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We're past the inflection point. This coup attempt is over. Don't stand down, because nothing is ever really over, and also because I could be wrong, but for the most part... this one's in the books.
Donkeyballs is back to his donkeyball bullshit, gutting the Endangered Species Act, weakening NATO, making reporters sit too close to each other to make COVID-19 look more "over" and saying it was their idea at a "press conference" that was 40 minutes of rambling, lies, and bullshit followed by no questions.
The street leading up to the White House in DC has been renamed Black Lives Matter Plaza - even the street signs were changed - and the lanes have been painted with that slogan. Sure, it's symbolic, but symbols have meaning, and weight. They matter. Particularly here.
There's still a lot of police violence in a lot of locations, but the tide is turning. Seattle ended its curfews completely; the SPD Chief of Police spent night before last at the protests, making sure it would stick. Portland's lagging behind, but as far as I know, overnight went better than it has for a while. And in DC, Mayor Bowser has ended the state of emergency as far as she can under Home Rule, even to the point of throwing imported national guards out of hotels.
The military, faced with Trump's calls for the armed forces to violently suppress protest, made it clear in no uncertain terms that they would not be used that way. As I said at the time, that letter from the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs to the forces wasn't actually to the forces, it was specifically to Donald J. Trump. What that means is that the Joint Chiefs understood exactly what was happening - exactly what Trump was asking for - and said fuck you, no. And they made it stick.
Finally, the MAGA crowd - in particular, the armed MAGAts, the right-wing militias, the neofascists gangs and Proud Boys and all of that - basically didn't show. Fox got to work right away, priming them as hard as they could, and Trump even called them out with his MAGA NIGHT AT THE WHITE HOUSE tweet. But except for maybe one night in Minneapolis and one night in Oakland, they just. didn't. show. up.
Fox is still fighting a rear-guard action, calling for "vigilante justice" against protesters. They'll probably manage to get a few people murdered, or at least beaten badly, for their troubles. But like their God-Emperor, the MAGAt militias hid in their houses, turned off the lights, and cowered in the dark. They've demonstrated in no uncertain terms that they are barely even paper tigers, capable of showing up only when assured of success and guaranteed overwhelming numbers, capable of acting only in the purest, most tenuous of power vacuums. Years of priming, years of boosting, years of threat, several murders, and when push comes to shove, they're nowhere to be found - an empty threat, for all their guns.
The Trumpists have no army.
That doesn't mean they can't or won't try again. They certainly will. But I think they saw what they believed to be an opportunity, and tried to take it, but too early, and in inevitable bad order. I think the original plan was to ramp up unrest and violence through the summer, slowly, then launch their coup when they lost a close election and refused to accept the results based on supposed "election fraud," relying on winter, an intimidated, exhausted population, their militias, and a neutral or pro-Republican military to let them carry it off.
They'll likely still try some variation on that - as they'll do literally anything they can to hold on to power, further coup attempts are absolutely still on the table. But it'll have to be different. They've spent a lot of the shot they had, found out they had far, far less than they'd believed, and so were comprehensively, almost clownishly defeated.
The kind of bullies they attract despise a loser, and they just lost bigtime. There will be ramifications.
On our side, there's still a lot of work to do. Dismantling militarised police - hell, dismantling policing as we know it entirely - and rooting out the white supremacists and neofascists hiding out in every police and law enforcement agency will take time and serious work. CBP in particular is going to come out of this still personally loyal to Trump, and unlike the militias, they're a real threat. Cops at all levels will be harassing organisers quietly - and sometimes violently - for the foreseeable future. It'll take years of sustained effort to make the differences actually needed, and the moment we let up, they'll spring right back, and start plotting anew.
But the military won't back them.
The MAGAt militias won't show up.
And the people are energised, at least, for now.
We've won a battle, and it was a big one. Celebrate that. They made their move, and got smacked down - hard - for it. In their overconfidence - in their short-sighted hubris - they've lost a lot.
I don't want to be too early with this, but we've just survived a major inflection point - maybe the major inflection point - so I'm pretty sure.
For now, at least, we've won.
But the war...
The war goes on.
Donkeyballs is back to his donkeyball bullshit, gutting the Endangered Species Act, weakening NATO, making reporters sit too close to each other to make COVID-19 look more "over" and saying it was their idea at a "press conference" that was 40 minutes of rambling, lies, and bullshit followed by no questions.
The street leading up to the White House in DC has been renamed Black Lives Matter Plaza - even the street signs were changed - and the lanes have been painted with that slogan. Sure, it's symbolic, but symbols have meaning, and weight. They matter. Particularly here.
There's still a lot of police violence in a lot of locations, but the tide is turning. Seattle ended its curfews completely; the SPD Chief of Police spent night before last at the protests, making sure it would stick. Portland's lagging behind, but as far as I know, overnight went better than it has for a while. And in DC, Mayor Bowser has ended the state of emergency as far as she can under Home Rule, even to the point of throwing imported national guards out of hotels.
The military, faced with Trump's calls for the armed forces to violently suppress protest, made it clear in no uncertain terms that they would not be used that way. As I said at the time, that letter from the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs to the forces wasn't actually to the forces, it was specifically to Donald J. Trump. What that means is that the Joint Chiefs understood exactly what was happening - exactly what Trump was asking for - and said fuck you, no. And they made it stick.
Finally, the MAGA crowd - in particular, the armed MAGAts, the right-wing militias, the neofascists gangs and Proud Boys and all of that - basically didn't show. Fox got to work right away, priming them as hard as they could, and Trump even called them out with his MAGA NIGHT AT THE WHITE HOUSE tweet. But except for maybe one night in Minneapolis and one night in Oakland, they just. didn't. show. up.
Fox is still fighting a rear-guard action, calling for "vigilante justice" against protesters. They'll probably manage to get a few people murdered, or at least beaten badly, for their troubles. But like their God-Emperor, the MAGAt militias hid in their houses, turned off the lights, and cowered in the dark. They've demonstrated in no uncertain terms that they are barely even paper tigers, capable of showing up only when assured of success and guaranteed overwhelming numbers, capable of acting only in the purest, most tenuous of power vacuums. Years of priming, years of boosting, years of threat, several murders, and when push comes to shove, they're nowhere to be found - an empty threat, for all their guns.
The Trumpists have no army.
That doesn't mean they can't or won't try again. They certainly will. But I think they saw what they believed to be an opportunity, and tried to take it, but too early, and in inevitable bad order. I think the original plan was to ramp up unrest and violence through the summer, slowly, then launch their coup when they lost a close election and refused to accept the results based on supposed "election fraud," relying on winter, an intimidated, exhausted population, their militias, and a neutral or pro-Republican military to let them carry it off.
They'll likely still try some variation on that - as they'll do literally anything they can to hold on to power, further coup attempts are absolutely still on the table. But it'll have to be different. They've spent a lot of the shot they had, found out they had far, far less than they'd believed, and so were comprehensively, almost clownishly defeated.
The kind of bullies they attract despise a loser, and they just lost bigtime. There will be ramifications.
On our side, there's still a lot of work to do. Dismantling militarised police - hell, dismantling policing as we know it entirely - and rooting out the white supremacists and neofascists hiding out in every police and law enforcement agency will take time and serious work. CBP in particular is going to come out of this still personally loyal to Trump, and unlike the militias, they're a real threat. Cops at all levels will be harassing organisers quietly - and sometimes violently - for the foreseeable future. It'll take years of sustained effort to make the differences actually needed, and the moment we let up, they'll spring right back, and start plotting anew.
But the military won't back them.
The MAGAt militias won't show up.
And the people are energised, at least, for now.
We've won a battle, and it was a big one. Celebrate that. They made their move, and got smacked down - hard - for it. In their overconfidence - in their short-sighted hubris - they've lost a lot.
I don't want to be too early with this, but we've just survived a major inflection point - maybe the major inflection point - so I'm pretty sure.
For now, at least, we've won.
But the war...
The war goes on.
