{"id":176724,"date":"2021-01-11T12:00:27","date_gmt":"2021-01-11T12:00:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=176724"},"modified":"2021-01-08T05:25:30","modified_gmt":"2021-01-08T05:25:30","slug":"the-fascist-coup-of-6-jan-2021","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2021\/01\/the-fascist-coup-of-6-jan-2021\/","title":{"rendered":"The Fascist Coup of 6 Jan 2021"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>7 Jan 2021 &#8211; <\/em>The fascist insurrection in Washington DC\u2014which resulted in the storming of the US Congress, the panicked dispersal of terrified senators and members of the House, the delay of the official validation of Joseph Biden\u2019s Electoral College majority, and even the occupation of the office of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi\u2014is a turning point in the political history of the United States.<\/p>\n<p>The hoary glorifications of the invincibility and timelessness of American democracy have been totally exposed and discredited as a hollow political myth. The popular phrase \u201cIt Can\u2019t Happen Here,\u201d taken from the title of Sinclair Lewis\u2019 justly famous fictional account of the rise of American fascism, has been decisively overtaken by events. Not only <em>can<\/em> a fascist coup happen here. It <em>has<\/em> happened here, on the afternoon of January 6, 2021.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"relative ma0 overflow-hidden dn-p\">\n<div class=\"relative overflow-hidden \"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"db relative center aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/www.wsws.org\/asset\/1d013a65-6e89-4138-b9c2-0753220b6b93?rendition=image1280\" \/><\/div><figcaption class=\"db avenir f7 f6-m lh-title black-60 tc pt3 ph3\">Trump supporters storm the Capitol, Wednesday, Jan. 6, 2021, in Washington. (AP Photo\/John Minchillo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Moreover, even if the initial effort has fallen short of its goal, <em>it will happen again<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>What occurred yesterday was the outcome of a carefully planned conspiracy. It was instigated by Donald Trump, who has been working with a gang of fascist conspirators strategically positioned within the White House and other powerful institutions, departments and agencies of the state. Wednesday\u2019s operation carries with it the overwhelming stench of the Trump sons, close aides like Stephen Miller, and numerous others working behind the scenes within the military, the National Guard and the police.<\/p>\n<p>The conspiracy utilized the well-known techniques of modern coups. The plotters identified the meeting of the Congress to ratify Biden\u2019s Electoral College majority as the propitious time for action. The assault was prepared by weeks of lying claims by Trump and his minions that the 2020 election had been stolen. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell rendered critical service by withholding Republican recognition of Biden\u2019s election for weeks, thus providing time and legitimacy to Trump\u2019s efforts to discredit the election with totally fraudulent claims of ballot fraud.<\/p>\n<p>A majority of Republican congressmen and a substantial number of Republican senators orchestrated Wednesday\u2019s political debate at which the legitimacy of the Electoral College vote was challenged, to provide the necessary pretext for the planned right-wing uprising. The final signal for the storming of the Capitol building was given by Trump himself, who delivered an insurrectionary harangue to his supporters, who\u2014one can be certain\u2014were directed by elements with police, military and paramilitary training.<\/p>\n<p>It has already been widely noted that the fascist gangs encountered virtually no resistance as they stormed the Capitol. In the most critical and vulnerable areas of the Capitol building, the police were hardly to be seen. To politically evaluate the police response on Wednesday, one has only to recall the violence deployed last June against a peaceful anti-police brutality demonstration in Lafayette Park.<\/p>\n<p>Had a left-wing protest been called in Washington to protest Trump\u2019s efforts to overthrow the results of the election, the demonstrators\u2014as everyone knows\u2014would have been met with a massive show of force by the police and National Guard. There would have been police sharpshooters placed strategically on every building in the vicinity of the protesters. Military helicopters and drones would have been circling overhead. The slightest unauthorized movement by the crowd, however peaceful, would have been met with demands for its immediate dispersal, followed within minutes by the launching of barrages of tear gas cannisters. Hundreds, if not thousands, would have been kettled and arrested.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_176727\" style=\"width: 510px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/us-capitol-invasion.jpeg\" ><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-176727\" class=\"wp-image-176727\" src=\"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/us-capitol-invasion.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"257\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/us-capitol-invasion.jpeg 313w, https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/us-capitol-invasion-300x154.jpeg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-176727\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Photos of People Who Invaded US Capitol Suggest Ties to Far-Right Movements. UniLad<\/p><\/div>\n<p>The response of the Democratic Party to the coup has been a pathetic display of political spinelessness. The first hours of the insurrection passed without a single prominent Democratic leader issuing a clear denunciation of the conspiracy, nor did any prominent Democrats call for popular resistance to the coup. Former President Obama and the Clintons, who are followed by millions on Twitter, remained silent throughout the day.<\/p>\n<p>As for the president-elect, Biden waited hours before finally appearing before the public. After describing the attack on the Capitol as sedition, Biden made this extraordinary appeal to the leader of the conspiracy: \u201cI call on President Trump to go on national television now, to fulfill his oath and defend the Constitution and demand an end to this siege.\u201d<\/p>\n<aside data-track-content=\"true\" data-content-name=\"33% of article\" data-content-piece=\"\/en\/articles\/2021\/01\/07\/pers-j07.html?pk_campaign=newsletter&amp;pk_kwd=wsws\"><\/aside>\n<p>Normally, when confronted with an attempt to overthrow the constitutional regime, the political leader threatened by the conspiracy must immediately seek to deprive the traitors of all access to the mass media and a nationwide audience. But Biden, instead, called on Trump to appear on national television\u2014to call off the insurrection he himself had organized!<\/p>\n<p>Biden concluded his remarks with the following clarion call. \u201cSo, President Trump, step up.\u201d This bankrupt appeal to the would-be fascist dictator will go down in history as Biden\u2019s \u201cHitler, do the right thing\u201d speech.<\/p>\n<p>The Democrats, let alone the media, have no intention of exposing the full depth of the conspiracy and holding its plotters and organizers responsible. The effort to cover up the crime has already begun, with the media bloviating on the need for Democrats and Republicans \u201cto come together in bipartisan unity.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The decision of the House and the Senate, in the evening hours, to uphold Biden\u2019s election is not the end of the crisis.<\/p>\n<p>Appeals for \u201cunity\u201d with the conspirators clear the path for the next effort to carry out a fascist coup d\u2019\u00e9tat. This is the lesson of the invasion of the state Capitol last April by armed fascist thugs in Lansing, Michigan and the subsequent conspiracy in the autumn of 2020 to kidnap and assassinate the Democratic governor of the state, Gretchen Whitmer. The Democratic Party and media quickly suppressed coverage of these crimes and hardly defended Whitmer against the attack. The plotters, thus far, have received little more than a slap on the wrist.<\/p>\n<p>The Democrats\u2019 response to the fascist conspiracy is not dictated merely by cowardice or stupidity. Rather, as representatives of the financial-corporate oligarchy, they are frightened that the exposure of the criminal conspiracy and its political aims would ignite a mass response within the working class that would spiral into a movement against the capitalist state and the interests it serves.<\/p>\n<p>The effort to conceal the conspiracy must be opposed. Workers must take up the demand for the immediate removal and arrest of Trump. He cannot be allowed to remain in office, utilizing the immense power of the presidency to continue his plotting. His retention of the White House represents a massive threat to the people of the United States and the world. Trump still has the power to declare a national emergency and even launch a war. His finger remains on the nuclear trigger.<\/p>\n<p>Nor should his co-conspirators be left in office. The Republican senators and congressmen involved in the conspiracy must be likewise removed from the Senate and Congress, arrested, placed on trial and sent to prison.<\/p>\n<p>The continuing reference by the Democrats to their \u201cRepublican colleagues\u201d is itself a mockery of democracy.<\/p>\n<p>The demand must be raised for a public investigation with open hearings, aimed at identifying all those involved in the conspiracy, leading to their arrest and imprisonment.<\/p>\n<p>Absolutely no confidence should be placed in the in-coming Biden administration\u2014assuming that his inauguration is not blocked by a further uprising\u2014to hold the conspirators to account and defend democracy.<\/p>\n<aside data-track-content=\"true\" data-content-name=\"66% of article\" data-content-piece=\"\/en\/articles\/2021\/01\/07\/pers-j07.html?pk_campaign=newsletter&amp;pk_kwd=wsws\"><\/aside>\n<p>It must never be forgotten that Biden and the Democrats represent nothing more than another political faction of the same ruling class. As Obama declared immediately after Trump\u2019s election, the conflict between the Democrats and Republicans is nothing more than an \u201cintramural scrimmage,\u201d i.e., a friendly fight between members of the same team. In a statement issued Wednesday evening, Obama singled out Republicans for praise, writing obsequiously: \u201cI\u2019ve been heartened to see many members of the president\u2019s party speak up forcefully today.\u201d The only purpose of such a statement is to conceal the truth about the extent of the fascist coup.<\/p>\n<p>The events of January 6, 2021 must be taken as a warning. The working class must elaborate a political strategy and plan of action to defeat future efforts to impose a dictatorship.<\/p>\n<p>The political and economic dynamic of capitalist reaction and counterrevolution will continue, even with Trump out of office. This dynamic will not abate after January 20. The Democratic Party, whose congressional and senatorial delegation is stacked with millionaires and people with the closest ties to the CIA and the military, are no less capable than the Republicans of organizing a conspiracy to suppress democratic rights.<\/p>\n<p>In any event, the policies of the Biden administration, which will pursue policies set by Wall Street and the military, will perpetuate and escalate the anger and frustration exploited by the fascists.<\/p>\n<p>Throughout the past year, as it has conducted an unrelenting struggle against the ruling class policy of herd immunity, the Socialist Equality Party has shown in detail the connection between the ruling class\u2019s inhuman response to the pandemic and the Trump administration\u2019s assault on democratic rights.<\/p>\n<p>The danger has not passed.<\/p>\n<p>It is essential to build a network of rank-and-file committees in factories and workplaces capable of organizing broad-based popular resistance through the mobilization of all sections of the working class.<\/p>\n<p>Above all, workers must understand that the disintegration of American democracy is rooted in the crisis of capitalism. In a society riven by staggering levels of social inequality, it is impossible to preserve democracy.<\/p>\n<p><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.wsws.org\/en\/articles\/2021\/01\/07\/pers-j07.html?pk_campaign=newsletter&amp;pk_kwd=wsws\" >Go to Original &#8211; wsws.org<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>7 Jan 2021 &#8211; The fascist insurrection in Washington DC\u2014which resulted in the storming of the US Congress, the panicked dispersal of terrified senators and members of the House, the delay of the official validation of Joseph Biden\u2019s Electoral College majority, and even the occupation of the office of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi\u2014is a turning point in the political history of the United States.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":176727,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[867,393,542,245,249,1765,70],"class_list":["post-176724","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-anglo-america","tag-anglo-america","tag-coup","tag-fascism","tag-fascist","tag-trump","tag-us-congress","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176724","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=176724"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176724\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/176727"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=176724"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=176724"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=176724"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}