Chris Hayes Says January 6 was a Coup and Lines Up the Evidence

Chris Hayes, MSNBC: "Yes, it was a Coup" 

Chris Hayes came up with what I consider an award winning piece of real journalism this past week with the story he did entitled, "A Step by Step Breakdown of the Trump Coup Attempt," adding the tag, "Yes, it was a Coup" following.  Hayes lays out the fact that Trump's remaining allies and administrative staff looked for a "link" in the chain of actions in the Constitution's procedures for the peaceful transfer of power to break, which would somehow, someway, allow Trump to remain in the Presidency and somehow, someway overturn the results of a legitimate election.  

They left a trail of documentation, including mountains of social media posts, transcripts of phone conversations, hidden video recordings of intimidation efforts on Trump's behalf by political allies, all pointing like a straight, fast arrow to Trump''s intentions and actions aimed at destruction of the Constitution and the Republic in order to remain in power.  Much of the evidence indicates that neither Trump, nor very many, if any, of his closest allies, believed for a moment that they had actually won the election.  They kept floating that lie out their for their mindless base, but their words and actions are a clear acknowledgement that Trump and his entourage knew they'd lost, big.  

So Where Do We Go From Here

Many Trump supporters are hopelessly blinded by ignorance and buried in false conspiracy theories.  Suffering from a stupor induced by personal prosperity and dulled by a barrage of electronic media entertainment, it could well be that there are not enough Americans concerned about the possibilities here to provide the kind of opposition necessary to support efforts at preventing this sort of thing from happening again.  There are a few Republicans who see what has happened to their party, and who are able to see this for what it is, recognizing that Trump has to be gone before they will recover politically.  If this continues to be put up front and center, it will tilt the balance of voters on the national level, and even in many states, toward Democrats.  

But this has to be an effort that has direction, planning and purpose.  Voter suppression laws that are popping up like sunflowers in the spring need to be nullified.  Voters have to be mobilized and moved to protect the Republic and nullify state laws that are intended to undermine candidates who are serving their constituents rather than demonstrating personal loyalty to a demagogue like Trump.  And it has to be done now. 

I can only imagine what might be in the White House documents that Trump wants to keep from seeing the light of day.  What Hayes put together, from evidence that is already known and has been uncovered, is devastating for Trump.  Those White House archives he is trying to protect by asserting executive privilege he no longer has must be pretty damning for him to go to the lengths to which he is going to try and protect them.  He won't succeed at that. 

Trump is No Patriot, and Neither Are Most of His Followers

There's no tyranny here.  Not by any definition of the term.  Most of Trump's base has been deluded into thinking that they're outsiders and outcasts by a group of right wing media propagandists, starting with the likes of Rush Limbaugh, who were interested in lining their own pockets by finding some kind of "niche" market to get corporate dollars handed over to them through advertising.  There's no tyranny from the left, and in fact, given the way the left governs, accepts defeat and lives with it until they get another chance at the ballot box, and still has some old-fashioned notion that compromise is the way to political success, there never will be. 

This is America.  When the political opposition wins, those on the other side accept it and function as a minority.  It's not as complicated as rocket science to figure out how that works.  The other side is not an enemy, unless they make themselves into one and the moderate-to-left in American politics has absolutely never done that.  Tyranny is the restriction or denial of basic rights, in America, guaranteed by the Constitution.  Only the right seems bent on governing by those rules.

There is nothing that the political right can point to as evidence of any denial of rights.  In their imagination, though, in order to buck up what is obviously waning political power and to fight trends that have benefitted the Democrats, they've created conspiracies and made enemies.  They've created their own alternative reality and their propagandists, from Limbaugh to Carlson, have kept feeding the lie and stoking the hatred and bigotry.  Trump embodied it in the Presidency.  That, by definition, makes them subversives, not Patriots.  

With right wing media now becoming apologists for Vladimir Putin, it's not difficult to conclude that he may very well be behind Trump somewhere, and if that's not the case, there's still not much doubt he's figured out how to stroke Trump's fragile ego to get what he wants, which is a United States that is in political turmoil, confusion, and chaos.  His name comes up when the question about who benefits the most from the instability caused in the United States by disrupting the peaceful transfer of power.  Putin is the most powerful Marxist Socialist in the world at the moment, and it's not the left that is cozying up to him, nor is it the left-wing media that's calling him Vlad the Great" and puffing up his image.  

The Importance of Prosecuting The January 6th Perpetrators

You can't make this stuff up.  But it is so embedded in elements of the political right, that it is not likely it can ever be undone.  It's a danger that has to be dealt with and examples must be made of those who were responsible.  If those who are currently in power don't follow through, then they will be just as responsible for what happens as the liars and conspiracy theorists on the right, and the politicians who are more concerned about their political future than about the country or its Constitutional Republic.  There will always be those who hate, who are bigots, whose self-interest defeats patriotism, who think that the world is out to get them and who will follow those who tickle their ears and feed their hatred and fear.  But the will of the people, expressed in the rule of law, must exercise its power and do its job.  

Thank you, Mr. Hayes, for standing up, telling the truth and exposing the danger and evil of the Trump insurrection on January 6th.  Please keep uncovering the facts and telling the truth.