January 16, 2021
With only 4 days remaining in Trump’s horrific reign, we are all holding our breath, hoping to run out the clock before he precipitates another assault on our democracy that gets people killed. It has been truly chilling to see the mounting evidence that 30% of our fellow citizens fully support white supremacy and increasingly believe that violence is an acceptable way to achieve their desired political goals,
The Capitol Hill insurrection that drew a toxic mix of violent white supremacists, Nazis and Trump cultists attracted a cross section of white Americans from an array of professions. There were lawyers, realtors and CEOs ; and a disturbingly high number of police officers from cities ranging from Houston to Philadelphia. There was a firefighter and an Olympic medalist. These were not mythical poor white people reacting out of “economic anxiety,” but rather solidly middle and upper middle class white people who were eager to use violence to maintain their unearned positions at the top of the social hierarchy. Their demographics, desires and even their costumes harken back to the earliest days of the KKK, (Source: “What the history of the Ku Klux Klan can teach us about the Capitol riot,” by Anna North, Vox.com, 1/14/21, h/t Patrick Wilcox).
There is strong suspicion that some Republican lawmakers were accomplices to the insurrectionists. Rep. Mikie Sherrill reported that she saw several of her Republican colleagues giving “reconaissance tours” to groups the night before the attack on the Capitol. Freshman Republican and QAnon adherent Lauren Boebert live-tweeted Speaker Pelosi’s location during the insurrection, (Source: “A Colorado Republican tweeted about Pelosi’s location during the Capitol siege. She’s now facing calls to resign,” by Shannon Larson, bostonglobe.com, 1/12/21). “Stop the Steal” rally organizer Ali Alexander said that three Republican, Reps. Andy Biggs, Mo Brooks and Paul Gosar assisted in planning the January 6th rally that preceded the attack.
The day before the attack, the FBI field office in Virginia “issued an explicit warning” that violent white supremacists were planning to descend on the Capitol on the 6th. The head of the Capitol Police requested National Guard backup and was rebuffed by both the House and the Senate security chiefs, while twelve Capitol police officers are currently under investigation for their possible role in the attack (Source: “Report warned ‘Congress itself’ could be targeted,” by Carol Leonnig, The Washington Post, 1/15/21).
Taken together, the evidence paints a damning picture of the depth and breadth of support for authoritarian white supremacy. Yet while we were justifiably focused on the Capitol attack and its aftermath, the Supreme Court’s new ultra conservative supermajority has been eagerly filling its role as enablers of Trump’s sadistic agenda. Yesterday, the Supreme Court vacated a stay of execution for Dustin John Higgs granted by the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals. Even though oral arguments on the government’s appeal were scheduled for January 27th, the Supreme Court lifted the stay, clearing the way for Higgs to be executed last night, a mere five days before Joe Biden, who opposes the death penalty, takes office.
As Justice Sonia Sotomayor noted in a scathing dissent, this government has been on a killing “spree,” executing twelve people since July 2020, or “more than three times as many in the last six months than it had in the previous six decades,” (U.S.v. Higgs, 592 U.S. ___(2021), Sotomayor, J. dissenting). In each instance, the Supreme Court has “consistently rejected inmates’ credible claims for relief,” (ibid). Six of the 13 people executed were Black, consistent with the statistic that Black people are almost 30 times more likely to receive the death penalty for the killing of a white victim than the other way around, (Source: “Federal government executes Dustin Higgs, the 13th person to be killed since July. Justice Sotomayor writes scathing dissent: ‘This is not justice,’” by Azmi Haroun, businessinsider.com, 1/15/21).
As the last ten days have made all too clear, white supremacy didn’t start with Trump and it certainly won’t end with him. There are white supremacists in every profession and from every corner of our country. Some drape themselves in the flag and some don Viking helmets. Sometimes, they wear black robes.
#BlackLivesMatter