One of the tidbits about January 6 that came out yesterday was that Fox News hosts were calling Mark Meadows to tell Trump to call off the dogs. “The president needs to tell people in the Capitol to go home,” Laura Ingraham texted to Mark Meadows, for example. “This is hurting all of us.”
This suggests that Ingraham knew good and well that the people attacking the Capitol were Trump’s people. But before the day was over, Ingraham was floating the idea that antifa was responsible for the violence. The New York Times, from March 1:
In fact, the rioters breaking into the citadel of American democracy that day were acolytes of Mr. Trump, intent on stopping Congress from certifying his electoral defeat. Subsequent arrests and investigations have found no evidence that people who identify with antifa, a loose collective of antifascist activists, were involved in the insurrection.
And no such evidence has emerged to this day.
But even as Americans watched live images of rioters wearing MAGA hats and carrying Trump flags breach the Capitol — egged on only minutes earlier by a president who falsely denounced a rigged election and exhorted his followers to fight for justice — history was being rewritten in real time.
Within hours, a narrative built on rumors and partisan conjecture had reached the Twitter megaphones of pro-Trump politicians. By day’s end, Laura Ingraham and Sarah Palin had shared it with millions of Fox News viewers, and Representative Matt Gaetz of Florida had stood on the ransacked House floor and claimed that many rioters “were members of the violent terrorist group antifa.”
Ingraham pronounced on January 6: “Earlier today, the Capitol was under siege by people who can only be described as antithetical to the MAGA movement. Now they were likely not all Trump supporters, and there are some reports that antifa sympathizers may have been sprinkled throughout the crowd.” I got that from today’s Byron York column, btw. York seems to think that Ingraham can’t be criticized for hypocricy because she didn’t claim that all the rioters were antifa; just some of them.
The rumor that the real rioters were antifa is probably still believed in some quarters. I am personally grateful that antifa didn’t show up. I wrote on January 2 that January 6 was going to be a dumpster fire. It turned out to be uglier than I imagined. But in all the videos of the rally, the march to the Capitol, and the riot, no counter-protesters appeared.
I suspect Trump’s people expected some lefties to show up. Yesterday we learned that Mark Meadows promised somebody that the National Guard would “protect pro-Trump people.” If there had been counter-protesters, would the Guard have shown up sooner?
I am so damn sick and tired of hearing the word "antifa" used negatively.
I'm also sick to death of hearing about how violent "antifa's" are.
Would you describe your father, grandfather, great-grandfather or even great-great-grandfather, whoever was a World War II veteran, negatively? Or as violent? The same goes for the women of the WW II generation who stayed home, or worked at a plant, or were nurses.
"The Greatest Generation" was full of "antifa's!"
They were ALL anti-fascists! Except for the actual Fascists, of course!
I know I am anti-fa.
I'm against tRUMP and this generation's GQP members – who are all at least "fa-curious:"
"Fascist Curious."
Which is funny, because if we abbreviate Fascist-curious like we do anti-fascists (anti-fah) – comes out sounding like a 4-letter curse word uttered by a Boston native: Fa-Cu.
As in: Fa-cu, too!
I think you got it without my help. But saying Fa-cu just made my day!
Note: NOT directed to anyone on this fine blog!
Great points, gulag, but what I found in arguing with right-wingers is that they conflate "antifa" with "BLM" and rioting dark people.
In their minds, destroying property (Flames!! Yah!!!) is worse than a little demonstration in the Capitol. After all, nobody was killed, much.
You can spend an hour trying to untangle this in their little minds, and finally try to get them to appreciate that even though there weren't Flames!!! Yah!!! at the Jan 6 riot, overthrowing the government (plus a few dead people) is far worse than dark people rioting. It still won’t compute because few/no dark people were involved in Jan 6. “So what’s the big deal?”
It's a bit like trying to get through to people like this.
moonbat,
Thanks for the laugh!!!
I LOOOOOOOOOOVE "Monty Python and the Holy Grail!!!!!"
tRUMP's MAGAts are a combo of those Medieval peasants, and "Blazing Saddles'" "You've got to remember that these are just farmers. These are people of the land. The common clay of the new West. You know… Morons!"
Two points – I'm confused by the suggestion that the National guard would 'protect' Trump people. It looks to me like Trump fired Esper months before J6 and appointed a flunkie named Chris Miller so he could prevent the National Guard from responding quickly. But that's the opposite of what Meadows seemed to be saying.
There's more to that than meets the eye.
Regarding Antifa: Look at a couple of modern dictators (though it's just as true looking at preWWII Germany) In Ukraine, a dictator who was a puppet of Putin tried to quell mass demonstrations with random executions (snipers) and other terrorism against popular (And not entirely peaceful) protests. He failed and fled to Russia. (This was the dictator Manafort was working for – the disclosure of how much money Manifort was paid ended his job for Trump.)
Second dictator in Belarus. Still in power. He conducted random executions, mass arrests, torture, and with Putin's help has held on to power. The people who rose up after a phony election are afraid to demonstrate in public. The leaders of the resistance have been driven out of the country.
"Antifa" is the mythical violent resistance movement. They are the demonized masses who showed up the day after Trump took office. For Trumpism to succeed, they have to be afraid to show up in public. The US police and military won't do what they did in Ukraine and Belarus – murder and torture demonstrators. The media also is not cooperating. Trump wants to use the fascist thugs to drive the resistance into not resisting. To build a large enough mob, Trump wants to offer them protection for illegal acts. (Was that the basis for the promise of National Guard 'protection'? )
Here's the issue from a Trumpster's perspective on J6 and now. How do you prevent large numbers of anti-Trump people from assembling? How do you get the pro-Trump mob to descend on unarmed people with pink pussy hats? How do you silence the media if/when you go get a mob to attack anti-Trump protesters? How do you stop prosecution when anyone with a phone can generate evidence for an honest prosecutor?
The military (so far) won't help Trump consolidate fascist power. The police won't act directly (usually) against anti-Trump protesters (but they might look the other way for pro-Trump thugs)? But the bullies who want to beat up liberals do NOT want to go to federal prison for years. They want to know they have a free pass. This is why the j6 prosecutions of violent offenders is so important.
Laura Ingraham texted to Mark Meadows, for example. “This is hurting all of us.”
Gee, I'm surprised it took a violent insurrection at the Capitol for Ingraham to realize that Trump's antics have been hurting all of us all along. Didn't she see that Trump's constant drum beat of fake news, the press is the enemy of the people, and everybody in government except him and his followers are corrupt would take a toll on the fabric and faith in believing in the ideals of America? Talk about poisoning the well?
There is no person in our history as a nation that has caused more damage then Donald Trump. I pray that misery comes upon him and overtakes him. He's a vile bag of shit, and the sooner Satan calls him home the better off we'll be.
It has been decades since I have been able to have a cordial discussion over most any political issue. When I am silly and try, the result is always the same, we always end up in a morass of disagreement, usually over word definitions or facts.
You know for sure when someone uses the word (if it is one) antifa, that you will never agree on a definition with them so why even try. You won't even get very far getting them to define what sort of politics are fascist. In a way this is humorous. They hate the anti-fascists but cannot define the politics which makes a person a fascist.
Good luck bringing up Francisco Franco or other historical figures associated with the politic. They do not think they have to know much of anything to have a strident position. All they have to know is a few propaganda verses and that they own all the right things.
As to antifa being a word, sure it is. That is. if you allow a combination of letters to have a varied and fluctuating meaning mostly defined by the context and inflection of the person using it, to be called a word. Like terrorist it defies definition. Both are very good words to use if your intent is miscommunication. At least that is what it means to me.
Trump and his criminal cabal were certain, absolutely certain there would be a counter protest by which they could label as Antifa and thus Quick Reaction Forces (the Nat Guard, DC Police, Maryland State Police, whomever) would be drawn away from the Capitol to handle the Dreaded ANTIFA insurrection, granting the Traitorous MAGA Mob the hours they needed to track down the Electoral Votes, Speaker Pelosi, AOC and whomever else they needed liquidated. Then Pence would gravely have announced Trump re-election via one of the Powerpoint overthrow method and Trump would have called for Martial Law to arrest VP Harris as a instigator and Faux News et al would have gone along with immediate trials for the Biden Coup Plotters.