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Thread/ Let’s be clear. This was never ever not going to happen. Not when Reagan eviscerated all public spending and accused anyone who questioned this a communist. Or when he started the death by a thousand budget cuts 1/
of our sacred covenant that every citizen deserves a good education and a decent change at a decent life. It was never not going to happen when Timothy McVeigh and his accomplices bombed the Federal Building in Oklahoma City. 2/
Not when the NRA called ATF agents “jack-booted thugs.” Not when oops, the anti-choice language about murder led to the killings of several doctors at clinics. Not when Bush and Cheney and Rumsfeld chose fascist language like “Homeland Security” to exploit 9/11 3/
to stir up a phony hysterical patriotism and send our guys out to a forever war with no consequences. . It was not going to not happen when Obama was re-elected and Bill O’Reilley called it “the end of white America or when Glenn Beck said that if you 4/
take away our guns it will be 1776 again, or when the Tea Party gathered to claim that healthcare was an attempt to take away our precious freedoms. Not when words like sedition and treason started getting used on the floor of the house and the senate to describe 5/
legitimate differences of opinion about policy. When white rioters spit in the face of John Lewis. It was never not going to happen when the “Oathkeepers” took their racist version of justice to the border with impunity 6/
or when we callously looked the other way for children being torn from their parents’ arms and locked in cages. Or when Cliven Bundy faced off against federal officers in Nevada and then his son in Oregon also with impunity 7/
. From the minute Donald Trump first declared himself a candidate it was never not going to happen. 8/
Oh, and let’s be clear about this too. This was premeditated. Not only by Donald Trump. No single person can get us here on his own. There are always expanding concentric circles of facilitation helping this sort of thing gain steam. 9/
I’d love to be a fly on the wall in whatever batcave Steve Bannon and Stephen Miller are currently sniggering away in. The civilian staff at DOD got swapped out a mere weeks before inauguration and replaced with loyalist hacks. 10/
And who needs DOD permission to call in the National Guard? Washington DC.
The head of the Proud Boys found his way into the White House for a private meeting with the President just weeks ago. This was premeditated. 11/
The head of the Proud Boys found his way into the White House for a private meeting with the President just weeks ago. This was premeditated. 11/
But they made some mistakes. I think they were assuming the police would be with them and yes, the police were. That’s what explains the absolutely shameful lack of preparedness for what was so obviously going to happen. But ultimately, I don’t think the police will stand 12/
with them, not when the bullets start to fly. And bullets are gonna fly tonight. They assumed the military would be with them and many of them as individuals are. But as a coherent and highly disciplined force, they are not. And the officer corps most certainly aren’t. 13/
Our military lives for honor and order. The military will not go with them. I think they assumed there’d be more loyalists on the floor of the congress who’d egg this all on once it started. But of course they were behind the President because they had no backbone. 14/
Why would they develop a backbone now? In one sense Trump was right. We will not take our country back with weakness. We need to meet strength with strength. I know that for Trump “strength” means physical violence, but we are not so simple minded as all that. 15/
Strength can mean many things, MOST of which have nothing to do with violence. There will have to be consequences. Dire consequences. All these felons are on the public record. Breaking in, looting, terrorizing. Their intent is on record on Twitter and Parler. 16/
PROSECUTE THEM. Censure the rebel legislators. They are just as responsible for all this as Trump. They need to be censured as severely as is possible. 17/
Disbar the provoking, prevaricating attorneys who have deliberately misled and and fictionalized their way into the courts, making a mockery of the rule of law. 18/
Deplatform and prosecute the instigators. All of them. The promotion of propaganda can no longer be tolerated. The First Amendment is well known not to ensure your right to “yell fire in a crowded theater.” Well, this sure looks like yelling fire on the crowded 19/
steps of the capital building. Make DC a state. It is a mockery that this city that is so important to us and so full of good people who deserved not to have to be taxed and coerced without representation. And they certainly should not have to ask permission of DOD staff, 20/
well known civilian political hacks, to bring in the national guard to defend their citizens and monuments. Impeach the President. Or invoke the 25th Amendment. He is a menace and an enemy of the public good. He has well crossed the line. Impeach him now, today,21/
as soon as you get back to the floor together. This is just the beginning. This is not going away any time soon. This took generations to happen and it will take generations to change. We will need to be very brave. People will die. That’s not melodrama. 22/
The guns are out now. Things have been set in motion that cannot be reversed. Suck it up and be ready. We are heading for even bigger trouble. /end/
