We Have Met the Enemy, Sir, And It Is Us
by John Lawrence, January 8, 2021
Why are we spending a trillion dollars a year on a defense establishment when the biggest threat to the republic is domestic terrorists? The failed coup attempt by inept Trump supporters could have ended a lot worse. Congress persons could be dead. Vice President Pence could be dead. Hundreds of Trump conspiracy theorists could be dead. The Capitol could have gone up in flames. And they will probably give Trump a slap on the wrist. He needs to go to prison. In other countries failed coup attempts end quite differently. The best outcome so far is the suspension of Trump's Twitter and Facebook accounts. It needs to be made permanent. Social media is responsible for spreading Trump's lies and conspiracy theories. They have profited from spreading lies. Everything connected with Qanon should be taken down and accounts canceled. These white people (were there any blacks or Latinx in the insurrection) need to be reeducated. I wonder if the Chinese have any room in their reeducation camps for the Uyghurs?
During the Jim Crow era in the South, African Americans by design occupied the lowest rung of the social ladder. The next rung up were people other southerners referred to as "poor white trash." The poor white trash were the most avid racists and white supremacists because their only point of pride was that they were better than African Americans. They did the dirty work for the Ku Klux Klan. Basically, Trump supporters and especially those that broke into the Capitol building are poor white trash. I have called the Republican party the WPP - White People's Party - and it's evident that that is what it really is. It remains to be seen whether they will remain loyal to Trump, but he has certainly exploited their grievances and pandered to their racism, white supremacy and demands that they be given supremacy over blacks, Latinx and immigrants. They are one rung up the ladder from minorities and immigrants, and they have demonstrated that they will go to great lengths to stay there just like the poor white trash of a foregone era.
Social media needs to be reigned in. The internet at this point has done more harm than good when you consider the hacking of government secrets and the harm social media has done in spreading conspiracy theories, falsehoods and lies. In the early days of the internet I taught a course at Palomar college. In our discussion I remember there were several layers of protocol that the internet was supposed to provide. One of them was security. Security then was mostly ignored by commercial software developers because it subtracted from their profits and didn't add to the commercial appeal - the bells and whistles - of the product. They need to go back and redesign the internet from scratch making security the number one concern. As far as social media is concerned, it needs to be tightly regulated by Congress with Federal authority to take down websites and cancel social media accounts. We now have seen a demonstration of what can happen when we let these wahoos run rampant. People exploit other people for profit, and even though that has been the American way, it needs to be stopped. Cults need to be taken down from social media. Free speech needs to have limits. So far this has been ignored, and it has been at our peril. It's a miracle that only one policeman was killed in the insurrection. What if the entire Congress had been taken down. There was practically no police presence and certainly not in the numbers required to withstand the mob that was incited to riot by Trump.
Hopefully, America has been chastened. Hopefully, this near coup has been a wake up call. Some of the people most likely to benefit from Joe Biden's initiatives are Trump supporters whether they know it or not. Of course they will have to occupy the same rungs of the ladder as minorities and immigrants, and this is what this latter day poor white trash of the WPP will hardly consent to do. Federal law makes it a crime to engage “in any rebellion or insurrection against the authority of the United States or the laws thereof.” Someone who violates this statute faces a fine and up to 10 years in prison. Perhaps while these domestic terrorists are serving their 10 year jail sentences, they can be reeducated. At the very least their social media accounts should be taken down, and Trump should never be allowed to Twitter again.
