Trumpism lives on in Congress and the streets of Washington (1321 hits)

Trumpism lives on in Congress and the streets of Washington
Trump's efforts to steal the election extend from the Capitol to far-right's rallies.
By Talia Lavin, MSNBC Opinion Columnist

On Wednesday, a legion of far-right marchers plans to descend on the nation's capital. This isn't their first foray into Washington — in November and December, prior sorties saw white nationalists, Proud Boys, militia members and hard-core Trumpists stab bystanders, burn Black Lives Matter banners and sound ram's horns in support of the increasingly dim hope that Donald Trump will retain the presidency. But Jan. 6 is no incidental date; it's the day Congress counts the Electoral College's votes in the 2020 presidential election — a usually ceremonial endeavor that this year aligns with the overwhelming popular will of U.S. voters, who supported President-elect Joe Biden by a margin of 7 million votes.

2021 already promises more of what 2020 delivered: a shattering of the fragile ceremonies of democracy, exposing the abyssal, violent white power populism roiling below. Wednesday morning will herald a dual defense against any repudiation of Trumpism's corrosion — one in the halls of Congress, the other in the streets, where a chaotic mass of conflicting Trumpist rallies are being planned. The challenge 140 Republican members of the House and 12 GOP senators plan to mount against the results of a legitimate election is bolstering the mood — and the conspiracy-laden cause — of the far-right marchers.

The day's proceedings in the hushed, carpeted halls of the legislature, taking the form of a chorus of "nays," will yield to bear Mace and knives after dark in the open air of the capital after the Trumpist rallies officially end. The parallel events represent a fundamental shift in the order of operations of the U.S. political sphere. And no matter how much a scandal-fatigued populace might wish to pretend otherwise, the era of Trumpism will not end on Jan. 20.

The "how did we get here" element of the Jan. 6 march and its congressional parallel is long and winding, filled with perfervid conspiracy theories, stochastic incitement to violence and a creeping undermining of the democratic process. Trump's phone call to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger over the weekend, in which the president explicitly instructed Raffensperger to doctor vote totals to overturn the presidential election result in the state, is just the latest manifestation of an open war against a presidential transition that most elite pundits view, in blasé fashion, as inevitable.

That war has taken place in the courts — in a sea of spurious lawsuits, including many that baffled and aggrieved even Trump-appointed judges — and in the streets, as state capitals around the country have faced ragged, maskless crowds chanting to "Stop the Steal." It's also been accompanied by an efflorescence of online misinformation and conspiracy that has capitalized on the insular infosphere that right-wing media has created, rife with rumors of sedition and treason, which continues to feed the flames of the dying Trumpist enterprise — or perhaps to create, out of falsehood and dark intimations, an incipient Lost Cause to rally around for years to come.

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Posted By: Dea. Ron Gray Sr.
Tuesday, January 5th 2021 at 9:19PM
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