What Would a Real Capitol Hill Riot Look Like?

American Greatness ^ | April 6, 2021 | Dan Gelernter

[Heartlander]

What Would a Real Capitol Hill Riot Look Like?

Our politicians, the media, and the unelected bureaucrats cry wolf over “domestic terrorism” without understanding that, in a real confrontation, theirs is the losing hand.

The FBI views the January 6 Capitol Hill protest as “domestic terrorism,” to quote director Christopher Wray. The bureau will work nonstop to bring those responsible to a police-state version of justice.

This included arresting Christopher Kuehne, a Missouri man who appears on security footage doing dangerous stuff like staying inside the velvet ropes and picking up garbage left by other protestors. Kuehne is a retired Marine with two Iraq deployments and a purple heart. The FBI charged him with carrying a deadly weapon, though he had none. The media falsely reported he was a member of the Proud Boys, though he is not. It appears he is being held in solitary confinement 23 hours a day without bail. His wife was kept waiting in freezing weather for hours while an FBI forensics team ransacked their home looking for “evidence.” She was pregnant and has suffered a miscarriage. That story has been effectively deleted from the internet and you won’t find it easily with a search on Google.

The FBI isn’t alone in claiming the January 6 Capitol protest was the worst thing to happen to America since 9/11. A substantial share of nominally Republican politicians has joined that chorus. Senator Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) went so far as to say that Donald Trump will have “a place in history” for the Capitol riot: “They could have blown the building up. They could have killed us all.”

When Graham says this, he knows perfectly well that he is lying. Trump asked the hundreds of thousands of Americans who came to show their support to walk with him peacefully to the Capitol. He made “peaceful” explicit. Nonetheless, every corrupt politician and newscaster in America has been able to find the violent subtext buried somewhere in Trump’s speech.

Real Incitement

Well, try this on for size: Suppose if, instead of saying “let’s walk to the Capitol peacefully,” Trump instead had said what everyone accuses him of saying. Suppose he’d said, “The election is being stolen from us and I’m not giving up power.” (Remember how the Left fantasized Trump would have to be removed from the Oval Office by force?) Suppose Trump continued: “I am calling on my supporters to defend my presidency with violence. Come to Washington. Bring your guns! Bring every weapon you can lay your hands on. Don’t let anyone stop you. No justice, no peace!”

What do you suppose would have happened then? Do you think that the only person to be shot that day would have been an unarmed protester? If Trump had one ounce of the autocratic, dictatorial tendencies the press accuse him of having, he need only have asked his supporters to defend him with force. They would have.

It’s hard to say what would have followed, but it would not have been pretty. If Trump had actually encouraged violence, the “Capitol Riot” would have been a bona fide riot. We wouldn’t be able to count the death toll on a single hand. It would take hundreds, or thousands, of hands. If Americans had come to Washington actually seeking to “kill them all,” as Graham so despicably insists, you can bet that they would have succeeded in killing at least some.

By some estimates, 1.5 million Americans showed up on January 6 to protest the theft of their right to vote. They were angry as hell, but overwhelmingly peaceful. Even with the FBI in maximum repression mode, there has been a grand total of 127 arrests. No one burned cars or besieged police stations. What, in contrast, would a million-and-a-half Antifa have done to Washington, D.C.?

Trump’s Power

It is impossible to imagine Trump asking for heads on pikes. (The Left may say they can imagine it, but they are, as usual, lying.) If Trump had asked for heads, he could have gotten them. And this is not a power he has lost, because it had nothing to do with any official button he could push or lever he could pull as president. He simply has a faithful following numbering in the tens of millions who trust he has their best interests at heart, who feel abused by the political machine, and who regard him as America’s legitimate leader.

Hundreds of thousands or even millions of Americans would have answered a call to arms from President Trump. That he never made such a call is patently obvious, most of all to the liars and blackguards who make these accusations. They feel safe to say whatever they want because they know that Trump is a vastly better man than they: Trump believes honestly (and in my view correctly) that he won reelection. He believes the most powerful office in the world was stolen from him. Yet he loves America far too much to bring it to violence on his account. His accusers know this, or else they wouldn’t dare utter a peep—because it would actually be dangerous for them.

Envy is the root of all evil, and the root of everything the Left says and does. The people who have lied and who continue to lie about January 6 can do so only because they secretly understand that Trump is a genuinely great man. He is a man who had the power to do what they can only dream of doing—and what the Bill Ayers Left does dream of doing. He had the power to inaugurate a civil war. And he still has it. He won’t use it. Everyone knows that, but almost no one is honest enough to acknowledge it. History offers few examples of men who had such power, such an inducement to act, and yet who showed such restraint.

Pushing Without Consequences?

The current administration takes a cynical view of January 6: It is their Reichstag fire. It is their Beslan school siege. They’re not actually worried about Trump supporters—Trump supporters make lousy rioters. They know that Trump supporters don’t even produce as much violence as Antifa manages on any given afternoon in Portland or Seattle. And while some politicians might have been genuinely worried for a few hours on January 6 when they evacuated the Capitol and before the facts became clear, the genuine panic is long since gone. All that remains is simulated outrage, and phony pathos.

January 6 is nothing but an excuse to attack, intimidate, and even imprison political enemies.

Which makes the Left’s attitude towards Trump supporters much like China’s attitude toward America: They believe that they can continue to push with no real consequences. It’s easy to push good people as long as you do it a little at a time. The only danger is accidentally pushing too far at once, what you might call the “Pearl Harbor mistake.” The Chinese are strategically smart enough to avoid doing that. But our politicians, the media, the unelected bureaucrats, do not necessarily understand that about Trump and his supporters. They cry wolf over “domestic terrorism” without understanding that, in a real confrontation, theirs is the losing hand. So it might be instructive for them to take a quiet moment to imagine what January 6 would have looked like if it had actually happened.

[Paladin2]

The FIB continues to Riot against Trump and the Deplorables.

[SJackson]

Is a terrorist attack good enough? Looks like this

1954 Shooting in the House Chamber

On March 1, 1954, while Members gathered on the House Floor for an upcoming vote, three men and one woman entered the visitor’s gallery above the chamber and quietly took their seats. All four belonged to the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party and only hours earlier had traveled from New York City to Washington, DC.

The United States had annexed Puerto Rico in 1898, and the island’s relationship with the federal government had long been a point of contention. Some Puerto Ricans sought to maintain their relationship with the mainland, and others, like the four visitors in the House that day, argued for an independent Puerto Rico.

The Capitol had few security protocols at the time, and the four Puerto Rican nationalists entered the gallery armed with handguns. Around 2:30 p.m. they indiscriminately opened fire onto the House Floor and unfurled a Puerto Rican flag in a violent act of protest meant to draw attention to their demand for Puerto Rico’s immediate independence.

Five Congressmen were wounded in the shooting.

Members, House Pages, and police officers quickly helped detain three of the assailants outside the gallery, while the fourth escaped the Capitol and was apprehended later that afternoon.

To commemorate the 65th anniversary of this event in 2019, the Office of the House Historian collected oral histories with eyewitnesses, including House staff, Pages, and police officers. Listen to firsthand accounts that describe the surprise attack in detail and the shocked reaction by people there that day. These stories serve as important reminders of the need to ensure the safety of the House while preserving the accessible relationship between elected Representatives and their constituents.

Learn more about this event and view full transcripts of interviewees.

[Mathews]

I watched a video of a Russian Politician watching footage of the “Insurrection.” He was laughing his azz off.

“Where are the guns? Where are the explosions? Tanks? No fire. No real fighting, no gunfire... they’re staying within the velvet ropes! Look at that! They call this an insurrection? They are afraid of these people?

He couldn’t stop laughing...

[1Old Pro]

He couldn’t stop laughing...

at Americans who are accepting this mischaracterization from the media/dems. It was minor trespass, that's all.

[right way right]

Wouldn’t have a biden destroying the country today.

I am completely disgusted with Americans for doing NOTHING!

[Chode]

keep it up...

[Bonemaker]

"Domestic terrorists..."

[T.B. Yoits]

A real riot at the Capitol would like exactly like the riots that did occur at various cities and state capitols around the country when Antifa and Communist Black Lives Matter^TM rioted on cue for their Democrat handlers and Communist China masters.

[StAnDeliver]

"Well, try this on for size: Suppose if, instead of saying “let’s walk to the Capitol peacefully,” Trump instead had said what everyone accuses him of saying. Suppose he’d said, “The election is being stolen from us and I’m not giving up power.” (Remember how the Left fantasized Trump would have to be removed from the Oval Office by force?) Suppose Trump continued: “I am calling on my supporters to defend my presidency with violence. Come to Washington. Bring your guns! Bring every weapon you can lay your hands on. Don’t let anyone stop you. No justice, no peace!”

So according to the Freeperati, Trump showed Presidential restraint -- not cowardice -- by not doing this, but Pence showed cowardice -- not restraint -- acting within his Vice-Presidential Constitutional duties just 2 hours later.

Got it.

[M Kehoe]

Ashley Babbit bump.

The killer is still free. Justice delayed is justice denied for her family.

5.56mm

[MercyFlush]

President Trump said what he said and not what anyone imagined he said.

Vice-President Pence’s duties are to preside as President of the Senate when the electoral votes are certified by Congress. The Constitution doesn’t narrowly define those duties nor was he constrained from challenging or questioning disputed electoral votes.

Just the same as a judge may poll a jury about their verdict to confirm that the verdict is indeed valid.

Pence had a chance to question the fraud and he failed.

I hope he sleeps well at night.

[Robert A Cook PE]

Bookmarked. Thank you.

[gundog]

Except that there would be bullets flying.

[apostoli]

NOW we’re talk’n!

[sarge83]

A real insurrection would have had congress critters on both sides being rounded up and probably swinging from trees as well as federal employees who got in the way. You don’t need to burn down a city to take over just remove the undesirables and when you do a real insurrection there can be no charity to the enemies of freedom. They must be dealt with and permanently removed from the equation, that would be a real insurrection. What happened on January 6th was nothing but a protest with in terms of a progressive/marxist protest almost unnoticeable violence.

An insurrection and they say that with a strait face. If that crowd had desired they could have taken out Congress easily and there would have been nothing Congress could have done to stop it.

[GOPJ]

A real DC riot - with billions of dollars worth of damage (as opposed to ONE broken window and ONE damaged door) would be done by white Antifa and black BLM and it would have idiot members of the press standing in front of burning buildings saying things like, "This demonstration is mostly peaceful"...

Pallets of bricks and weapons would be per-positioned by white liberal 'elites' as would other weapons, food, masks, and 'walking around money'.

Nancy Pelosi would be smiling and Harris would be bailing thugs out of jail as fast as she could.

That my friend would be a real riot ... billions in damage and a totally blind press... and little FBI sh*ts no where to be found....

[suthener]

From the article:

“By some estimates, 1.5 million Americans showed up on January 6 to protest the theft of their right to vote.”

That would be 1.5 million of the most heavily armed demographic in the country, maybe the world. And no one brought a gun. No, insurrection is not the correct word.

[Vaduz]

1 democrat congressmen and 1 senator in office now that a riot real funny progress ensues.

[StAnDeliver]

"Vice-President Pence’s duties are to preside as President of the Senate when the electoral votes are certified by Congress. The Constitution doesn’t narrowly define those duties nor was he constrained from challenging or questioning disputed electoral votes."

Bull.

And you know the funny part of this is -- you just don't know.

I've heard this tired, fatuous argument before: "And all Pence had to do was not knowingly certify fraudulent electors."

Where were the alternate slates of Electors with the imprimatur of both that state's legislature and signed off by that state's Governor?

And even if Pence had had that, the House and the Senate must both vote in the majority to throw out the original Electors of any challenged state's slate.

The fact that 1 Congressman and 1 Senator, can object to every electoral slate (50 states + DC) is Constitutionally not enough to actually disqualify that state's slate. The Vice President must have both the House & Senate majority votes.

There is nothing in 3 USC that allows the incumbent VP to act extra-constitutionally.

Therefore, the complaints that Freepers rage amount to the absence of any enabling Constitutional language that would have permitted Pence to act in your prescribed manner.

Therefore, what each of you glass-chewers really wanted Pence to do was errant libtard constructionalism "Living Document" a la RBG, and each of you know it.

Had your glass-crunching dream been realized in 2016, the Democrats objection to every state electoral slate starting with ALABAMA permitted VP Biden to have simply ruled every challenged electoral slate out of order and elected Hillary.

But what makes this asshattery wholly unacceptable and requires a purge of FreeRepublic, is that people like you believe Trump showed Presidential restraint -- not cowardice -- by not commanding 100,000 people to seize the Electoral-counting chambers on Jan. 6, but that Pence showed cowardice -- not restraint -- acting solely within his Vice-Presidential Constitutionally-directed duties just. 2. hours. later.