The real danger to democracy in the US

There is a rather sinister haze over the anniversary of 6 January 2021.

A year ago, a motley crowd of hooligans, clowns, thugs and freaks stormed the Capitol Building in Washington, the seat of the US Government, nominally to protest against Trump’s losing the presidential election to Biden.

Reflecting on these events of a year ago, President Biden and the rest of the Democrats see – or pretend to see – a threat to American democracy. I also see a threat to democracy. But it does not come from the Republican Party or supporters of President Trump; it comes from the Democrat establishment itself.

The Democrats and their rich, powerful, elitist allies see themselves as a natural ruling class. The US mainstream media are overwhelmingly Democrat and see their duty as promoting the views of the Democratic Party and shutting out all opposing view.

Most of the gigantic corporations support the Democrats. The Big Tech media do the same. They look down their noses at the crude lower classes who support the Republicans, whom Hillary Clinton described as ‘a basket of deplorables’.

When Donald Trump won the 2016 presidential election, they were horrified. They felt as London lords would feel if a rich scrap metal merchant became the King of England.

Even before he became president, the Democrat establishment tried to discredit him and overthrow the election result. Their first impeachment of him was based on the completely bogus charge that Trump had colluded with Russia to win the election. A very long, very expensive enquiry, presided over by people such as Nancy Pelosi, the super-rich, plutocratic Democrat House Speaker, produced not one scrap of evidence to support the charge.

Policies and actions

Trump’s behaviour as president was generally awful but his policies and actions generally good. He was rude and crude, he made incessant stupid tweets, he didn’t read his briefs or listen to his advisors, and he seemed to rely on instinct.

I thought he was wrong to scrap the Iranian nuclear deal and wrong to suck up to Saudi, the worst sponsor of Islamic terrorism. I hated his slogan of ‘fair trade not free trade’. But, unlike his predecessors, he kept America out of stupid wars.

He checked China’s abuse of trade with America. He cut taxes and made the American economy boom, with high rises of income for the low paid. He brought about record unemployment, especially for black Americans (whose plight he had noticed and sympathised with in his election debate with Clinton). He controlled the flood of illegal immigrants into America. He promised vaccines against Covid-19 in twelve months and delivered them (whatever you might think of them). He was one of the best presidents of modern times.

The election of 2020 was a complete mess but there is no doubt that Biden won by a clear margin. (Some of the Republican states are now trying to improve and simplify American voting procedures, asking for the same sort of identification documents that are required in South African elections. Biden accuses them of being racist!)

Trump, perhaps believing his own propaganda, was initially outraged by the outcome, and asked for his supporters to stage a peaceful protest against it. This led to the storming of the Capitol. It was a strange affair, leading to questions that have not been answered, or even addressed, such as why the police allowed these gaudy ruffians into the Capitol. When trouble seemed to be brewing, why didn’t they make preparations to resist them?

Silly

Some Democrats seriously want us to believe that this was an ‘insurrection’, an attempted coup to overthrow the American government. To see how silly this is, look at the extensive video coverage of the mayhem. Look at the characters concerned. Look at Jacob Anthony Chansley, who broke in with a painted face, a hat of fur, horns on his head, a naked chest and a spear; apparently he also calls himself, ‘the Yellowstone Wolf’.

It was obviously just a mob of oafs, weirdos and exhibitionists, none of whom carried guns, who came suddenly and departed easily, harming not one single legislator, never for a moment threatening the American government nor American democracy. Four people did die though. Three died of natural causes (provoked no doubt by the shock of the protests). Only one person was killed. This was a young woman, Ashli Babbit. As she was breaking in through a window, a policeman, without giving her any warning, shot her dead. The policeman seems to have a record of violent behaviour. Why don’t we know his name? Why is the media so quiet about her being deliberately killed by a policeman when it went into such rage six months before about a policeman kneeling on a suspect until he died – but with no proof or even suggestion that the policeman intended to kill?

Trump asked for peace. Republicans accepted the election result. Trump gave way quietly, if surlily, to the new president, and that was that.

In the previous six months, riots by BLM and Antifa, which included deliberate attacks on government buildings and a federal courthouse, had caused over a thousand times the damage of 6 January and resulted in over a hundred times more assaults and injuries to policemen. What do you hear about this from the media and the Democrat leaders?

President Biden, who has been in office just under a year, has been a disaster. He has crippled the economy with inflation and caused millions of Americans to stop working. Of his dreadful ‘Build Back Better’, even The Economist magazine, woke and partisan to the Democrats, said of its tax proposals: ‘A tax plan for the upper, upper class. Why Democrats may spend hundreds of billions sudsidising the rich.’ No doubt Nancy Pelosi will do spendidly through it. The deplorable working-classes will not. He has made a complete mess of policy on Covid-19.

Disgraceful

The manner of his withdrawal from Afghanistan was disgraceful. His absurd and destructive policies on climate change and green energy have seen fuel and electricity prices soaring and shortages loom. His policy on America’s southern border has been ruinous, with millions of illegal immigrants, including drug lords, child traffickers, organised criminals and unaccompanied children, flooding into America, and receiving full and free benefits. (Although, to be fair to him, this is exactly what most Democrats promised in their campaign debates in 2020.)

The Democrats, including President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, are doing badly in the polls and are heading for a beating in the November elections. This seems to be the main reason for their hysteria over 6 January 2021. They are trying to distract attention away from their woeful performance and their callous indifference to the problems of ordinary Americans. I think this is dangerous.

By accusing Trump supporters of being a threat to democracy, they might be preparing to reduce democracy themselves. Their Big Tech allies routinely shut out comment unfavourable to the ruling class and to approved opinion. General Mark Milley, chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff, who hated Trump, made some remarks against him to a Chinese counterpart that were close to treason; he promotes Critical Race Theory in the armed services and sees ‘white supremacy’ in his soldiers as more dangerous than any foreign enemy.

You almost get the feeling that some Democrat grandees would like to ban the Republican Party. Kamala Harris, whose popularity is plunging, recently compared 6 January 2020 with the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour on 7 December 1941 and the terrorist attack on New York on 11 September 2001. This is frightening. It is as if she is preparing America for drastic action against supporters of Trump or indeed against Republicans in general.

I hope Trump does not stand again for the presidency. There are better candidates from the Republicans, with good, sensible policies and sober, thoughtful personalities. But to have impeached Trump twice was vengeful nonsense. And now to accuse him of having tried to overthrow American democracy in January 2020 is not only absurd but cynical and perilous.

Andrew Kenny

https://dailyfriend.co.za/2022/01/09/the-real-danger-to-democracy-in-the-us/