I read all the replies to this post and they’re so terrible I can only presume that we’re all Baudrillarded now. Oh well.

I’m going to answer Bo’s question, and many more important ones Bo’d have trouble forming, with the thesis that the Capitol insurrection was _carnival._ https://twitter.com/EPoe187/status/1349863438370140166

Carnival is a tradition that comes from Christianity, and like most Christian traditions it disguises itself to adapt to our “secular” age.

Carnival is a time where the individual disintegrates into the group for a collective charade, performative dance and ritual.

However, these do not distinguish carnival from other festivals. Carnival’s essence is the collective suspension of norms and inhibitions.

Individual motives and beliefs may vary, but as a collective event carnival _inverts_ the normative order.

As a temporarily inverted normative order, carnival involves mocking authorities, absurdist costume, satire, and tomfoolery of all sorts.

Does it perhaps seem like these elements were present in the Capitol Hill events? (Again putting aside whatever the individuals (think they) were motivated by).

What makes the “terrorist threat” claim ridiculous is that the rioters _admit_ their defeat. Carnival is, by definition, temporary.

Its social function is to indulge before the belt-tightening that inevitably follows. In other words, they know fun is over under President Kamala.

Not even hardcore QAnon think politics is a game of capture the flag. It was a last hoorah of the fading Trump era.

And it doesn’t matter whether Trump or the Democrats “in fact” let the events occur; the system let them discharge to avoid future non-performative action.

How does the right see temporary normative inversion? A revolution LARP, flutes and little drummer boys. 1776!

Hence, they are not revolutionaries at all. It’s deliberate, if not conscious, that they chose the hollowest symbol of power as their stage.

We cannot understand the event’s significance without reference to the leftist equivalent, the left-wing carnival.

I’m sure it will come as a surprise that leftists have carnival all. the. fucking. time.

Leftist carnival is an inversion of the conformist, capitalist normative order, yet @WokeCapital will never run out of material. The logic of carnival: it reveals a group’s nature by allowing it to perform its opposite in well-defined times and spaces.

Just as carnival allows leftists to spend all their disposable income on consumer products, the Capitol Hill events mean rightists are relieved from the struggle for power. “Revolution? Time to grill. Hope my kid doesn’t cut his dick off, ha ha!” Indeed.

A difference is leftist carnival is built into the system as a recurring feature. Every once in awhile rightists have a tea party or LARP the civil war, but these lack the excess of carnival.

Without an approved outlet, sometimes a right winger gets a little too wound up.

Carnival is an organic mechanism the system developed to preempt threats. Trumpism is the first rightist movement since the ‘50s that posed a challenge, hence carnival.

All USG needs is to push a few unlawful entry charges and say, “let’s put it behind us.” BOOM, OC averted.

Even should leftists push harder—democracy is a death spiral, after all—rightists now just need to hold their tongues till next carnival. Football’s back, it can wait. And besides, who really wants power? It’s a hassle to get and a burden to wield.

All great events, great changes are a long time coming. Only in retrospect do they seem sudden. Depressions are born decades earlier, civilizations collapse over centuries. We'll look back at now as part of the middle ages.

But hey, might as well blow off steam in the meantime.

I forgot to mention: this seems strange because the '60s programmed us to think in terms of "protest." Protests don't exist anymore; it's all carnival. Reality will not appear transparent to us until we overthrow our useless conceptual framework.