My Hot Take on the Coup is Stolen From Kenny Smith
When it comes to doomscrolling and media orgies, I’m a glutton. It’s not that I don’t feel guilty afterwards… like when I willed a Catagory-5 hurricane to slam into New Orleans… but during the event I can’t stop myself. You may not be surprised to find out that I watched every minute of the Dimwitted Rebellion and I’ve read LOTS and LOTS of things after it.
I’ve digested… some… of it, and rather than process it further I’m going to use the toilet of Medium to deposit my hot take. (If the preceding sentence is too gross for you, you should leave now. It’s not going to get better).
I tried to take a break from the news and watch the Nets v. 76ers game on TNT last night. Wouldn’t you know it, Kenny Smith’s comments on the events were the best I’ve heard.
He said something to the effect of “This was about votes”. I agree.
“This Is Not Who We Are”
I’ve heard some goofballs on TV say “this is not who we are”, to which I reply… “Well, I hope the fuck not” because that pack of soft-looking, incompetent morons was chock-o-block full of Nazis and White Supremacists. To make my point I’m going to have to rely on the totally fascinating Twitter Feed of Rafael Shimunov:
So, now that we know who they are, what were they up to? The dumbest take I have read so far is from Medium’s own Michael Tracey:
Now, go ahead and read that if you want to, but if you do, TRY to read the comments. I know, it’s almost impossible to read comments on Medium. I said “try”. If you do, you may find this response from Larry Roberts:
You imagine a coup as a well-planned attack by elite para-military group, but that isn't how they generally go down. Like the German Brownshirts or the Cambodian Khmer Rouge, a loosely organized collection of thugs and disaffected hicks merely needs to create chaos.
Larry is so right. The BBC just had a story about how seven brothers (who were originally uneducated shepherds — similar to our Trump Rednecks but with desert camo and different colored baseball caps) managed to inflict an eight year reign of terror on a small town.
We are lucky that folks like QAnon Shaman got bored and decided to leave. What if they had stayed? What if they had refused to leave? If so, we wouldn’t have a president-elect.
Next Time It Will Be Different
Next time these guys think that someone “stole” an election, they’ll bring more guns.
And they won’t leave on their own.
As the meme says:
The Stolen Election
This is the point that Kenny Smith was making. The Coup d’Imbecils was about votes.
If you let black people vote, some white people will believe the election was “stolen”. Stolen from “them” because they don’t really believe that black people are their fellow citizens.
The ugly truth is; They’re right. Up until fairly recently, black people have never been their fellow citizens even in law. Now black people are full citizens according to the law, just not in practice.
That is about to change. Black people are finally overcoming the obstacles put in their way and exercising their full rights as citizens. That’s how Georgia went blue. The reaction by those who prefer the old system is violence.
The system is based on violence. It has always been based on violence.
The civil war continues. What kind of nation we become is on the line. You either believe in the promise of the Constitution or you want to maintain its central flaw.
Do you want to live in a country with two tiers of citizenry, or do you think we can really have a country where the power to rule resides in “the people.”
Those guys who stormed the Capitol want a different America than I do. They have history on their side.
Slave owners also had history on their side, but the abolitionists won.
We’ll win again.
