“…while Trump himself may soon be gone from the White House, the remnants of his sinister influence will not vanish. There is much work to do.” -Field Note, January 8
Someday soon we must have a new book - call it a Modern Taxonomy of Treason, 2021 Edition - because some practitioners of sedition, high and low, will try to hide behind one or another of the classifications. It’s a complicated subject in its causes and effects.
Some who practice the messy business of insurrection are obviously loud, even murderous, and always angry. But there are others who empower them by playing a furtive shell-game in order to escape public shame.
All the events of last Wednesday, in their ugliness, taught us why it’s vital for responsible citizens of our nation – which is the great majority of us – to be able to quickly recognize the sordid sorts and to name them, so that all those responsible at whatever level can be spotted, revealed, and prosecuted.
The types are many. Consider these five:
The Genuinely Evil: We should start with President Trump, who incited a mob to disrupt his own government, then jumped into his limo and retreated from the scene. From his bunker, he watched the mayhem unfold on TV.
The Ambitious Conspirators: Senators Cruz and Hawley leap to mind in this category, along with other Trump cult panderers in the Congress who – by their words or more often their silence – would not stop abetting the strange president as late as Wednesday evening.
The Social Misfits: These are the bad actors who brandish weapons, vile symbols, and even zip-ties on Wednesday. This dangerous rabble become easily provoked to street action, especially when the spur was base hatred, their weak minds infused (by Trump) with a delusion of high purpose.
The Back-Bench Congressman, those members who aid and abet the madness but try to hide behind each other. These just didn’t know what to do when the smoke cleared and the chips were down for our country.
The Witless Followers: Still others who join the mob wander about the scene – snapping photos of themselves, even posting their own names – as if they were on an afternoon lark in the park. Until, that is, they find themselves in the middle of real action, whereupon they crouch in fear amid the tear-gas and the bullets from somebody else’s gun.
All these types were in evidence on Wednesday. And all were surely complicit in the attempted insurrection, contributing to the shameful spectacle that unfolded on TV screens around the world. Remember them. Most will try to retreat from their public positions now.
Just as some in the mob on the street had shrunk back earlier in the day when the tear-gas and bullets began to fly, some of the GOP back-benchers in Congress now cowered in a new silence. With victims now laying dead outside the hallowed chambers – and Trump’s unfitness now manifest and unarguable – Tennessee’s senators Marsha Blackburn and Bill Hagerty now meekly voted “No” to Trump’s claim of a stolen re-election. Then they bemoaned the violence.
And, at the other end of the Capitol, all seven Republicans in Tennessee’s House delegation stayed the low course, standing with Trump and his contempt for the USA.
It is important for us all to remember: There were some parties to Trump’s failed insurrection who were loud and visible, but behind them there were particular senators, governors and congressmen who enabled this mayhem by helping Trump to rise. They will endeavor to hide behind each other, keeping their own heads way down, hoping above all to avoid any personal blame or public shame.
Some will succeed in their dodging. None of them should. Not now.
The elements in this taxonomy are all connected. We must remember the names. No one who enabled it should now escape the stain or the shame of this seditious day.
© Keel Hunt, 2021
