An Eyewitness Account

Steve McCann is a pretty regular contributor to American Thinker. He has never impressed me as prone to histrionics. He attended the DC march on Wednesday and offers his impressions--as expected, free of hyper-ventilating:

January 6, 2020, a Day that Will Live in Political Infamy

McCann had no privileged access to the most dramatic--and tragic--events, but that's part of his point. This was an event attended by ~500K people. He suspects a setup, which is why he refers to "political infamy," because of the lack of a police presence to rein in a tiny minority of that enormous crowd. But the following simple observations are, to me, just as important and telling--telling with regard to the unhinged reaction of both Dems and GOPers:

It was obvious to me that the Capitol Hill and Metro police were deliberately ill-prepared for a crowd of any size, much less the hundreds of thousands that ultimately arrived. Further, the police presence was miniscule and their only attempt at crowd control were a few random canisters of tear gas.

As the crowd at the steps grew, we saw the few police in attendance step aside and essentially allow the mob to flow into the Capitol. And thus, the Ruling Class and its media arm had the story for the day and the validation of their programmed mindset of stereotypically portraying the rally attendees as violent deplorables and President Trump as the execrable instigator.

Other than at the immediate Capitol building, among a small handful of what I am convinced were overwhelmingly anti-Trump demonstrators, there were no incidents. Among the overall police presence none were required to disperse or control perhaps 500,000+ attendees. Having attended numerous rallies since the late 1960s, this was the largest and most peaceful I have witnessed. Many police officers we talked to said the same.

What I did witness was the confluence of the inhabitants of Middle America of all races and creeds, there to not only express their exasperation with the fraudulent election, but to tell the denizens of the Ruling Class that they are no longer the meek, easily manipulated occupants of flyover country. They are committed to taking back the country from those determined to eviscerate the Constitution for their own megalomaniacal gains.

I met people who had traveled from as far away as Hawaii, California, Oregon, Texas, and Alaska. When I asked why, when travel has been made so difficult with the Chinese Virus restrictions, they to a person said: “We had to come and make a statement.” Further, the general sentiments were that if we cannot have honest and fair elections then we do not have a country anymore. Thus, we can no longer be passive -- we have to get out and march, demonstrate, force the states to change election laws, and throw out the politicians that have betrayed their oath and those that elected them.

Unlike the "protests" we witnessed for much of 2020, this truly was a "mostly peaceful" demonstration. But it was the wrong kind of demonstration composed of the wrong kind of people. It was a confluence of the inhabitants of Middle America, and that's the confluence that politicians fear most, because they know that's where effective anti-establishment movements arise. In that crowd people expressed--long before Tucker Carlson gave voice to their grievance that evening--their view that their country had been hijacked.

A Congress dedicated to representing and channeling such an outpouring of sincere disquiet at the state of our country would not have reacted as our ruling elite did--as Bill Barr disgracefully did--by calling for the suppression of such sincere sentiments. These were not the reckless, rootless, astroturfed anarchist mobs that seem to melt away when their funding dries up. These people represented the backbone of America, and they truly were overwhelmingly peaceful. But they have come to believe over the last several decades that "the system" is rigged against them and that the very foundation of our republic--free and fair republics--has become a sham, a pantomime through which the ruling elite perpetuates its control. 

That impression has unquestionably been strengthened by the Covid Hoax, the reaction to a lab-created virus, funded by our ruling elite. The reaction to the outbreak of Covid, it became clear over time, had just about nothing to do with science or medicine and everything to do with asserting social control in the context of the determined Deep State effort to remove a wildly popular and successful president--but one who threatened entrenched ruling elite interests. The transparent dishonesty of a fake impeachment, the elite suppression of unapproved pro-Trump speech, and finally a non-credible electoral process led to this outpouring.

To realize all this, as this huge confluence of Middle America certainly did, is to understand that the unhinged ruling class reaction to what was arguably a setup--and in any event, despite a tragic death of a young woman at the hands of the guardians of the ruling elite--signals that our rulers regard Middle America, the Normals, as enemies. The vituperation against Middle America will not change this perception of our anti-constitutional elites as enemies of America.

For that reason, Paul Gottfried's venting this morning makes sense to me: Ashamed of What? There is no call for shame. Desecration of our "sacred space" in the Imperial City on the Potomac? Please! 

Donald Trump was subjected to four, five, years of the most intense scrutiny, both legal and illegal--including with all the surveillance techniques at the disposal of our Deep State--that any individual has ever been subjected to in the history of this country. Read that again--it's literally true. On top of that scrutiny was the most over the top vituperation and vilification since Richard Nixon--because Trump put the interests of America and Americans above those of the ruling elite. And it was capped by the abdication of our so-called Supreme Court.

If this disgrace, this blot on our nation's history, that has been the last four years, doesn't constitute a far more serious desecration than the invasion of a building, then I'm missing something about the meaning our constitution is supposed to have for America.

I'm not ashamed.