The Trump Army
What follows is an attempt to understand what organized groups were represented at the January 6 riot at the Capitol building, and what these groups stand for. I’ve tried to be as objective as possible, and make no personal comment, though words are connotative as well as denotative, and are read by individuals who have differing perspectives. I’m aiming at a useful list of groups, and an honest account of their platforms and political objectives.
The proclaimed overall motive of the crowd was to prevent the Senate from accepting the results of the November election that certified Joe Biden as winner and Donald Trump as loser. The crowd evidently believed that the vote had been stolen, in ways that no one specified. Ted Cruz, the Republican Senator who tried to get the Senate to postpone accepting the Electoral College results and set up a commission to do another audit of the ballots, gave only general reasons: “voter fraud and violations of election law.” He had no specific incidents to recite, nor did anyone else on record.
Jamelle Bouie has pointed out that claims of voter fraud go far back into US history. This is as might be expected. Not far back, John McCain accused Obama of “perpetrating one of the greatest frauds in voter history in this country, maybe destroying the fabric of democracy.” McCain focussed in particular on ACORN, an advocacy organization that was working to register low-income workers. ACORN was, he said, organizing a far-left fraud in battleground states, with the support of Obama. Again, no specific incidences were mentioned by McCain, and the election results were easily accepted.
What the January 6 crowd said, as a sort of recognizable political statement, was that they were “saving the Constitution,” by not accepting the rigged election. “Saving the Constitution” is the primal buzz-phrase in American politics because Americans, living in a Republican system of government, swear allegiance to a piece of paper, rather than to any sovereign (Canada) or party (China). That piece of paper is exceptionally well written, but it is as susceptible to interpretation as the Bible.
So, on the surface at least, the crowd had an acceptable rationale to do what they were doing.
However, they also said they were out to get anyone who participated in the process of accepting Biden as President, including even some of Trump’s most loyal allies like Vice-President Pence. Specifically, they were going to hang him. Other participants outside the building, who journalists managed to interview, talked indirectly about killing legislators, saying “What else can you do?” Nancy Pelosi, majority leader of the house, was also a target, though I don’t remember if any specific outcome was specified for her.
Any of this, had it happened, would violate the Constitution, which does lay down certain laws and protocols to be followed in elections and in killing people. The elections ones were being upheld by Pence and Pelosi as well as many courts, right up to the Supreme Court. These are officials and institutions mentioned in the constitution as having certain roles to play in government. They seemed to have been acting as prescribed. The courts refused to hear Trump’s appeals, saying that that no evidence was presented. For this reason, too, the Senate voted down Cruz’s motion. That motion didn’t violate the Constitution; nor did the vote that turned it down. Both the senate and the courts were operating as they were supposed to. As for killing people, that is supposed to be done by the government and according to the law, though situations are conceived of where the government can go beyond the law, in which case citizens can take matters into their own hands. As for the “what else can you do?” question, the Constitution says you can vote legislators out, or run against them personally, or join or support a different party.
Other, perhaps more complex and familiar, motives can be ascertained by examining the platforms of the specific organizations represented by the crowd. Here, we’re on more familiar political, rather than legal, ground. Fundamentally, as the mainline media commentators generally say, all of the groups were extreme-right. Though rumours circulated through the crowd that Antifa (extreme-left) was also present, so far there’s no evidence.
Also, the protestors who invaded the Capitol building were all, as Don Lemon on CNN pointed out on Wednesday, January 13, 2021, Whites. There were Blacks present at an ancillary, and peaceful, Women for America First rally on the Ellipse, a federally owned park near the White House. This rally was mostly dedicated to worshipping images of Trump on giant screens. Lemon also said that the Whites present at the Capitol building were all racists, which is largely true in the sense that they considered people of colour (POC) to be inferior to Whites, or believed that Whites as they define them are in the majority and therefore justified in preserving that status and legislating for POC.
The Constitution is fairly clear about equal rights and how minorities need to be protected from majorities, but it’s ambiguous on how that’s done, and avoids any mention of actual colour as a factor in identifying majorities and minorities. Regarding Blacks, it buries slavery as an institution — the ultimate in “systemic” racism. As Lincoln put it, “Thus, the thing is hid away, in the Constitution, just as an afflicted man hides away a wen of a cancer, which he dares not cut out at once, lest he bleed to death.”
Qanon supporters seem to be the exception to Lemon’s description of the crowd as formally racist. They were everywhere inside and outside the building, many wearing the characteristic red sweater with the slogan, “TRUMP: trust the plan.” The Qanon movement started in 2016, when someone who is and has remained anonymous and who goes by the pseudonym “Q”, started a rumour that certain Satan-worshipping members of the American elite, all Democrats, were having sex with children in a pizza parlour. Q claimed to be a high-ranking officer in the military. During the election of that year, the rumour caused an uproar that came to be called “Pizzagate.” A bomber came to the parlour to blow the pedophiles up.
One voluble supporter, Marjorie Greene of Georgia, was elected to Congress in November, and polls have shown that significant percentages of the public share the Qanon faith — up to 25%. Qanon could have been looking for some senators or representatives to kill, but I haven’t yet found evidence that Qanon people were armed. At some stage either before or after the occupation of the Capitol, they decided that Pence was with Hilary and the devil, so they were in agreement that he should be hung. Since the Covid crisis, Qanon has argued that Covid is a hoax. It also argues that 5G mobile phone masts cause cancer.
Other than Qanon, Lemon is right in pointing out that as big proportion of the rest of the crowd were racists or (the same thing for Lemon) white supremacists. The Proud Boys flag was flying, and a few members were clearly evident, identifiable by their yellow hats or their black, Fred Perry polo shirts. Their original plan was to go incognito, but some wore the colours, and later the organization flaunted its role in the attack. About a dozen of them have been identified by police and at least one, so far, Nick Ochs, was arrested. He was in possession of pipe bombs and Molotov cocktails. The Proud boys are all-male, though no one seems to know if this represents a platform of male-supremacy or an anti-feminist philosophy. They have claimed not to be white supremacists, but “majoritarians” — whites should be dominant in America because they are in the majority and therefore have the right to fight to stay that way, primarily through a ban on immigration. I can’t see any difference in practical terms between white supremacy and majoritarianism. “Whites” likely means for the Proud Boys “of European extraction,” which excludes Jews so far as the Proud Boys are concerned. It also excludes Latin-Americans, apparently because their DNA is mixed more with that of the aborigines than the DNA of North Americans.
The Oath Keepers were also present; their leader, Stewart Rhodes, was filmed standing outside. Eight of his followers were definitely identified inside. One man, filmed talking with Ochs, was Nick Fuentes, who has said in interviews that he considers himself a white majoritarian, rather than a white nationalist. He speaks against Jews. Fuentes seems to lead a spin-off group or faction of the Oath Keepers called the Groyper Army. Some of these were in the Capitol building carrying a blue flag that said “America First.” “America First” has meant a lot of things in US history, most specifically in the old isolationist cause, but probably in this context means Trump’s America First policies and the America First Action Super PAC that supports Trump.
The Boogaloo Bois could be seen wearing their Hawaiian shirts and military outfits and gear. Their platform is specific: to incite a civil war, which they refer to as “the boogaloo.” They are a heavily-armed, anti-government militia. They celebrate Timothy McVeigh’s bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City. They support various causes, both of the left and right, solely (the Department of Homeland Security thinks) to fight police. Some are against racism and white supremacy, some for. They claimed solidarity with Black Lives Matter (BLM) when it came to protest police killings, but also presented themselves as a milia present at BLM protests to protect storefronts from vandalism. Boogaloo boy Steven Carrillo, in June, 2020, at the time in the US Air Force, killed a police officer and a federal security guard at a BLM protest in Santa Cruz. “Boogaloo Bunyan” led the group that planned to kidnap and kill Gretchen Whitmer, Democratic governor of Michigan, in October 2020, evidently because of her anti-Covid policies.
Members of the New Jersey European Heritage Association and the Nationalist Social Club were spotted in the crowd. The former fights the extinction of the white race due to “a rising tide of colored peoples” organized by Jews. NJEHA literature argues that “it’s okay to be white” and that only whites can protect the environment. The connection they draw between Whites and the environment has never been specified, so far as I can tell. Their demonstrations seem to be peaceful. The latter is a loose affiliation of independent cells committed to fighting Jews. Members are armed and train for combat. They display Nazi flags and have shown themselves at pro-police rallies.
The Tea-Party Patriots were also on the scene. They represent the backbone of the present Tea-Party movement, which began in 2009 and is part of the Republican Party. The Tea Party advocates for lower taxes and no deficit. There are over 2,000 chapters of the Patriots across the country. Since the start of the Covid epidemic, the Patriots have been concerned primarily with advocating (with some doctors) against the postponement of elective surgeries in order to make room in Intensive Care wards for Covid patients. The have also promoted (with far fewer doctors backing them) hydroxychloroquine, zithromax, and zinc as cures that render masks, school and business closures, and social distancing unnecessary as preventive measures.
In this cause, the Patriots are allied with the group America’s Frontline Doctors, founded by the physician Simone Gold. Gold was inside the Capitol Building on January 6, but said she had thought it was a peaceful protest and, indeed, from what she says she experienced, found it to be so.
Turning Point members were also present. Turning Point is, like the Patriots, connected to the Republican Party and funded by Republican donors. It has chapters too in Canada and the UK. Primarily the organization works on campuses, promoting conservative causes and thinking, and publishing lists of professors who discriminate against conservative causes and students. Turning Point fights the campus political correctness movement.
According to the Star Tribune, the pro-Trump non-profit group Women for America First helped organize a rally at a park near the White House. The National Park Service granted them a permit for January 6. On the permit and associated attachments were the names of a half-dozen women who had been given grants by Trump’s 2020 re-election campaign. One of them Megen Powers, was the Trump campaign’s director of operations. Caroline Wren, also on the permit, was a finance consultant for Trump Victory, a fundraising committee. Maggie Mulvaney, niece of Trump advisor Nick Mulvaney, appears on the permit. She was the director of finance operations for Trump’s campaign. Women for America First set up a stage in the park, with a sound system and some large screens projecting an image of Trump. Other associated groups, like Mom’s for America, were present. Overall these women’s groups are multi-racial. The company, Event Strategies, run by Tim Unes, managed the stage and the sound system. Event Strategies provided audio-visual services for the Trump campaign. The Women for America First part of the rally was peaceful.
Apart from the specific organizations represented, certain individuals have made their platforms known. Tim Gionet, the rioter who occupied Nancy Pelosi’s office, is a white supremacist. Vincent James Fox, present outside the Capitol, is also a white-supremacist, a member of the now-defunct, Californian Rise Above Movement. Gabe Brown represents another defunct organization, Anticom, dedicated to fighting (physically, with guns, bombs etc) leftists. One rioter, not connected to anyone else it seems, wore a “Camp Auschwitz” shirt — a holocaust denier. Enough retired police officers and off-duty national guard troops were present to cause the FBI to screen all police and National Guard on duty in the capitol for Biden’s inauguration. Is Trump’s army made up of significant factions in the armed forces?
The make-up of Trump’s army could change. Some of the battalions are, evidently, upset with Trump. He was supposed to cross the Rubicon, as it were, like Julius Caesar. He could’ve gone to the Capitol to assume control of his army, and then maybe summoned the real army (as Commander in Chief) and taken over. He could’ve ordered the arrest or killing of enemy lawmakers, or at least walked with his army in triumph. The causes could change too; already Qanon is speculating that Trump is still in charge, working through Biden.
In short, Biden’s acts as President would be supported as Trump’s. The assumption that much of the army is made up of Republican party members or Republican voters might have to change too. Many Republican lawmakers, including the Senate majority leader McConnell, seem to have turned against Trump. This account is likely to be in need of revision and constant updating. For now, anyway, I hope it’s a useful start.
