Something about the January 6 insurrection has always facinated me. No one on the Right or the Left seem to want to address it.
The number of people in the mob.
The official estimates on the size of the Jan 6 mob are uncertain, but believed to be a few thousand. Just for reference, a Brigade numbers about 5,000 men.
Remember, this was all planned in advance. The word went out over social media to “stand ready”. People came from all over the country. Ashli Babbitt came from Southern California. Off duty cops were there. Servicemen, ex and current, showed up.
Everyone that the Stop the Steal movement could convince to come out and save the Trump Presidency, came out.
And out of 165 million Americans, “thousands” showed up.
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The Republican Right hates reality.
It’s no secret. From “Reality has a known left wing bias” to “We create our own reality”, the talking heads of the GOP have made no secret of their contempt for the very concept. Unfortunately for them, however, reality always wins out. The Republican Right seems powerful and influential, but is primarily a construct of social media. It consists of millions of posters, thousands of bots, and Fox News. It is very active, very loud, and seems very powerful.
Yet whenever they encounter reality, the story changes.
The millions of supporters who elected Trump by the “biggest majority ever” failed to appear at his inauguration.
The “thousands” of supporters who attend his speeches have to be herded into the seats behind Trump, so that the event looks like he is addressing a stadium of people and not a PTA meeting.
The Right sounds powerful. But bots don’t vote. A MAGA influencer might have multiple accounts, but only plants one body into a chair at a rally.
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Yes, Jan 6 was a dangerous assault on democracy, and it put a lot of people in danger, and killed some of them. But look at the numbers.
This was no brigade. It barely qualified as a battalion. Trump’s supporters tried to overthrow the government with a couple of thousand men and women armed with melee weapons. They might have had an effect on the battle of Agincourt, but in modern day America would have been hard pressed to defeat anything more dangerous than a Boy Scout Jamboree.
And this was at the height of Trump’s influence.
A GOP spokeswoman hints that 75 million Americans, all with AR15s, will oppose Trump’s arrest. What happens if they don’t?
How many people out there, real people, are willing to die for Trump? Most of them support Trump for their OWN selfish benefit — the ability to hate without repercussions. Do you think they would actually risk their lives for Trump, or anyone else?
That’s reality for you. It continues to insist that this bunch of people, down in their basements where the FBI and the mind control waves can’t reach, do not truly rock the world. Too bad the country is going to have to go through a lot of trauma before everybody realizes it.