It’s been only four days since President Joseph R. Biden took the oath of office, and already Inauguration Day feels like it happened four months ago.
The dizzying pace of actions by the new administration in its first days in office – no less than 17 executive orders signed by the president in his first 24 hours, two cabinet secretaries confirmed, notice that the House’s articles of impeachment against Mr. Biden’s predecessor will reach the Senate floor on Monday, Jan. 25 – probably explains some of this cognitive dissonance.
With a once-in-a-century pandemic raging across the country and the nation’s dead passing the 400,000 mark at the start of Inauguration Week, there was a palpable sense of relief in many quarters that the new commander-in-chief was quickly settling in to focus on the country’s most dire challenge with few distractions (i.e. attempting to cling to power using lies and intimidation, as per Mr. Trump).
Another and greater reason for the abrupt swing in the perception of time passing and the speed of events is, I think, related to the wholly unexpected peacefulness of the final transition of power when it actually occurred. The United States had spent the two weeks between Jan. 6 and 20 living on the edge of its seats in a way with few solid historical parallels. Some pundits have cited the weeks leading up to Lincoln’s first inauguration in March 1861 as an apt comparison. A country on the bring of civil war. Threats to the life of the incoming president ringing in the air.
Greymantle cites the first two weeks after 9/11/2001 as a more apt comparison.
On Sept. 11, 2001, the nation was plunged into a state of shock by a sudden, violent attack on New York’s World Trade Center and the Pentagon. The savagery of the blow was wholly unexpected, though then, as now, there had been advance warnings that some kind of attack was imminent, planned by shadowy non-state actors.
In the immediate aftermath, the country was seized with a spasm of paranoia. Would another attack come? When would it come?
The military mobilized. Fighter jets scrambled in the air over major cities. National Guard troops were placed on high alert.
And the looked-for attacks ultimately never materialized.
The US’s experience in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 was similar to the experience of the past two weeks. In all 50 states, elements of the National Guard and elite police units (such as SWAT teams) were placed on high alert and deployed around statehouses and state and federal government buildings in anticipation of potential violence. It was unclear whether the demonstrators of 2021 would be content to shout angry slogans, or whether some groups would stage all-out attacks on state legislatures to avenge the perceived theft of the national election.
The warnings were real. Social media boards frequented by members of far-right groups were alive with chatter in the days after January 6, as group members vowed alternately to protest, scuffle with police, or engage in an armed insurrection against elected leaders.
America’s far-right fringe appeared to be planning a big party that would be televised to the nation, but then…they didn’t show up.
The nation breathed a collective sigh of relief. State governors and mayors of state capitols heaved a deep breath and vowed to get back to government business. There were a few scattered protests. Several hundred militia members and Tea Party supporters emerged between Sunday, Jan. 17, and Tuesday, Jan. 19 carrying “Stop the Steal” signs in a scattering of state capitols. But the promised mobilization of tens of thousands of hard right adherents seemed to evaporate like a desert mirage.
What happened? Why did the far-right lose its nerve? Or did it?
There are five possible explanations, each implying something very different about the future direction of the far-right’s constellation of loosely allied groups, their strategies, and mythology:
- The promised armed demonstrations were part of a disinformation campaign, with the far-right never intending to follow through. If true, this would imply that the far-right’s leaders are swiftly evolving into highly skilled tacticians. After media coverage of the Capital Riot saturated the nation’s airwaves for two weeks, the far-right is settling back into a posture of comfortable waiting to focus on the riot’s main upside for their organizations: it’s potency as a recruiting tool.
- The show of force mustered by the National Guard and state and local police forces, combined with the widening FBI dragnet, scared them off. This would imply that far-right members are genuinely scared in the aftermath of 1/6, and are looking to lessen the near-term damage to their ranks that further confrontations and arrests would bring. They realize that they overplayed their hand at the Capitol and are moving to re-group until things cool down.
- The digital crackdown on the far-right’s preferred social media platforms in the days after the Capitol Riot so disrupted their communications that they were simply unable to mount the broad, coordinated response that they had planned. Under this scenario, the shut-down of tens of thousands of Facebook pages and YouTube channels linked to QAnon, the freezing of dozens of Twitter accounts used by President Trump and extremist figures, and the crippling of the Parler chat network by Google and Facebook effectively prevented the far-right from planning a coordinated follow-up to 1/6. They weren’t frightened, but they were blinded, and unwilling to stumble into an armed confrontation with state and federal governments with a blindfold across their eyes.
- The Proud Boys, Boogaloo Bois, neo-Nazis, pro-gun militias and white nationalist cells are a bunch of pussies to begin with. They had the equipment and the numbers, but simply lacked the stomach for a real fight with a prepared and determined opponent. This would imply that these groups will soon fade back to the fringes American political life, and not trouble us for a while. Greymantle regrets his use of the word “pussies” and begs the understanding of his readers.
- The far-right was instructed to stand down by President Trump, either directly or through intermediaries like Stephen Miller. It was a second instance of “stand back and stand by”. This is the most chilling scenario, because if true it would imply that Mr. Trump and his allies are themselves re-grouping and preparing for a long fight while the President is out of office and examining his options for 2024.
Greymantle doesn’t lean toward any one of these possible explanations himself. Because we know so little about the inter-workings of these various groups, it’s tough to zero in on a precise theory of why they failed to demonstrate as planned between Jan. 17 and 23. What’s more important at this time is to set down a range of possibilities and begin to examine them dispassionately in light of further evidence and coming events.
It may be that one of these theories applies to the actions of some far-right groups and not to others in the lead-up to Jan. 20. Some militia members may have been scared off by the presence of 20,000 National Guard troops in D.C. Others may have planned to be there, but were unable to organize in time because of the online communications blackout. And some of the oldest and most well-organized groups may have deliberately chosen to wait out Inauguration Week and focus on gathering new recruits, or were instructed to do so by powerful people in the federal government.
What is absolutely clear about the past week is that the far-right’s failure to show up for the party is bad news.
The Capital Riot was a wake-up call to many Republicans who had stuck with Donald Trump through his four years as President in spite of his coarse Twitter outbursts and insults, penchant for lies, and chaotic administration of the federal branch. A ratcheting up of right-wing violence during the Inauguration would have further fouled the Trump brand and fed the disgust of millions of conservative-leaning voters, perhaps prompting a faster and more comprehensive reckoning by the right with Mr. Trump.
Moreover, armed clashes between militants and police would have led to dozens and potentially hundreds of arrests, crippling some of these groups for the immediate future and yielding a treasure trove of intelligence on the organization and capabilities of the armed factions (arrests from the Capitol Riot are already starting this process). Further injuring or killing of police officers by far-right members would have turned more police against Mr. Trump and his minions, opening the way to a more honest and productive debate around police procedure and excessive force.
Some of this may still occur. The Capitol Riot was a seismic event for the United States. We’ll be sorting through the repercussions for a while.
Our nation will be better able to process these events and continue down the path of gradual reform if more far-right extremists are locked in jail cells, rather than still at large, making plans, sharing memes, and targeting disaffected youth for future operations.
Let me know what you think.
Until next time, I remain —
Ivor
