REFLECTIONS ON THE INSURRECTION

ThinkTech presented its Burning National Issues webinar, entitled Legal Chicken, Legal Egg on Friday, September 30, 2022. Our moderator was Avi Soifer, and our panelists were Kimi Ide-Foster, Chris Marvin, Richard Wallsgrove, Sylvia Albert and Jay Fidell.  See the program at these links: 

YouTube https://youtu.be/dxPrAye_G68 

Vimeo https://vimeo.com/755839884.

The last segments of the panel was "Insurrection and Beyond."  Jay Fidell spoke on that segment.  Here are some points from the discussion, where he asked us to recognize some of the phenomena that revealed themselves on Jan 6. 


WHAT IF IT WAS ME - THE "SUBTRACTION" PHENOMENON


If you subtract the fact that the organizer and leader of the insurrection was a former president and the participants were his acolytes, and just assume that we were there and did the very same things with our friends and weapons, you get a different result.  You would be in the clink in a matter of minutes, and you would be charged and arrested for serious crimes, held without bail, indicted, prosecuted, tried, convicted, fined and imprisoned for the crimes of insurrection, seditious conspiracy, interference with government, along with felony murder and accessory to assault and trespass.  Some argue treason might also apply, which is serious enough for the death penalty.  


We would have had a really bad day had we done what Trump did.  But Trump hasn't been charged with anything and here we are 20 months later.  So far he's gotten away with it, simply because he was president.  He escaped the sad sack Mueller Investigation on Ukraine, two impeachments, and the failed Cyrus Vance investigation in New York.  Teflon Don.  To say nothing of stealing nuclear secrets at Mar-a-Lago.  We're still waiting on an indictment from Merrick Garland.  Worse, this will be all the more difficult as and when the GOP takes both houses.


For Jan 6, Trump had to organize a huge nationwide conspiracy.  It took a lot of work and a lot of hard-working co-conspirators, many more than those who gathered at the Willard Hotel.  Sure, we've learned more in the Jan 6 committee, but still none of the big boys have been brought to justice.  We all gasped on January 6th - but given the news cycles and the Trump distractions since then, we seem to take these events less seriously as time goes on.  It remains that we all saw them on TV and they are embossed on our history.  We should never forget.


That Trump is really something.  He’s done it again, played the angles, the media, and the system, and walked away at least so far.  So maybe he’s not so stupid after all. He proven yet again that the rule of law does not apply to him.  Of course, this undermines the rule of law itself and public confidence in the system and the country.  His supporters blindly support him as a cult figure and a Bonnie and Clyde folk hero in all that, but at some cortical level they must be having exactly the same thoughts; that Trump has this great playbook and can get away with it.


He sets up his misdeeds as deniable, he establishes a network of loyalists in government, he rewards those who are loyal and punishes those who are not, he lies and encourages lying, he conspires sand encourage conspiracies and conspiracy theories, he blames others for his own misdeeds (projection), he denies and doubles down, he makes outrageous statements and does outrageous things to distract and control the media, and uses it to spread those shameless lies, he claims to be a victim, he threatens, intimidates and dog-whistles his base for violence against his enemies, he creates corruption and chaos whenever he can.  Still, even now, he sets the agenda.


There's more.  We need to examine other aspects and implications of the Jan 6 Insurrection, so there will be more installments on this from the Chicken and Egg program, right here on the Stories of ThinkTech Blog.  Stay tuned.


We hope you enjoy the discussion in the Chicken and Egg program, and that it moves you.


ThinkTech

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