Disinformation Rules Us. It Limited the Damage Accidentally This One Time
Our nation narrowly escaped experiencing an even greater catastrophe than the one that did occur on Jan. 6. Right Wing disinformation — lying, fear mongering, hate mongering, demonization of Democrats and of anyone who disagrees with Trump— led to the coup. It also limited the damage done this one time — but only by accident.
I’d like to call your attention to this news story, about information that’s been brought to light by interviewing DC Metropolitan Police Officers. The quotes I am putting below are from the interviews of these police officers about the insurrection.
“We were getting chemical irritants sprayed. They had pipes and different metal objects, batons, some of which I think they had taken from law enforcement personnel. They had been striking us with those.”
“And then it was just the sheer number of rioters. The force that was coming from that side,” he added. “It was difficult to offer any resistance when you’re only about 30 guys going up against 15,000.”
The police were so outnumbered by the large mob that they could have been slaughtered, after which the rioters could have gone on to kidnap and/or execute Nancy Pelosi, Mike Pence and other government officials.
Of course, Trump didn’t want this small number of police to have help, as this Vanity Fair article notes.
“According to a person close to the White House, Trump refused to take calls on Wednesday from business leaders who wanted him to call off the insurrectionists.”
Police were not prepared beforehand, even though there was plenty of evidence it was going to happen. Police were also unable to get help from anyone in federal law enforcement for literally HOURS.
Quoting from a Rolling Stone article below, “The internet was lighting up with talk of occupying the Capitol. And yet, when Trump and his followers followed through on their promises, they were met by a woefully inadequate police presence — and the halls of Congress were quickly handed over to a mob.”
“…It’s also unclear to what extent these warnings were circulated to the Capitol Police and other agencies who could have helped, and why an FBI official on Friday claimed the violence was unforeseeable when it had been decidedly foreseen — by FBI personnel.”
So why are Pelosi and Pence alive today and not kidnaped? Because of a simple accident of the disinformation in which 30% of the nation is immersed — That’s why.
One of the policemen interviewed pointed out that, even though many of the thousands of rioters were viciously attacking and injuring police, other rioters expected the police to agree with them and join them.
“Some of them felt like we would be fast friends because so many of them have been vocal…They say things like, ‘Yeah, we’ve been supporting you through all this Black Lives Matter stuff, you should have our back’ and they felt entitled.”
“…They felt like they would just walk up there and tell us that they’re here to take back Congress and we would agree with them and we’d walk in hand in hand and just take over the nation. But obviously that’s not the case and it will never be the case.”
The nation was very lucky this time. The Right Wing disinformation that has controlled 30% or so of our nation for years, made Democrats and minorities their scapegoats.
In contrast, the Right Wing propagandists happened to choose police as a group to identify with — if only for the reason that certain criminal police have attacked unarmed non-threatening Black Lives Matter protestors. Since hte BLM movement is identified with Democrats by the Right Wing, the Right Wing also scapegoats BLM. So Trump supported the criminal behavior against BLM protestors and those police who did it. That led to the embracing by Trump and Trump supporters of the Blue Lives Matter slogan and movement, and a situation where police became one of the groups with which Trump supporters identified.
Of course, a lot of police are Trump supporters. Some police actually did identify with the rioters and took selfies with them during the riots. This left open the question in many of the rioters’ minds of whether police might join them and become fellow rioters. That’s what seems to have kept most of the thousands of rioters from assaulting the police, thus accidentally saving most — though not all — of the lives of police.
In contrast to police, Democrats have been a scapegoat group for Right Wing propagandists for decades. Mike Pence also recently became a scapegoat because he accepted the results of an election that Right Wing propagandists insist was stolen from Trump. If the rioters had gotten their hands on Pence, Pelosi and/or AOC — prime scapegoats for Right Wing propagandists — we could be in a very different situation.
The heavily armed rioters easily could have mowed down all the police and then gotten their hands on those officials, if Right Wing disinformation had not convinced many of the rioters that the police might be their friends who were about to turn into fellow rioters.
We were lucky this time. And Democrats did learn something from the experience. It looks like we will be vastly more prepared when the inauguration takes place than we were on Jan. 6.
We still need to keep our eyes open. Complacency is the Achilles heel of Democrats. Even after Biden gets into office, many of the staff in government agencies will still be Trump loyalists appointed by Trump or by those Trump appointed. Many Trump loyalists, such as DeJoy in the USPS, act as though they have been put in agencies to try to destroy their agency, the government and the nation.
If those individuals are left there, they will try to sabotage everything Biden tries to do. The sabotage could include compromising the physical safety of Biden, other government officials and the police who attempt to protect officials.
I have written extensively about disinformation and the role it plays in our politics at
upine.medium.com
Here’s a recent on the subject, with solutions for the disinformation problem stated at the end. (I renamed the article after I wrote it, so that’s why the name is different in the url.)
Right Wing Domination of Media & Politics Keeps Us Stuck in Disinformation and Right Wing Government
It’s perhaps THE most important key to what goes on in our nation. When reading any news article that reports events, it’s good to ask “And what role did disinformation play in these events?” Often it’s a large role. Most of the time it’s a very destructive role. In this particular situation we lucked out; we can’t depend on lucky accidents happening in the future.
