By John Farmer, Jr.
The images from today’s storming of the U.S. Capitol were shocking beyond words: Trump supporters in body armor scaling the walls of the Capitol, smashing windows with riot shields to gain entry, punching police (what ever happened to “law and order” and “blue lives matter”?), and urging Vice President Mike Pence, the presiding chair, to proclaim President Trump’s victory. They betrayed a greater loyalty to a person than to the Constitution and laws he is sworn to uphold.
In attempting to halt the constitutional process of the peaceful transfer of power, those actions were nothing short of an attempted coup. As President Bush stated this evening, “The violent assault on the Capitol – and disruption of a constitutionally mandated meeting of Congress – was undertaken by people whose passions have been inflamed by falsehoods and false hopes.” The Tweetstorm became a street storm before our eyes.
For all of the flag-waving histrionics, the Trump supporters’ actions were unamerican to their core, a direct assault on constitutional government. As President-elect Biden stated, they bordered on sedition.
But were they really surprising?
Viewed in the context of the past generation, in which American politics has drifted increasingly toward intolerance and polarization, and American popular culture has devolved into a freakshow, a funhouse mirror image of our nation, today’s storming of the capitol seems less an aberration than a culmination.
The political warning signs have been blinking red for a generation. Beginning with President Clinton’s election, the parties have increasingly characterized each other’s victories as illegitimate and sought to solidify its base by demonizing the other party.
President George W. Bush was never accepted as legitimate by many Democrats because of the way the U.S. Supreme Court effectively decided the election. President Obama’s legitimacy was questioned throughout his tenure, as the “birthers” (including Donald Trump) questioned his eligibility to run for office and the GOP-controlled Congress repeatedly raised impeachment as a possibility.
Congress has become so paralyzed that the nation has frequently limped along by continuing resolution, and the government has actually shut down on more than one occasion.
Three accelerants have inflamed this already simmering dysfunction: sources of political information curated by commercial algorithms; the exponential growth of the importance of money in politics and Donald Trump himself.
Applied to consumer choices, commercial algorithms make sense; they drive spending by reinforcing and amplifying demonstrated predilections. Applied to politics, however, they have acted as a centrifuge, steering people into cul-de-sacs of their own prejudices, making them ultimately unrecognizable to anyone but those who share their beliefs.
In the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in the Citizens United decision that spending for political purposes is a protected form of political speech, moreover, the floodgates have opened. The algorithms that drive spending on consumer goods now also drive spending on politics; demonization of the other side is encoded in its DNA.
Earlier this week, for instance, certain Republicans received this message: “Ted Cruz here. Over the past few days I’ve been leading the charge … to demand Congress conduct an emergency 10-day audit of the election results in the states with disputed results. … Believe me, the Democrats are aiming the full force of their fire at me … I need your emergency support right now.” This is on top of the over $200 million President Trump and his supporters have raised after election day to fund challenges in courts and perhaps in other forums. As law enforcement investigates the violent assault on the Capitol, it would do well to follow the money.
These accelerants to disunion have found their ideal vehicle — indeed their embodiment — in a president whose pathological self-absorption has led him to live his life in a fantasy of his own creation, and whose uncanny communication instincts have enabled him to persuade untold followers that the reality he describes somehow exists somewhere.
It doesn’t. As Senator Mitch McConnell said today, just before Trump’s supporters turned violent, this election “wasn’t even close.” And although that fact may make today’s violence seem an aberration, viewed in light of the structural forces driving us apart and the delusional falsehoods driving our president and his followers, it is — shockingly — unsurprising.
Today will pass as a low point in American history. Congress will play its ministerial role in certifying the election. Joe Biden will be sworn in as president. Then, perhaps, we can put the revolution we nearly had today behind us, and focus on the reform of laws, structures and attitudes we really need.
John Farmer, Jr. is a Professor of Law and the director of the Eagleton Institute of Politics at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey.
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