Yesterday, as I was listening to the results of the Georgia Senate elections, I was stunned to hear about the pro-Trump mob assault on the Capitol while Congress was in session in an attempt to prevent the electoral vote certification process. I quickly turned on television and, like most of you, watched the remainder of the day by channel surfing to get better pictures of what was happening. While I still have many questions unanswered and will write about them later, I wanted to write down my initial reaction.
I taught an advanced class on terrorism (both foreign and domestic) from 2003 until I retired. Some of you had the class as it was popular among both political science and criminal justice majors. As I watched I began to see symbols and flags of domestic hate/terror groups that I have studied and continue to study and monitor.
The usual suspects that show up at virtually all Trump rallies were there. QAnon, the conspiracy theory group whose members are made up of many Trump supporters and its leader Q Shaman Jake Angeli (he was the one wearing the horned helmet, with a red, white, and blue face and was quite visible) were shown by virtually every station that I viewed. The Proud Boys, whose leader was arrested earlier in the week, were visible in the halls of Congress wearing their traditional black and yellow on some of the videos that I saw. Both of these groups have a history of violence and the Proud Boys are always armed. I have no doubt that several militia movement groups (remember the foiled kidnapping attempt of the Michigan governor by the Wolverine Watchmen) were there as they typically show up at Trump rallies as well (they post these messages on their websites that they will have representatives at his rallies).
One channel showed pictures of a rope noose that had been put up on the west side of the Capitol with references to the “Day of the Rope.” If you had my class on terrorism, you may remember that this phrase is used in the Turner Diaries (written by neo-Nazi William Pierce in the late 70s, it provides a blue print for a race war, and is commonly read by white nationalist and neo-Nazi groups). It refers to the day in which “race traitors” will be lynched in mass. I saw a picture this morning in a newspaper of the Kek flag being carried by a man near the Capitol. This is the flag of the fictional country of Kekistan for white nationalists and is common at Trump rallies. Of course, all of you saw the many confederate flags in the mob being paraded through the halls of Congress.
I am pretty sure that I caught a glimpse of the N-Am flag on one channel’s coverage. This is an anti-Semitic, racial separation group called the National Anarchist Movement. I saw a picture from a newspaper this morning of one man wearing a Camp Auschwitz sweatshirt with the phrase “work brings freedom” along the bottom. This is basically the phrase on the gate at the entrance to the death camp at Auschwitz. There were several people in the crowd that I noticed wearing the 6MWE on their shirts. This anti-Semitic phrase means "6 million wasn't enough" and is commonly worn by white nationalist group members.
Since the election, the Stop the Steal Movement has been common at all Trump rallies and they were clearly present yesterday. They do not have a history of violence but violence has been associated with some of their rallies.
These groups had announced that they would be present at the Trump rally he had scheduled for yesterday and had published this on their websites. The big question…why weren’t the authorities in the capitol building ready?
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