Was the Insurrection a Blessing in Disguise?
by John Lawrence, January 21, 2021
What could have been a horrible tragedy ended up being just a horrible spectacle. But what if, instead of showing up January 6, the mob showed up January 20 catching security off guard the way they did at the Capitol? As it turned out, Congress persons, in a show of defiance, went ahead with their business on the same day, and the inauguration went off without a hitch restoring hope and confidence in government. Result: insurrection defeated with very little loss of blood. The second thing is that now domestic terrorists and white supremacists are on the FBI's radar the way they never were before.Those who broke into the Capitol will be rooted out and sent to jail. Others will be closely watched. I never thought I'd be singing the praises of the FBI, but I'm so happy that they, the Intelligence agencies and the American people are finally aware of the real threats to America and not just imagined ones.
The one possible shred of a rationale that the election was stolen from Trump is that election laws were changed—legally—by the states to allow more mail-in balloting. This was motivated by a need to save people from congregating due to the coronavirus. The net effect was that more people, especially poor working people, got to vote than ever before. This probably made the difference in who won, but in a democratic society ideally every legally qualified voter should be able to vote. Republicans have always used voter suppression techniques to prevent this from happening. Republican operative Paul Weyrich famously said, "I don't want everybody to vote. Elections are not won by a majority of the people. They never have been from the beginning of our country and they are not now. As a matter of fact, our leverage in the elections quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down." Well, in this election, unfortunately for Trump, pretty close to a majority of people actually voted. Now Republicans will be doing everything in their power to roll back those election laws so that mail-in voting will not be available in the next election. Democrats need to work very hard to make sure that mail-in voting stays in place permanently and even is expanded. This will insure that the demographic change that favors Democrats will be reflected in the electorate.
I thought that, since the Democrats had majorities in both Houses of Congress, getting legislation passed and signed into law would be a breeze. The only hang-up would be the filibuster, but the filibuster can be nullified by a simple majority vote. Easy peasy. Well, not so fast. There are a couple of conservative Democrats, the most notorious of which is Joe Manchin, Democrat of West Virginia. He has already said he won't vote to suspend the filibuster rule. This leaves budget reconciliation as the only way to get a bill passed by majority rule in the Senate. This will probably be used for the COVID relief bill which will probably pass. It's unclear if it can be used a second time, and, if it were, would Manchin vote with the Democrats? Even then budget reconciliation cannot be used for non budgetary issues. What it boils down to is that this one man, Joe Manchin, has extraordinary control over the legislative process. Republicans will probably be united in the Senate and be as obstructionist to Democratic initiatives as they were during the Obama administration.
Meanwhile, the FBI is rounding up the mob that violated the Capitol. I want every one of them that went beyond the police barrier, even if they didn't go into the Capitol, rounded up and brought to justice. Some of them are so stupid like one real estate agent from Dallas who even advertised her business live on social media as she was entering the Capitol! Shaman Qanon begged Trump for a pardon. Trump could have blanket pardoned all of them if he had wanted to. After all they attacked the Capitol in Trump's name and at his urging. But when all was said and done, Trump abandoned them to their own fates, something they can ponder while spending 20 years in jail. Something else - I want the FBI to track down everyone who calls or emails someone with a death threat. It seems that a lot of this is happening, and I want the FBI to track down and prosecute all these bozos too. If it takes a Federal law to make this legally all encompassing, then one should be enacted.
