The Georgia Howl Of The Trump Vendetta Ride
Donald Trump rally in Perry, Georgia, 9/25/2021. Screen capture from C-SPAN coverage.
Covering elections and politics is, for the most part, an exercise in traveling well-worn narrative ruts up the various election cycle hills and reflecting on what it all means in the valleys between. There are the “horse race” narratives about who is going to win. There are the analyses of how certain issues and constituencies play into the grander scheme of things. There are the data crunchers who use analytics and statistics to find trends and meanings beyond just the pressed flesh and kissed babies of traditional campaigning. There are the personal profiles of the rising stars and the obituaries of the fading failures.
We need to throw all that out when it comes to what former President Donald Trump is doing right now heading into the 2022 mid-term and beyond. This isn’t a campaign for party and candidates in the traditional sense. The current strategy, such as it is, isn’t about building a power coalition or furthering a party, or laying the groundwork for future political endeavors.
The howling noise that emanated from Perry, Georgia among the chants, speeches, and fireworks was not the normal noises of a political campaign in the usual meaning of the words. What Donald Trump and company are going for in 2022 is an old-fashioned vendetta ride against the one, true enemy of Making America Great Again, again: anyone perceived to not be down for the cause of Donald J. Trump.
Thousands packed the Georgia National Fairgrounds in Perry as former President Donald Trump held a rally for a slate of pro-Trump candidates running for office in Georgia in 2022.
Trump has remained fixated on Georgia and Gov. Brian Kemp since Kemp refused to intervene in the state’s election results, which President Joe Biden won by about 11,000 votes.
The rally was as much anti-Kemp as it was pro-Trump. At one point, Trump said Stacey Abrams would be a better governor than Kemp.
With the exception of Herschel Walker, the GOP speakers took the stage one-by-one, with the same theme: Repeating election conspiracies, denying the 2020 election results, and insisting that Donald Trump should still be the president.
The nugget that the news cycle deemed notable was this, as explained by the excellent Stephen Fowler for Georgia Public Broadcasting:
A common shared enemy for Republicans across the spectrum is Stacey Abrams, the former Democratic gubernatorial candidate who nearly beat Kemp in 2018 and is believed to be his likely challenger next year. But Trump’s only mention of Abrams came as a setup to excoriate Kemp for failing to overturn the 2020 election.
“Of course, having her I think might be better than having your existing governor, if you want to know,” he said. “Stacey, would you like to take his place? It’s OK with me!”
One could hurt themselves trying to figure out how much of what Donald Trump says at these rallies is thought out and how much is just spouting off. But mentioning Abrams in that context to that audience is not subtle. To whatever extent you would take Trump’s word for it, we should probably believe what he is telling us. The lesson the former president learned from personally driving the loss of both Georgia U.S. Senate seats en route to losing the U.S. Senate GOP majority was apparently a burning desire to do it again but louder, faster, and with more fundraising.
The cast of characters that made up the Georgia contingent of the Trump All-Stars was truly something. Jody Hice declared “We need the hand of almighty God to intervene,” which one can only assume includes him winning against embattled Brad Raffensperger who committed the grievous sin of not delivering electoral redemption to the MAGA faithful last November. Life-long corrupt Democrat-turned-Trump-Republican Vernon Jones, on track to lose the GOP primary for governor by an impressive number, said the same things all the other speakers did but in his own uniquely duplicitous Vernon Jones way. Marjorie Taylor Greene, fresh off the spectacle of shouting at a group of Democratic lawmakers on the steps of the United States Capitol, also said the same things as everyone else but managed to make them sound even more abrasive as only Marjorie Taylor Greeene can do. Maybe this was a planned strategy, since newly announced U.S. Senate candidate Herschel Walker came off as uplifting and normal in comparison.
And then there was the main event of these rallies: the speech of Donald J. Trump. His Abrams crack was preceded by swiping at the former Georgia House of Representatives Minority Leader for not conceding her race for governor, which…yeah, ok, Abrams certainly deserves criticism for that. But saying that after the Perry, Georgia rally had unloaded a cavalcade of stolen election carnival barking was an impressive level of…You know what? We need a new term for this. The usual political terms for this sort of hypocrisy and lack of self-awareness just seem inadequate.
We do not have a good nomenclature for what Trump and his followers are doing in Georgia. This isn’t really a political campaign. It is wearing the coat of a political campaign; Candidates will be on ballots, seeking votes and — most importantly — milking the Trump faithful for fundraising. But this is more of a forming singularity, the gravitational pull of the slowly collapsing Trump political star that still has quite a bit of spectacular show to it before it collapses totally under its own, condensing weight. It’s the biggest thing going in its own solar system, but an increasingly distant one to the rest of the political galaxy. Those entities completely reliant on the Trump fiscal-political ecosystem to function don’t really have anywhere else to go, so they are riding the Trump Train to the bitter end. After all, one of the key characteristics of a singularity is how nothing, including information, ever gets out. Singularities are detected from the absence of something that should be there, like a good showing by the Georgia Republican Party in a statewide election in Georgia. Or the bending of the normal travel of light, like Donald Trump needing to name drop Stacey Abrams to break back into the news cycle.
The wish-casting of the chattering classes that the Republican party will make a wholesale u-turn away from all things Trump is not going to happen. Trump is the Republican Party until he isn’t, and the latter has given no indication to fully push back against the former. Political parties run more off inertia than innovation, and the Trump explosion of 2016 is still coasting along in a party that doesn’t have any better idea at the moment. Most likely, whenever the Post-Trump GOP decides to make an official appearance, there will be a slow fade as the party tries to keep the parts of Trumpism they see as advantageous while letting Trump himself burn out slowly in the political atmosphere over a few elections. Not exactly the courageous and bold approach, but no serious observer of the GOP over the last few decades would ever use either term unironically for Team Red.
The reality is that the Republican Party was powerless to prevent a Trump takeover. And it will be powerless to manage the Trump decline. At some point in the future they will go for a formal separation then ret-con the party’s participation into whatever advantageous version benefits the GOP the most. Party politics is the path of least resistance, and will be so with Donald Trump going forward. Besides, Donald Trump didn’t make anyone one of his followers do anything; he just gave them the reason to do what they wanted to do under his banner and brand as a group. Either which way, every Republican primary in the meantime will be heavy on Trump.
The question of the continued influence of Trump in the general electorate is a different matter than Republican primaries. That measure of decline will be played out elsewhere as well, but is going to be glaringly apparent in Georgia. If the very particular shade of Trump Red doesn’t succeed in trending less-red Georgia in 2022, and there is a repeat of the 2020 Election overtime disaster for Georgia Republicans in a year that should be a Republican resurgence, the fade of Trump will hasten a bit. Or maybe a bunch. But the overall trajectory isn’t going to change, just the speed to which it will happen. Either way, Donald Trump will be undeterred because his real goal isn’t tied to Georgia electoral success, or the congressional races of 2022 mid-terms, or even 2024 national elections. His goal is vengeance, a personal vendetta against those he perceives to have wronged him in 2020 and thereafter. So, of course Stacey Abrams would be preferable to Brian Kemp in Trumpworld Logic. Because all that matters is the reckoning. The correcting of the wrong. The filling of the giant hole in the Donald Trump mythology, not to mention the smarting ego. And if Donald Trump has to burn down the Georgia Republican party, or the national Republican Party, or anything else to get his march to the sea of vengeance, so be it.
Trump just wants Georgia, and the rest of the country, to howl for wronging him. They’ll be obliged to do so at least through the 2022 mid-term election with the chaos generator of Donald J. Trump wanting his way in Georgia elections, and elsewhere. We’ll see how much success the former president and supporters gain or how much destruction is left in the wake. With historic trends telling us Republicans should do well in 2022, if Republicans don’t win in Georgia where the Trump Vendetta Ride is focused, we’ll all know why.
Reagan, W, Palin, Trump. The one thing we can predict is that whatever follows Trump will be even worse.Report
I’m not convinced that 2022 will be a good year for Republicans despite the normal midyear bounce the opposition party gets. All things being equal, they should but there is a lot of underplaying on how much Democrats or just people in general are angry at the anti-vaxxers and it is an open question on how that drives turn out.
I suspect 2022 will be a high turn out year like 2022. In terms of redistricting, New York and either Oregon or Washington are posed to play hardball against Republicans. Michigan will be redrawn by a non-partisan commission that tends to be to Republican disadvantage.Report
We’ll have a prediction thread next summer, of course.
But what would be the level, more or less, of what a “good” Republican year would look like?
“Picking up X House seats and Y Senate seats would be a good year”. What would X and Y be?
In 1994, Republicans picked up 54 seats.
In 2006, Democrats picked up 32 seats.
In 2010, Republicans picked up 64 seats.
In 2018, Democrats picked up 41 seats.
(I got those numbers from here.)
According to the wikipedia, Republicans have 212 seats, Democrats have 220, and there are 3 vacant seats.
I think that it’s more than possible for the Republicans to flip the house back in their own favor while not picking up 32 seats (the lowest of the above numbers)… I mean, they’ll only have to get 6 seats to do that.
But I’d say that 26 seats would give them a goodish, safeish margin while still being under 32.
Would a net gain of 26 seats in the house qualify as a good year for Republicans?Report
May the odds be ever in your favor.Report
I know that Republicans will pick up at least the 6 seats that they’ll need to flip the house (seriously, it’s a razor thin margin and just some light regression to the mean would limp them across that line).
But I also think that picking up 6 seats, even if that flips the House back, will be seen as “disappointing” by both Republicans and Democrats.
And you know what? I, too, would say that they would not be wrong to see that as a disappointing result.
Even if it does flip the House.
A good election, for the Republicans, would need to get more than +6.Report
I think 2022 will basically be a wash . Either a slight Democratic or slight Republican advantage in the House.Report
We do have a language to describe this – it is fascist authoritarian propaganda in service of elevating the Strongman so that he can maintain power. His base is the electorate in the Republican Party, and unless Congress dies something about the aggressive voter suppression and gerrymandering in states like Georgia it won’t matter whether he turns off other voters or not.Report
In 2020, there were a small number of Republicans who were willing to resist the attack on democracy.
What we are seeing is the purge of those people, to prevent any resistance the next time.Report
Watch Texas. Abbot might lose to an actor, for God’s sake, because he’s being forced to go full-throated nutbar by Allen West’s primary challenge.
He hasn’t done anything about the grid, an issue Texans VERY MUCH REMEMBER, and instead has gone in with anti-abortion laws half his own base think are nuts, screaming about building a Wall (something Texas Republicans were actually very lukewarm about, insofar as most are aware our border is a river, and we’re not terrified of Hispanics like they are in places like Ohio or Michigan), now an election “audit” for an election they won — at taxpayer expense.
He’s incredibly unpopular with segments he needs to win the general election, and he’s actively making them unhappier because he can’t win a general election if he can’t win his primary, and his base is so unhappy with him that he mere mention of his name got him booed at CPAC — why, I have no ideas. He’s not been anti-Trump, but apparently Allen West has cast him as such to the faithful.
He’s gambling his career on the fact that, at the end of the day, he’ll restrict enough democratic voting that he’ll limp across the finish line on the strength of his base, even if he’s pissed off a lot of Republican leaners. What are they going to do, vote for a Democrat?
The whole GOP has their nuts in that particular vice. Turn the crazy dial up FURTHER from 2016, from 2020 — or retire. The base doesn’t accept anything but full-throated crazy.Report
I would guess that who the Democratic alternative is in Texas would be pretty significant as well.Report
Beto has been mentioned as a possibility. But like a lot of southern states Texas has gerrymandered democrats out of most statewide offices.Report
The Unbearable Male Privilege of Beto O’Rourke is a story that explains why Beto is not the right person for this job.
Is Wendy Davis doing anything?Report
That’s such an out of date article as to be laughable. Especially since Beto has actually represented Texans as an elected official.
Can he win Texas? Guess that depends on how purple it really is.Report
The story mentions that he actually represented Texans as an elected official:
But his three terms as a member of the House of Representatives were unremarkable, and his policy positions are so vague that one is hard-pressed to outline a single one.
Since then, of course, he’s argued for gun confiscation and removing the tax breaks for churches that refuse to officiate SSM.
So that’s two policies that I remember off the top of my head.
But he said those when he was running for president, not running for state office, so he might not believe those things anymore.Report
I’m sorry, how do you gerrymander someone out of a statewide office? Voter suppress them out, sure. But gerrymander?Report
By breaking up democrats into districts that make campaigning for statewide office too tough.Report
Does Texas have rules about where statewide candidates must make appearances? About filing paperwork? 75% of Texas’s population lives in the major cities and their suburbs.Report
Good catch.Report
Beto has shot his own statewide viability that people are talking Mathew McConaughey as the candidate on the theory they need an affable face without prior positions.Report
Beto is trying to run, but it’s…unlikely he’ll gain much traction. He burned a few too many bridges the last few years. The stranglehold the GOP has on state offices really hurts the party.
Mat Mcconaughey is flirting with the idea, and hand to god I think enough republicans might jump ship under the “at least’s he’s not a politician” excuse.
They’ll never vote for a Democrat, perish the thought, but they’re not happy voting for Abbot and Paxton either.
They’re real ripe for the “Pox on both their houses, let’s get a [real American/not a politician/someone new] in pitch”. After all, they’ve already poxed the Democrats house, and they’re getting real disillusioned with Abbot’s pandering.
Then again, Abbot is clearly banking on them forgetting between the primary and the general election, and coming back to vote the party line once he screams enough about immigrants and socialism. He’s really hoping they’ve forgotten the winter freeze.Report
And sadly Democrats play this game so poorly at the state level he may be right.Report
Yeah running for President was a terrible idea and Beto never should have done it. He’s be a viable contender for Gov or Tx Senator otherwise.Report
An interesting observation on why 88 year old Grassley is running for reelection: https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2021/09/chuck-grassley-senate-reelection-midterms-old-iowa-republican.html
“In Missouri, where Sen. Roy Blunt won’t seek reelection, the crowded GOP primary features a disgraced ex-governor who on Friday encouraged Arizona to decertify its election results, even after the “audit” found more votes for Joe Biden, as well as the rich guy who pointed a gun at Black Lives Matters protesters in 2020 from the lawn of his castle—the main image when you visit his campaign website—and is now posing as a farmer of sorts.
In Ohio, let’s put it like this: One of the main Republican candidates duking it out for retiring Sen. Rob Portman’s seat, Josh Mandel, is currently feuding on Twitter with two of Martin Luther King Jr.’s children. The Trump-off between Mandel and his main competitor, Hillbilly Elegy author J.D. Vance, has been straightforwardly disturbing to watch.”
Both MO and OH are pretty red these days but it is possible these primaries can lead to Democratic gains especially if they go up against someone like Tim Ryan. Again, I am not stating that 2022 will be a bad year for Republicans but past and current events might end some of the old assumptions on midterms.Report
I think American politics has moved into a new era where conventional political analyses don’t work anymore.
By “conventional” I mean the assumptions taught in civics textbooks where voters rationally assess their interests and support people who share them.
Ethnic grievance doesn’t lend itself to rational appeals.
How this plays out, I have no idea.Report
Another big question mark is polling.
I personally think Trump is the aberration. Polling when he’s not personally on the ticket has been accurate enough, but place him on the ticket and things go pear shaped.
I think the explanation is that Trump personally motivates a lot of unlikely GOP voters, a notoriously low-trust group to boot. They don’t show up well on voter screens, they don’t answer polls, and in general are difficult to account for.
For Trump, they vote. And then vote GOP down ticket. No Trump? They don’t show up to vote. They didn’t in 2018, they didn’t in the GA special elections for Senate (despite how high stakes that was, Democrats markedly improved from just three months prior), and I don’t think it’s all “the election was rigged” stuff.
I think Trump’s personal charisma really reached these voters, made them want to support him. Made them want to show up. Made them feel heard.
But..only Trump. I don’t think DeSantis or Paxton or Rubio or MTG or anyone else mouthing the words can really repeat Trump’s feat. The GOP spent decades trying to find the “new Reagan” and got Trump, eventually. Democrats spent decades trying to recreate Kennedy, finally getting Obama.
The Reagan 2.0s and Kennedy 2.0s all flopped. The magic wasn’t there, even if the candidates believed the words. Trump and Obama both took a different tact entirely.
In short: I don’t think those irregular Trump voters are going to show up for a cover band. They’ll go home, and talk about how great the music was until someone sold out. And now it’s all pale copies who don’t understand.Report
Sounds right to me. We’ll see what it looks like in 2022. It’ll be interesting.Report
But they can never go back to Romney/McCain/Bush either.
They may settle for a De Santis or Abbot or Noem as Trump-Lite but even Trump-Lite is every bit as dangerous as the real thing, if only because the “Lite” designation only means “Slightly less insane”.
The authoritarianism, the sneering contempt for the majority of American citizens…its all there, in every elected Republican from Senator to Governor to Congressman to local school board member.Report
“But they can never go back to Romney/McCain/Bush either.
They may settle for a De Santis or Abbot or Noem as Trump-Lite but even Trump-Lite is every bit as dangerous as the real thing, if only because the “Lite” designation only means “Slightly less insane”.”
Oh absolutely, but here’s the thing: DeSantis, to mangle ghostbusters, scares the straights.
Trump ALMOST motivated his base more than he motivated, well, everyone else (including a lot of former GOPers) into voting. He came up short.
DeSantis has all the anti-appeal of Trump to, well, everyone else — but doesn’t have nearly as much of Trump’s appeal to the irregular voters. He likely won’t scare moderate voters as much, but judging by the numbers he’s still angering them far more than he’s motivating his base.
Admittedly I’m Texas focused, but look at Abbot — he’s been forced into Trump-esque behavior by a primary threat, and his overall approval has dropped enough that he’s vulnerable in a general election. He’s less “expanding/motivating” his base as he is simply getting them to grudgingly accept that he’s come over to the new status quo.
To do even that ,he’s having to throw some really noxious red meat.
Trump killed the GOP’s bases ability to hear dog whistles. So everyone is having to scream out all the stuff they, quite understandable, wanted to keep quiet.
And while currently most of the GOP is quite capable of shouting the quiet parts loudly, none of them seem to do so with the sort of authenticity and charm of Trump.Report
Meanwhile, in the governable region of America, Gavin Newsom signed into law a bill to make permanent the practice of sending a ballot to every voter in the mail.
Oh, and LA District Attorney George Gascon has moved to dismiss 60,000 past marijuana convictions, allowing those convicted to apply for jobs, housing and other services.Report
“We do not have a good nomenclature for what Trump and his followers are doing in Georgia. This isn’t really a political campaign.”
Maybe this isn’t political at all. Maybe it’s best understood as theater.
I’m fine with using the term “insurrection” to describe January 6th, but it’s never fit too well. Maybe theater is the better paradigm for it. Maybe for BLM, CHOP, et cetera, as well. Maybe mask confrontations too. I guess this could be thought of as a commonplace observation, that our politics has gotten theatrical, but I mean more like these things aren’t political in their origin, practice, or goal.Report
This is a good pointReport
Sadly, “theater” is probably right.
I remember a few years back I commented I wished life was more like musicals – that there’d be random songs and spontaneous dancing and a happily-ever-after but I guess instead the “theater” we will get will be an unholy hybrid of the things Kafka and Brecht worried about, with maybe a hint of Samuel Beckett….Report
Everything is a LARP.
Robber’s Cave: The Home Game.Report
So you don’t think Trump wanted the election results over turned? That sure seemed like a bit of “theatre” that was and is very much political in its origin, practice and goal.
Ditto the Insurrection – while not everyone who breached the Capitol may have intended to commit violence, everyone caught – and most of the folks who made it into press interviews that day said they were there to make their voices heard which is an action that is political in its origin, practice and goal.
The BLM marches last year demanding equality were also political. Heck, even the anarchists who openly used the marches to to commit violence and looting were firm in that being a political action too.Report
I’m not saying that nothing is political. I just mean the rallies, the things that looks like theater of the absurd, may just be theater of the absurd.Report
People beating cops on the steps of the Capitol with fire extinguishers is not theatre.
Donald Trump STILL calling on Brad Raffensberger to decertify an election is not theatre of the absurd.Report
We may not like it but it is both theatrical and absurd. It’s theatrical because it’s performance (just not addressed to us) and it’s absurd because even if Raffensberger had a micro-stroke, lost his mind and did what Trump is demanding nothing would happen because our political system and the Presidential election doesn’t work that way.Report
Theater is an inherent part of authoritarian movements.
The Nuremburg rallies, Soviet agit-prop- they all used spectacle and theatrics as a way of spreading non-rational and illogical messages which were impervious to conventional political attacks.Report
Exactly.Report
“This is theater.”
– “No it’s not.”
“This is evil theater.”
– “Exactly.”
If Chip had called it evil skydiving, would you have agreed with that too?Report
Nuance dude, nuance. Chip was talking about theatrical tactics inservice of authoritarian political outcomes. And that is an accurate statement.
You called it theatrics as a total assessment, divorced from any political process. Entertainment for entertainment’s sake. Which its not.Report
Chronology, dude, chronology. You rejected the notion of theater before Chip spoke. “People beating cops on the steps of the Capitol with fire extinguishers is not theatre.” Then, when Chip said it was theater, you unambiguously supported it. On the one side: “not theater”. On the other: “exactly”.
Like, remember the time you said something about white people and vaccines, and I replied with a statistic about black people and vaccines, and you accused me of bringing race into it? The sequence and time code on the comments makes these things clear.
Sometimes I’m wrong. Like on this one, I may be underestimating the meaning of the rallies. But I’m not going to knee-jerk based on my opinion of the person I’m replying to.Report
And this is a small point, but as far as I can tell, there was one fire extinguisher thrown, and no beatings.Report
Multiple people have been charged with beating cops that day. One used a fire extinguisher, one used a flag pole and one apparently used the cop’s own riot truncheon against him. Several people have been charged with assaults’ for discharging bear spray and tear gas onto officers. USA Today has a current rundown.
https://www.usatoday.com/storytelling/capitol-riot-mob-arrests/Report
Like I said, a small point, but one where you were spreading false information. Your USA Today article doesn’t support your position.Report
“Eckerman pushed his way to the front of a crowd and shoved an officer back several feet, causing the officer to fall down a small set of stairs … Eckerman made it to Statuary Hall where he pushed through another set of officers”
“Neefe carried a wooden club at the Capitol and participated in hoisting and pushing a large metal sign frame into a line of police officers”
“The documents describe another Youtube video and Capitol surveillance footage that show Dempsey recieving what seems to be tear gas from a person in the crowd. He sprays the line of officers and also uses various objects and weapons such as a crutch and metal pole to assault officers.”
“Brown is seen in multiple videos participating in assualts on law enforcement. In Capitol security camera footage, Brown is seen among the crowd in a tunnel leading to the Lower West Terrace. After someone in the crowd passed him a can of pepper spray, Brown points the can toward the police defensive line and sprays for several seconds.”
“The FBI reported Young and other protesters lifted a barricade and charged officers on the upper west terrace”
“He is one of seven men charged by a superceding indictment in the brutal assault on officers during the melee on the Capitol’s lower west terrace. Documents state McAbee is shown on police body-camera footage carrying a baton and swinging at officers while wearing gloves with reinforced metal knuckles. He’s shown grabbing the torso of an officer already on the ground while Clayton Ray Mullins, also of Kentucky, grabbed the officer’s legs in what became a tug-o-war between the two men and other officers trying to prevent further assault. Soon after, McAbee grabbed the same officer and dragged him down the stairs into the crowd as others kicked, stomped and struck him with poles. The footage shows McAbee pinning the officer down for about 25 seconds. Afterward, the officer needed medical attention for a head laceration.”
“Barnhart used deadly and dangerous weapons such as a baton, flag pole and crutch to assault an officer, according to a superceding indictment for Barnhart and six others. ”
“He is charged with taking a baton from a Metropolitan Police Department officer with the initials D.H. and then using that baton to assault the officer. ”
“Charging documents report that publicly available video shows Ballard in the Lower West Terrace archway confronting officers and holding a police baton while others attack the officers. Additionally, police body-camera footage shows Ballard throwing a tabletop at officers and later assualting officers with the baton.”
“According to his plea, the news release said, Thompson was part of a group that threw objects and stole riot shields so officers could not protect themselves. Thompson saw the police order rioters to stop. Officials said he picked up a metal baton from the floor and swung it overhead and downward against the police line in an attempt to knock a can of pepper spray from an officer’s hand to prevent him from spraying the rioters. ”
“Willden cheered as the doors to the Capitol opened, the FBI states in charging documents. At 2:35 p.m., he can be seen raising his hand and spraying an unknown substance from a green can toward police officers who were standing guard at the east door.”
“Davis was in the melee on the west front terrace stairs, the FBI stated in charging documents. He’s accused of charging toward officers wielding a large stick and ignoring orders to move back. Documents also state he’s captured on camera footage shouting and pushing down the hands of an officer trying to block his advance.”
“Lazar is seen in video aiming a canister of chemical irritant in the direction of officers with the Capitol Police and Metropolitan Police Department, spraying the irritant at least twice. At one point, body-camera video shows Lazar spraying an irritant toward an officer who reported losing the ability to see.”
“Police body-camera footage shows Taake assualting officers with pepper spray and a metal whip outside the Capitol.”
“According to the documents, body-camera footage and other video footage shows DaSilva on the Lower West Terrace of the Capitol grabbing, pushing and pulling shields held by law enforcement.”
“police body camera footage and a video from Parler shows Brock assualting law enforcement and impeding them from performing officals duties. In the videos described in the document Brock is seen charging at and pushing officers with a four-foot-long rod as they are trying to control the crowd.”
“In the video Rodriguez held a canister to a line of law enforcement officers and sprayed them with a chemical irritant, then retreated into the crowd.”
“He is seen grabbing and pulling the metal barrier in front of the line of officers with an associate, giving rioters access to the officers. He’s seen later in the day charging at a line of officers, taking up a fighting stance and punching towards the faces of officers.
Hutchinson charged at officers again and kicked at them”
“Byerly is seen charging at officers with a taser or taser-like device in his hand. After law enforcement retrieved the device, Byerly continued to assault officers by physically striking, pushing and shoving, documents show. He also tried to take an officer’s baton.”
“The documents state an officer tried to get past Olivia Pollock at one point and she wrapped up his arm and tried to strip away his baton. Moments later, the FBI stated she struck an officer with her right hand and elbowed him in the chest.”
“Pollock and an associate charged toward a line of police officers, brandishing flagpoles, the FBI stated in court records. When the metal barrier between the crowd and the officers was pulled away, Pollock charged the police line, jumping over other rioters to attack police officers, the charging documents stated. Pollock grabbed an officer and pulled him down the stairs. And an officer stepping in to assist was also pulled down. Pollock punched another officer in the face and then pushed the officer to the ground by holding the officers neck in a choking action. Later, the documents state, Pollock seized a riot shield and struggled with an officer for it until Pollock took control of the shield, then used it to slam into the police line.”
“Court documents state he assaulted a law enforcement officer with a flag pole and is facing two to three years of imprisonment on the assault charge.”
“Photos show Brown shouting into a megaphone and working his way to the front of the group where rioters were trying to push into the tunnel, ramming a flag pole into the tunnel and spraying liquid from a canister.”
“Shortly after, Neumann grabs the barricade and forcefully shoves it into the line of officers, as officers push back Neumann throws punches at them. More rioters join in and they eventually break down the barricade. Neumann lifts the barricade off the ground and strikes officers with it,”
“Capitol Police Surveillance footage showed that Sills threw objects at officers outside and was in the first group of rioters that entered the Capitol tunnels on Jan.6. Videos from Sills’ Instagram, surveliance cameras and police body cameras show that once Sills was inside, he assualted law enforcement officers with a baton and a pole-like object while using a strobe light to disorient the officers.”
“A video posted to Youtube shows Woods tripping and pushing over a Capitol Police officer after another person sprayed her with bear mace.”
“Jamie Buteau threw a chair at two Capitol Police officers around 2:30 p.m. ”
” During the altercation, he scratched an officer near his left eye. ”
“Creek was seen on body worn camera video assaulting multiple police officers, the Department of Justice stated in a news release. He struck one uniformed officer and kicked another a minute later. The charging documents state he carried mace and a boot knife with him into the Capitol. ”
“Morss can be seen on numerous videos from the riot “near the frontline of rioters who pushed past police guarding the Capitol, organizing a shield wall in the violent attack on officers inside the Lower West Terrace tunnel, and entering into the Capitol through a broken window,” according to the criminal complaint against him. The same individual was seen on police body camera footage attempting to grab an officer’s baton and later grabbing a piece of metal fencing holding back the crowd and running away with it. He was later seen in videos inside the building in a room where furniture was being broken and passed outside to others. ”
“Morss can be seen on numerous videos from the riot “near the frontline of rioters who pushed past police guarding the Capitol, organizing a shield wall in the violent attack on officers inside the Lower West Terrace tunnel, and entering into the Capitol through a broken window,” according to the criminal complaint against him. The same individual was seen on police body camera footage attempting to grab an officer’s baton and later grabbing a piece of metal fencing holding back the crowd and running away with it. He was later seen in videos inside the building in a room where furniture was being broken and passed outside to others. ”
” Then, documents state, he struck another law enforcement officer and lunged for the officers baton.”
And that’s just about 1/3rd of the way through the USA Today article. Multiple assaults on officers with poles, flag poles, fences, sticks, pepper spray, tear gas, bear spray and “chemical” irritants.
These people weren’t LARPing. This wasn’t theatre. And no, I don’t spread disinformation.Report
Not a single fire extinguisher beating, though, so it’s bad information. The interesting thing about that one is that it dates back to very early in the breaking news, so I assumed you were just being lazy. But if you’ve been tracking the stories and you chose to write something that didn’t happen, that’s a bit worse.Report
“Federal charging documents state Brockhoff assaulted officers attempting to control the crowd at the lower west terrace by spraying officers with a fire extinguisher, which caused them to disperse and impeded their efforts to control the crowd. ”
“Palmer, who owns a cleaning service in Largo, Florida, was dubbed #FloridaFlagJacket by online sleuths, because he wore a jacket styled like an American flag with the word Trump on the front and a Trump campaign pin to the Capitol. The FBI reported he threw a wooden plank at officers, sprayed the contents of a fire extinguisher toward officers, threw the fire extinguisher at them and then picked it up and threw it at them a second time. ”
“After reviewing video footage and receiving a tip, the FBI identified Sanford as the man shown on video heaving a fire extinguisher from an elevated position on the Capitol steps toward a line of officers who were trying to hold back a mob of rioters. According to charging documents, the extinguisher ricocheted and hit three officers in the head, two of whom were wearing a helmet and one who was not.”
Wrong again.Report
No, you’re wrong, unless you’re claiming that “beating with a fire extinguisher” includes spraying and throwing. It’s that “page up” key that trips you up every time.Report
You are working so hard to avoid seeing the forest – much less the trees – for the needles. Why is that?Report
I told you, I figured that you were going off of old news stories that have been debunked. And, as I noted, I considered this a small item, so I don’t feel like I’m working hard on it. The question for me is, why you keep sticking with a particular story that you know to be untrue? I’d think that if one person can’t see the forest for the trees, and the other one is lying about being in a desert, the latter one is the stranger case. My theory is the one I said earlier, that you refuse to back down because you’re talking to an “enemy”, and ideology is more important to you than accuracy.Report
Accurately – a great many officers were assaulted at the capitol with a variety of items.
Accurately – fire extinguishers were used in those assaults, even if none of those uses meets your definition of “beating.
Accurately – what happened at the capitol was not theatre with no political origin, practice or goal.
Accurately – what happened at the Capitol was not theatre of the absurd.
Over 100 of the 500 people charged so far in that riot were charged with assault, and nearly always that involved the police – though thankfully the people who beat reporters were also charged thusly. Those people did not go to the capitol that day for performative reasons.
You want to color that through ideaology I can’t stop you. But it appears you are dismissing those assaults and that attack and its severity and threat because of a few poorly chosen words. Which I find sad, but completely expected.Report
That’s definitely something to be worried about. But sometimes theater isn’t in the service of anything. There used to be American Idol tours; this looks like The Apprentice tour.Report