As If A Minuteman Were Briefing Us On Lexington and Concord

Leo Higgins was our man in DC this past Wednesday. He filed one report on his way home that night; I asked him for any reflections he might have once he’d recovered from the trip. Here, then, are further

impressions and comments about the day as a whole, and the  “afternoon events” of the DC rally… 

First, the good news.  The crowd which walked over to the Ellipse area was very upbeat and positive.  Yeah, there were people with flags and banners using various Anglo-Saxon profanities on them, but they were just letting off a little steam with that, and otherwise visibly having just a good time with people they had a spiritual bond with, from all over America.  Considering that the folks were there to begin with because they weren’t “happy” about the election, even the sloganeering going on was still just general-principles-venting, and absolutely nothing incendiary.  It was a coming together of the clans, with people taking pride in their states, displaying flags from Texas, Wisconsin, Iowa, California, Guam (!) and pretty much everywhere else, even one guy from my own state of Massachusetts, if you can believe it.  It was fun fellowship!  The day was cloudy, cold and windy, but people standing there for hours bore it all well, and, if they were caught up in the moment, it was a moment of hope and trust that, somehow, the day would end with at least a sign that the results of the election would be properly addressed in an orderly and “through the process” manner.  And, after the speeches to the crowd at the Ellipse were finished, the people walked over to the Capitol in a positive, upbeat way, there was no hint that anything was about to bubble over.

When we got down Pennsylvania Avenue far enough to see the Capitol grounds, we could tell that there was no real crowd there yet (I’ll get back to why that was so later), so my group decided to go to Union Station, where some of us had arrived in DC that morning, to try to warm up a bit and maybe get a bite to eat, expecting to get back down to the Capitol shortly.   Almost as soon as we were heading out the door when we were finished, I got a call from a friend back home saying “They’re storming the Capitol!  You’ve got to get out of there right now!”  Just then, dozens of police cars and fire trucks, sirens blaring in “extra-loud mode,” went screaming toward the Capitol from all directions it seemed.  And thousands of people were streaming toward us, heading from the Capitol, looking grim, shell-shocked and very, very concerned.  So what did we do, with myself and the people I came down with averaging age 68?  Why, we headed straight for the Capitol, of course!

I estimate we were 10-15 minutes past the actual breeching of the Capitol when we arrived at the East Portico, so I can’t speak directly to what precipitated that.  But it was still an active situation inside the building at that point, and quite tense and volatile outside for the first 45-60 minutes after we arrived.  Five hundred people were on the East Portico stairs, and thousands were on the east grounds.  Even an hour later, when we made our way to the West Portico to see what was going on there, there were hundreds of people on the portico, and hundreds more on the temporary seating scaffolding on both sides of the portico.  Again, thousands of people were still on the grounds in front of them, even though it was close to 4 PM by then, I think. Since the situation had noticeably quieted by then, many of them were seated in chairs, just watching the whole thing unfold, as if watching a movie.  All they needed was the popcorn!  The positive outlook of the crowd earlier in the day was sufficient to bubble through to where there was almost no more yelling, just concern.

What was going on during this whole time?  When we first arrived, there were large numbers of police at the top of the East Portico stairs, forming a line to block the entire building frontage up there.  The entire span of all that was countered by Trump’s people, facing the police on the landing and top row or two of stairs, actively engaging them verbally.  But no pushing, shoving or further attempts to breech through the building.  Below them, the rest of the stairs were filled with people, facing the grounds, shouting slogans, with one or two trying to give bullhorn speeches.  The crowd on the ground was tense, with some shouting, most of them just talking among themselves with the people they were with, trying to figure out just what happened and was going on.  I must have talked with 50+ of such people. The consensus was that there was word quickly spreading through the crowd that Pence was going to drop the ball and do nothing.  Apparently, several hundred people made a rush to the entrances after hearing that.  It sounds to me almost too “organized” a push, which makes one wonder if a small contingent was just ready to do this, no matter the pretext.  As time went on, many people were starting to drop in the impression that the stormers were either Antifa, or at least sprinkled with Antifa.  The latter seems to have some evidence behind it.  At least several of the protesters turn out to have been Antifa.  The only question remaining is, did they incite the rest with a fake appeal to patriotic overreaction, or were the Trump supporters doing this entirely on their own?

Around 3:00, maybe 3:15, we started making our way around to the west side of the Capitol.  As we were doing so, we passed a group of 7 or 8 Antifa types in a huddle, talking quietly.  As an aside here, the crowd was aware that, around 2:30 or so, Antifa was supposed to be “on the way over,” identifiable as Antifa.   No great number ever materialized, but there were small groups, and even lone individuals with their bogus “Press” helmets, just wandering around.  Important point:  NO ONE engaged these people at all!  There was certainly no physical confrontation of them, and no verbal interaction at all; they were simply IGNORED!  Imagine if the scenario were reversed!  A relative handful of Trump supporters in a sea of thousands of Antifa.  Well, they would have been stomped flat into the earth.  Anyway, no sooner had we passed the huddle when they broke up and started semi-jogging up the right-hand side of the east staircase.  I watched them until there were too many people between them and me to see them clearly.  A few seconds later, there was a flash-bang set off.  Turning again to see what was going on, there were three more flash-bangs over the next 30-40 seconds, up at the top of the stairs.  This might have been a second breech attempt, but it was quashed.  Perhaps this might indicate, too, that, in fact, Antifa might have orchestrated, or had a hand instigating, the actual breech earlier.

When there was nothing more going on there, we continued over to the West Portico, still talking with people along the way.  As I said, thousands were still in the area and on the portico itself.  And the tension had lifted a lot by then, even though the police along the building wall were still in force, and the people nearest them were still apparently talking with them.  Nothing much was going on, until about 4:30 or so, when a group of 30 people tried to get in through a doorway on the right-hand side.  They were pulled back by both police and civilians.  I couldn’t tell if they were Trump supporters or not.  And that was the last direct confrontation I saw.  On our way back to Union Station, we saw three groups of 50 SWAT police marching to the Capitol, and a bunch of blackened window SUVs with flashing lights headed for the Capitol.  I imagine they were going to secure the area for the continuation of the farce once the Congress reassembled to complete The Steal.  They did not interact with the people leaving the Capitol, but let us just keep moving away with no heavyhanded threats and shouts to clear out.   The 6 PM curfew had long since been announced, and people were allowed to stay beyond 5 PM.  I found that interesting.  Don’t know if they were just trying to defuse things, or were perhaps looking to throw their weight around later, with the stragglers who too long to clear the area, playing the tough guys.  With a potential Storming of the Bastille unfolding, I have wondered ever since why they “allowed” us to mill around for hours in the first place.  Keeping the sheep in the fold for the slaughter occurred to me, but, I just don’t know, and I’m probably being over imaginative on this point.

Some thoughts on the stand-off between the police and the Trump people at the stairs and west side.  In spite of my concern for the development of sheepfolds, considering what was actually going on inside, I think the Capitol police handled themselves very well overall.  I am somewhat outspoken about many police and their overreaction to far too many incidents they themselves escalate, but I must say that it could have been a bloodbath, but wasn’t.  Ms. Babbit was flat-out murdered inside (Was the perp even a cop?  Do plainclothes police normally wear cufflinks to blend in?  The shooter sure looked like his cuffs were pinched, as a cufflink would do, rather than buttoned.  Was this guy a Congressman or staffer who panicked, and the police are publicly taking the fall for him?  Perhaps time will tell.), but apart from that, with 200 protesters running around in the hallways and chambers, the police could have blown them all away and have a rubber-stamp “investigation” clear them, yet they really worked hard, I think, to try to stabilize things with as little violent reaction as possible.  I think they did well, and it raises the question in my mind as to how much resistance the police would put up against real protesting against the election travesty.  Will the police “fire on their own people” en masse?  Based on the events of the 6th, I would guess: perhaps not very much at all.  Between the restraint of firepower, and the almost bantering going on an hour later on the stairs outside, more of them might be more sympathetic than I might have thought earlier.

Union Station was kind of like the deck of the Titanic, with people waiting to just get out of Dodge.  As with the events of the day outdoors, virtually no one was wearing masks, and they were getting away with it, despite the PSA every ten minutes that masks in the station were required.  A little taste of Freedom, even in a day whose events turned-out to be a set up for the abolition of Freedom not too far in our future.  As the crowd thinned out with people boarding for home, those of us who were left were getting a scaled down show of force with the explosives-sniffing dogs being marched slowly, three different times, past the feet of all of us sitting down.  This wasn’t in evidence that I could see when the crowd was bigger, and the situation actually more potentially dangerous, so this was probably just security theater.  “If we can’t enforce the masks, at least we can make the serfs and tax-aphids know ‘Who’s boss’ somehow!”  I guess I can’t make heads or tails about the overall police response, the extreme violence that could have manifested was, thankfully, not in evidence outside the Capitol building, but they still had to put on at least mild displays of pettiness, anyway.

Some other issues:  yet again, there were too many people, in too many separate groups, stepping on each other and creating confusion.  The original plan was to have the ENTIRE rally at the Capitol, via the Stop the Steal organization, with all of the speakers assembled there.  That would have been perfect, as the “optic” of hordes of people surrounding the Capitol was what Congress and Pence should have been forced to see upon arrival.  Instead, the Women for America group – good intentions notwithstanding – kind of co-opted the whole thing, creating a second rally venue at the Ellipse.   This is the second time they did this; the December 12 rally was divided in the same way.  Anyway, the set up was just plain bad.  There was one semi-large viewing screen, useless to 80% of the people assembled between the Ellipse-proper and the Washington Monument, and to say the rattling, staticky sound system was merely “terrible” is to be kind.  Few speakers were even audible at all, and the rest either were talking too fast, too quietly, or were swallowing the mic while they spoke, creating a sound system nightmare.  Even Trump, oftentimes, talked too fast, and most people could make out, at best, half of what he said.  At least there is a silver lining of sorts in that:  we can say that he definitely didn’t “incite” the people to riot, even if he wanted to, for the simple reason that few people could hear him clearly anyway!  And I’m just dismayed that there was zero interaction between the two main sponsoring groups.  Right to the minute I arrived, the Stop the Steal website indicated that their rally was to be at the Capitol, starting in the morning.  That never happened, and people only started arriving at or after 1 PM, when the Ellipse speeches were over.  The people inside the Capitol were already getting started by this point.  Terrible planning!  For an event that could have had historical import – beyond the violence that ensued! – no one thought through how to pull this off as “One for the ages”!  The chance to right that ship is now gone.

Bottom line:  the crowd was grim and just plain dazed, and it was obvious that there was a lot of introspection and soul-searching going on with everybody.  “What’s next?” was being worked on in real time.  These people came to DC to show their displeasure, and, in the end, the initial fears behind that were ratified in spades by the cowards and accommodationists on the Republican side, and traitors on the Democrat side.  The American people now know, if they didn’t before, that the ENTIRE political apparatus has broken down; there is no redress in state legislatures or court, and zero redress in Congress or the Federal judiciary.  And all of this is coupled with the fact that social media is actively pushing for our collective “cancelling,” while giving us no platform whatsoever in the meantime.  I hope and pray that this wasn’t a Ft. Sumter II, or a Boston Massacre II, but it is at least the dawn of a day when flag-waving innocence and naivete in flyover country go out the window, and people now have a small window of opportunity left to assert themselves before the total clampdown, hopefully, with a minimum of violence.  But, once the Second Amendment, is stripped away by the newly-packed “Supreme Court,” that window will close forever.  We have to walk a tightrope between a bloodbath and rolling over entirely.  There’s not much time to think it all through, and leaders need to emerge RIGHT NOW!  We’ve got one shot to get this right, and we can’t get bamboozled by a bunch of new grifters just replacing the old grifters.

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9:08 pm on January 8, 2021