly to his incitement. But the roots of the rage they expressed on January 6 by assaulting police officers and wreaking havoc on the Capitol building and stealing items from the floor of the senate and congressional offices ran deep.  They were racists.  That’s what explains the violence:  racism.

A group called the Chicago Project on Security and Threats (CPOST) published a study this week of 377 of those arrested in the Capitol attack.  The group combed through arrest records and court charging documents and analyzed the demographics of the home counties of the arrestees and determined that many of them came from counties that have experienced significant declines in their white populations recently.  They come from counties where populations of non-whites are growing the fastest. 

CPOST conducted two surveys in February and March, including a survey by the National Opinion Research Council, attempting to understand the roots of the rage of those arrested in the attack on the Capitol.  They found the greatest driver of the insurrectionists’ rage was fear of “The Great Replacement,” a popular right-wing theory that white populations are being overwhelmed by immigration and high birth-rates among non-white people.  This is the theory cited by the torch-wielding mob in Charlottesville in 2018, of whom Trump was so fond, who paraded around a statue of Robert E. Lee shouting, “Jews will not replace us” and other racist slogans.

Not since the days of lynchings and the KKK have we seen such a willingness among American citizens to openly identify themselves not only as racists, but as violent racists bent on a form of revenge against the forces which threaten them as we’ve seen in Charlottesville, among racist hate groups like the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers, and now on January 6, in the violent mob of Trump supporters at the Capitol.  

They not only assaulted the seat of our nation’s government, they filmed themselves doing it! They didn’t just shout slogans supporting a Confederate general in Charlottesville, they did it carrying flaming torches, long a symbol of racism and hate.

They wanted to be seen.  They wanted to be known.  And it’s clear they did it because they were following Donald Trump, a man who spent the last five years loudly and proudly proclaiming who he is and what he believes.  They believe what he believes.  They are who he is – loud and proud racists and hate mongers.  Trump didn’t create these maniacs, but he let them out of their cages and encouraged them in their violence and hate.  He continued his campaign of racism and hate last week with his wink-and-a-nod comment on Fox that his followers were “waved into” the Capitol and were “hugging and kissing the police and the guards.”

Everyone, even Trump’s most fanatic followers, knows that is not true.  He’s just adding more big lies atop other big lies because he can.  And Trump’s people are following along behind him because they can. 

They’re all so stupid, it’s breathtaking.  Gaetz was stupid, chasing teenage girls and flying them around the country and using his credit cards to pay for their hotel rooms.  Trump’s people at the Capitol were stupid to record themselves in the act of committing federal crimes and keep records of it.  Trump was stupid to think that he could wish the coronavirus away and it would work.

We have entered an era when we will discover if the stupid will inherit the earth, folks.  God help us.