The attitude shared by most “progressives” is that the Jan 6 “insurrection” was the act of a bunch of brainless yahoos incited by a defeated President of the same caliber motivated by nothing more than their shared disdain for the wonderful, enlightened policies of the unequivocally virtuous Left. Such is the narrative of the mainstream media which never tires of publishing pictures of Trump supporter Jacob Chansley dressed in Viking headgear as evidence of the dementia of the Jan. 6 mob.
But were the insurgents all merely simpletons reacting to nothing more than the sometimes incendiary statements of Donald Trump? Or were many of them in fact decent, law abiding citizens responding to a postmodern America that seems to have lost all respect for its Enlightenment values, indeed all respect for its very history? Critical Race Theory suggests the nation’s founding fathers were not Idealists, that they in no way objected to the oppression of Blacks, indeed that the Civil War wasn’t really fought for humanitarian reasons. In the same way, America’s modern-day military actions against various foreign dictatorial monsters were always, apparently, launched out of pure self-interest. Could it be that Ashli Babbitt, military veteran, was attempting to climb through that Capitol door because she was sick and tired of seeing her country simplistically disparaged by both today’s Democrats and the mainstream media as racist, patriarchal and relentlessly malicious? Could it be the events of Jan. 6 were a reaction against the decades of abuse suffered by the “silent majority” at the hands of a “progressive” press which seemed to support the Herbert Marcuse view that Western Civilization and America in particular were the most pernicious regimes in all of History? You may think I am exaggerating, but I have stacks of newspaper clippings which share this revisionist narrative.
Almost every aspect of Jan. 6 is fraught with ambiguities utterly ignored and in some cases banished from discussion by the sanctimonious Left. A detailed analysis is beyond our present scope but here are some of the issues in question.
Trump’s own Attorney General, Bill Barr, has testified he thought his boss was detached from reality and that his election night conviction that the presidency was being stolen from him was baseless. But was it?
Some seriously bizarre momentum shifts in the 2020 election would certainly seem to justify a degree of skepticism regarding its results. In a June 19 article, Pamela Geller cites clear evidence of massive voting improprieties in several states. Dozens of other reports seem to validate her claim. An article in The Federalist by Margot Cleveland focuses on the state of Georgia which Biden carried by less than 12,000 votes. Apparently 35,000 ballots cast by individuals in counties in which they were not legally entitled to vote, were nevertheless accepted without question. Trump’s lawyers asked Georgia’s Secretary of State for a meeting to discuss not only improprieties based on residency but on a number of other issues as well. They were basically told to go to hell and the meeting never occurred.
Watch the many ranting simpletons of CNN and MSNBC and compare them to Dinesh D’Souza, informed, intelligent, and unequivocally rational. D’Souza has produced a film, “2000 Mules,” presenting graphic evidence of Democrats using hired “mules” to distribute thousands of ballots to drop boxes in various sites across the country. That this is in fact illegal was of no concern to those convinced that defeating Trump was the only thing that mattered, indeed that the Rule of Law did not apply to them.
And oh, by the way, efforts in various states to reduce the possibility of voter fraud in the future have been almost universally denounced by the Left as racially motivated; once again, the Rule of Law secondary to its sacred agenda!
A dubious corollary to the charge that the “insurrectionists” had no cause to doubt the integrity of the election, is the oft repeated notion that they were actually trying to hijack America’s Democracy. Hence media references to an “armed” insurrection, none of whose participants were actually armed with lethal weapons, along with constant references to the “deadly” events of the day, none of whose deaths were actually caused by the accused! The very essence of Jan. 6, it seems to me, was epitomized in the actions of Richard Barnett who breached the office of Nancy Pelosi and put his feet up on her desk in an expression of complete disdain. Armed with a stun gun, he has been charged with a felony which may net him 6 years in prison. I am not exonerating him of his actions, but ought putting one’s feet up on a desk to yield such a sentence while B.L.M. criminals who burned police cars and trashed various government buildings have been charged with nothing whatsoever?
Coupled with the lies that there was no evidence of fraud in the last election and that the “insurrectionists” were intent on hijacking the political process, is the equally questionable though oft repeated charge that Republicans skeptical of the integrity of the FBI and other branches of the U.S. legal establishment, are mere conspiracy theorists utterly divorced from reality. But is that true?
Various aspects of the FBI’s investigation into Trump’s so-called Russian collusion strongly suggest it was motivated not by the irrefutable nature of the evidence but by a politically based desire to derail his run for the presidency. The FBI, of course, is not entitled to act on behalf of either political party.
Feeling that the Capitol Police and FBI could very easily have foiled the events of Jan 6, and indeed that each had undercover agents in the crowd inciting violence for political reasons, several Republicans have questioned key figures such as A.G. Merrick Garland regarding the role such agents may have played in the “insurrection.” Kentucky Representative Thomas Massie suggests Garland’s repeated refusals to answer his questions on that subject were highly suspicious. Congresswoman Elise Stefanik says she is appalled that individuals such as Robert Mueller and Adam Schiff conveniently invoke the need for confidentiality when it suits their purposes. “Sorry, I can’t comment on that!” Ironically, a seemingly unbiased article by Anbush Khardori in a July, 2021 edition of Politico Magazine cites what she sees as “a troubling lack of transparency” in the D.O.J.’s approach to Jan. 6, a failing made all the more suspicious, she says, given the “dirty little secret” that that Department is more than willing to spill its guts when doing so is to its own advantage.
On Jan. 5, one Ray Epps, wearing a Trump hat, was seen to be inciting others to invade the Capitol on the 6th. For whatever reason, his behavior led some in the crowd to suspect he was an FBI plant and they began shouting”Fed, fed, fed!” He ran off. But he was back on the 6th, once again, seemingly, inciting violence. While approximately 500 people were arrested in the days following the “insurrection,” Epps was never charged at all. This has led many Republicans to conclude that he was in fact an FBI agent. Perhaps an article in The Washington Post by Greg Sargent best epitomizes the Left’s disdain for the very suggestion that the FBI would ever stoop to such tactics. Calling the notion that the legal establishment is in any way corrupt, one of the “ugliest lies” promoted by the Right, Sargent simply ignores the many questions raised by the Russian collusion inquiry. As evidence of Epps’ innocence, he cites his denial before the Jan. 6 commission that he was in any way affiliated with the FBI. For Sargent, apparently, an accused declaring his innocence is incontrovertible evidence that he is not in fact guilty! Absurd!
Epps has not been charged, we are told, because he did not enter the Capitol. But is not inciting violence a criminal offense? Sargent argues we have no way of knowing what Epps was whispering in the ears of his listeners. Apparently he showed up at the Capitol on both the 5th and the 6th wearing a Trump hat in an attempt to quell the insurrection! While I find this hypothesis absurd, I have no way of knowing the truth. But what I do know is that the Left and its media minions are utterly incapable of dealing with such issues with any degree of objectivity, any degree of honesty. And of course that majority of the population which congratulates itself on its “progressive” values would never think of questioning biased media drivel that re-affirms those very values..
Hence the sad fact that a tee shirt featuring Ashli Babbitt has been “cancelled” by both Sears and Kmart due to widespread public disapproval. I am not exonerating her of her crime, but I have far more respect for her than either the woke simpletons who assailed Sears and Kmart with their outrage or those two companies for succumbing to their whining. Babbitt was no doubt motivated, however foolishly, by what she saw as her patriotic duty. She lost her life at the hands of a panicking young Capitol officer who shot her with little rational justification. That two mainstream companies now deem her unworthy of any sympathy whatsoever is but another indication of the unconscionable bias and fundamental dementia of our contemporary culture, a culture, ironically, that prides itself on its compassion.