If you take away all the sensational drama of media's coverage of the riot it will become apparent that the uprising never had a chance to succeed. Even if the rioters had found Vice President Mike Pence, succeeded in hanging him or abducted all present members of Congress and held them hostage, what would that have accomplished? Pull up the most extreme scenario--even if the rioters had massacred all the Members of Congress--would that have resulted in Donald Trump being declared as "re-elected" president?
Of course not. Not even a total takeover of the US Capitol building would have birthed a functional government run by the insurrectionists, let alone Trump. Even if they had announced that Donald Trump shall be POTUS for four more years, would America--and the whole world--recognize him? If then "revolutionary president" Donald Trump issued an order, would the entire government apparatus lift a finger to execute his command? Would anybody?
You cannot hijack democracy to serve any purpose other than what democracy exists for. The simplest analogy for democracy are three people submitting to the rule of the majority--which is two. If two of them decide that there shall be no more democracy, ironically they just exercised it. The only way for democracy to vanish among these three is for one of them to menace the other two enough to coerce them into obeying him, out of self-preservation albeit against their will. The antithesis to democracy is authoritarianism--not partial or pseudo, not one with an iron fist behind a benevolent face--just plain good (or bad) old indefeasible thuggery. The authoritarianism must be total--totalitarianism.
Granted, in the short term a small aggressive force can launch a blitzkrieg assault--oftentimes behind a self-centered charismatic leader--against an institutional symbol of government power. The shock and awe of the initial strike could bamboozle the rest of the population into spellbound acquiescence or coerced submission. But that is just Chapter One of an uprising. The upheaval must quickly gain widespread acceptance from the general populace, or it won't persist too long. The gyroscopic dynamics of social balance will eventually catch up to the rebels and status quo ante will be restored That is why the quick agenda of all insurrection is to restrict movement, impair .communication, and put into place draconian measures to obliterate or prevent the rise of opposition. If it cannot do that quickly enough, the upheaval itself dies a natural death, its promoters possibly by firing squad.
In small banana republics hobbled by all manner of more pressing economic crises, insurrections work because government is largely irrelevant to the daily struggle for survival of the people. Most of the people lack competence to run government anyway. Therefore holding the reins of power is a mere abstraction to them. Few aspire for all-encompassing power, and even fewer mind seeing it go to the hands of the daring.
Insurrections only work in countries where there is an organized force unbound by the laws, led by a shameless leader unaffected by public disaffection towards him, and a generally-apathetic populace. They could be apathetic because they are engrossed in the daily business of survival or, as in the US scenario, because people are living comfortable lives they are loathe to disrupt.
Nevertheless, pocket riots, irrespective of magnitude, can only succeed in triggering a free society's immune response. Unless all essential elements of a true revolution can be obtained, a coup d'etat (literally a "strike against the State") can only be as impactful as a multiple-car pile up on the interstate highway, with lots of blood and carnage but otherwise only capable of holding up traffic for a few hours.
It's clear to see that true insurrection has no chance in post-modern America. Donald Trump, of course, doesn't know this because he did not school himself on politics and governance with an understanding of American history or its sociopolitical traditions. He is simply trying to copy successful despots in what he calls "shit-hole countries"--like much of the fledgling republics in Eastern Europe, especially those newly-seceded from the defunct Soviet Union.
He drools at the sight of Vladimir Putin's unfettered and limitless dictatorial powers. He envies the almost genetically-encoded loyalty of the North Koreans to Kim Jong Un. Most of all, he envied that these two dictators were accountable to nobody. So in Donald Trump's school of politics, those are the only three elements needed for a power grab: paramount force no matter if illegitimate, no accountability and a docile citizenry. Unfortunately, his taxonomy of politics does not jibe with genuine political theory.
What Donald Trump lacks none of is audacity of error. Take "Make America Great Again." This is not just random Trumpian coinage, he simply couldn't stop using the word "great" enough. It happens to be the favorite word of both of his role models. Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong Un could never profess more patriotic pride in their "great" peoples. Both of them hearken back to the halcyon days of past glory-- Putin in the old Soviet Union and Kim Jong Un in the historical myth of his ancestors' diety.
Donald Trump wanted Americans to feel sentimental about the past. History is like a grammar lesson, where you find the past perfect and the present tense. History is always remembered with fondness--even its ugly parts become precious cautionary tales. That's why Donald Trump did not find it difficult to connect with a base consisting of Americans unsatisfied with their present lives who wistfully recall the "good old days" when everything was perfect.
For Americans, this mass hallucination under the spellbinding popularity of Donald Trump lasted four years. It's lucky the term of a US president is short. It is not enough time to achieve political herd immunity from the excesses of a mad man sitting behind the Resolute Desk. With time running short, Trump had to contend with a minor seasonal inconvenience prescribed by the American Constitution--free elections.
Unfettered power he can usurp, as he has done since 2016. A docile citizenry he can finesse with Twitter. But electoral accountability--that is entirely out of his control. He cannot eliminate the institution, but he can attempt to damage its credibility to a degree that no one would object to its results being replaced by manufactured mandate.
With this framework, you can see that the American response to the Trump Insurrection is comprehensively wrong. You can arrest every participant to the siege of the US Capitol but that does not prevent the rise of another Donald Trump in the future. Treating the insurrection as a mere criminal disturbance will, no doubt, slake the public thirst for "accountability."
But that is not the kind of accountability the US Constitution endeavors to exact from the American people. The Constitution speaks of the accountability of leaders to the citizenry, no the accountability of wayward citizens to their leaders. They've got it the other way around.
The severity of the US Capitol siege notwithstanding, it did not even dent the electoral system. In fact, this system is the only safeguard that held its ground, the only guardrail that didn't give way to Donald Trump's belligerence. Everything else--abuse of executive powers, disregard for genuine public opinion, assault on press freedom and freedom of assembly, even the handicapping of the supposedly fail-safe remedy of impeachment--Donald trump simply bulldozed his way through all of these. America would do well to take stock of these aspects of democracy that were profoundly damaged by four years of silent but creeping underlying malignancy caused by Donald Trump. The repair and redemption of American democracy must focus on these quickly forgotten aspects.
For instance, America can not afford to ever allow another US President to bar any member of the press from the Whitehouse. The press can never again allow the Whitehouse to dictate the terms of public reportage. Under Donald Trump, the practice of "not taking any questions" from the media became institutional. Next time, if the president does that what media should do is withdraw ALL coverage of him. How potent of a check-and-balance is deprivation of the bully pulpit? The answer can be easily seen in how Trump's efficacy instantly plummeted to zero the very same day he was banned permanently from Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.
Wouldn't that leave the American people "in the dark" so to speak? It would and it should raise the level of public anxiety so high that THAT is what could lead to an authentic insurrection.
Presidents should fear insurrections, not start them. Ⓒ 2021 Joel R. Dizon
NOTE FROM JOEL: Hi, folks! Recently, I started a YouTube channel which is called "Parables and Reason" It is kind of similar to this blog content-wise. You can check out my channel by clicking the link below:
Joel R. Dizon - PARABLES AND REASON
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