A new book updates the 1/6 coup attempt situation

Potential disaster #1: nuclear war with China

Last night, Rachael Maddow did a segment on her show about a book that will be released for sale next week. Two things jumped right out as extraordinarily big deals, not little deals. The first was how much fear there was about Lyin’ Donny’s (the ex-president) mental state. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Mark Milley was deeply concerned that China was in a state of panic at the site of the 1/6 coup attempt. The Chinese government was afraid that Lyin’ Donny was preparing to start a war against China as a pretext to stay in power. The Chinese viewed the ex-president as a mentally unhinged loose cannon who just might attack China. 

It turns out that Gen. Milley viewed Lyin’ Donny about the same way as the Chinese. That is why he called his counterpart in the Chinese Liberation Army to calm him down and reassure him that the bizarre chaos of the 1/6 coup attempt was just democracy being “sloppy” and everything was under rock solid control in the US. Milley himself was actually unsure of how bad the situation was. In a phone call with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, she repeatedly referred to the ex-president as crazy, a label that Milley explicitly agreed with. Pelosi and Milley discussed ways to stop the crazy ex-president from launching nuclear weapons in the event his poor mental condition led him to want to start a nuclear war.

In short, the situation in the federal government on 1/6 was highly chaotic and uncertain. It was so bad that a top US general was unsure of what our insane president might try to do. So, he (i) called the Chinese army to reassure them an attack on China was not imminent and everything was under control, and (ii) discussed the possibility of nuclear war with the Speaker of the House. 

An article today at The Hill comments:

The book claims Milley even discussed the possibility of the coup with his deputies.

 
“They may try, but they're not going to f------ succeed,” Milley told his deputies while discussing the possibility of a coup, according to the book. “You can't do this without the military. You can't do this without the CIA and the FBI. We're the guys with the guns.”

Potential disaster #2: the prospect of Pence blocking certification of the 2020 election

Another possible disaster was that Vice President Mike Pence was actually looking for ways to keep the ex-president in power. Pence’s search for a way to block or subvert the election came directly from the constant pressure that Lyin’ Donny was putting on him. The ex-president wanted Pence to commit election fraud on a massive, nationwide scale and Pence was craven, autocratic, stupid and corrupt enough to actually look for a way to do it and even discuss an electoral coup with at least one other person.

Clearly, Pence was trying to find a way to block or subvert the 2020 election so that the ex-president could stay in power. Pence called former Vice President Dan Quayle for advice about how he could subvert the election. Quayle warned him off of the idea of blocking or subverting the election. He told Pence to not even think about it because the idea was insane and dangerous. It was also blatantly illegal. Pence complained to Quayle about the pressure the ex-president was putting on him. 

A reminder of how far this anti-democratic, anti-election poison has spread

In the California recall election yesterday, the state’s fascist Republican Party (FRP) was blown out of the water. The governor was not recalled and it was not close. FiveThirtyEight writes:

Our colleagues at the ABC News Decision Desk projected that the recall would fail at 11:37 p.m. Eastern, barely half an hour after polls closed. As of this writing, 67 percent of voters voted against the recall, and 33 percent voted for it. That margin will almost certainly narrow as more votes are counted (the numbers we have right now are mostly mail ballots, which lean very Democratic), but it’s still likely that Newsom will survive by a large margin, perhaps even comparable to his 24-point win in 2018.

But even before the polls closed in California, the lead FRP candidate alleged widespread vote fraud. That candidate, Larry Elder (~43% compared to  ~10% for another leading candidate) is a fascist conspiracy theory crackpot and long-time radical right talk show host in Los Angeles. Elder believes the 2020 election was stolen. He may contest the recall election. As usual for FRP losers, Elder did not produce one shred of credible evidence of vote fraud. 

Elder’s alleged evidence of vote fraud was an alleged statistical analysis, Benford’s Law, of the votes used to detect vote fraud. The problem with that is that the statistical analysis cannot be done before an election. The votes have to be analyzed after an election. Despite that idiotic and fatal flaw, Elder was so enthusiastic about his vote fraud lie that he launched an anti-voter fraud website the day before the election, saying at that time that Newsome had won the election.

Clearly, the FRP’s election fraud poison has spread to states where FRP candidates lose. In states where FRP candidates win, there is no reason to allege fraud. The point is winning, not holding honest elections. That is fascism, or at least anti-democratic authoritarianism. 

Questions: 

1. What or who is the most alarmist and hyperbolic, (A) the FRP with its intense, nationwide attacks on non-existent fraudulent elections and constant resort to crackpot conspiracy theories about illegitimate elections, or (B) people who see and oppose the Republican Party and its attacks on elections as, among other bad things, anti-democratic and authoritarian or fascist? Or, is that a false dilemma logic fallacy, and if so, how is this issue better posited?

2. How close to nuclear Armageddon did the 1/6 coup attempt get us? 

3. How close were we to a subverted 2020 election from the pressure the ex-president put on the craven idiot Pence to subvert it?

4. Are people who do not see deadly threat from the FRP asleep at the switch, deluded by FRP propaganda and disinformation, or something else?

Adverse impacts of unvaccinated people on others

An opinion piece in the Washington Post makes it clear that people who refuse to get vaccinated can harm or even kill other people. The unvaccinated exercise their right to refuse to be vaccinated, but the harm they cause others and the economy, does not appear to be a major concern to most of that crowd. The WaPo writes:

This was Jan. 3, the start of an eight-month medical mystery. On Sept. 10, I was supposed to have the surgery that would finally let me breathe. Instead, a week before my doctors were scheduled to operate, my surgery was canceled because Tennessee’s hospitals have been overwhelmed by covid-19 patients.

I’m scared. I’m vaccinated, but a breakthrough case would be dangerous for me. I’m bone-deep disappointed. But mostly, I am angry. I did everything I was asked to do to avoid catching or spreading covid-19. I wanted to do my part to end this crisis. Now, I wonder: Are there any circumstances under which my neighbors would do the same to keep me safe?

It’s terrifying to experience a medical emergency during a pandemic.

That first lump made it impossible for me to breathe when I bent over. When I cleaned out the litter box or picked up a toy or put my laundry in the dryer, I held my breath. .... Psychologically, it was just easier to choose not to breathe than it was to be unable to breathe.

.... by the end of May, I felt like I was having trouble breathing again. Not in the same exact way as before — like the difference between being strangled and being smothered.

I went to another surgeon, but he said he didn’t want to operate without a clear diagnosis, because he didn’t want to crack my chest open without knowing what he was getting into or if he might be making it worse. As long as I was able to breathe, he’d hold off. It turns out that “able to breathe” is a more subjective standard than you might think.

I asked if there was a chance I could be bumped for covid-19 patients. She said yes, but that my surgery would be among the last taken off the calendar, due to the threat to my life.

And yet here I am.

Tennessee is a state where, as Hank Williams Jr. put it, “We say grace and we say ma’am. If you ain’t into that, we don’t give a damn.” Given that creed, if there’s any place where everyone should be helping their fellow Americans in a time of crisis, it should be here.

But instead, our hospitals are full of people who are very sick and dying because they couldn’t be bothered to get one of three safe and effective vaccines — or at the very least stay home as much as possible and wear masks when they had to go out. They wouldn’t do their civic duty, but they get access to hospitals in front of those of us who did. 

Intellectually, I know all the downsides to letting hospitals decide what patients they will and won’t take. I grew up through the AIDS crisis, and I witnessed the devastating evil of discriminating against patients with a particular illness. And I don’t want doctors to be deciding anyone is worthy of less care just because they have made some foolish decisions. I have and will make foolish decisions myself.

But I’m still so very angry that people who put their feelings before others’ well-being get to be first in the hospitals.  

The people who arrogantly claim that their choices not to be vaccinated and take precautions against covid-19 have no effect on anyone else need to know that isn’t true. I’m one of the people they’re hurting. What will it take to make them stop?

The moral question is should hospitals bump people who need treatment because they are full of unvaccinated patients with COVID?[1] Do the unvaccinated morally deserve equal treatment under current conditions where vaccines are available but rejected, while vaccinated people are suffering? Why is it that people who do their civic duty and are responsible tend to get this as a result of their good will and fair dealing with society?:

Questions: Is it fair and/or logical to blame (i) unvaccinated people, and (ii) politicians and propagandists who misinform, disinform, deceive and/or lie about the vaccine or COVID, for (a) the fear, harm and deaths they cause other people, and (b) the economic damage that flows from not being vaccinated? What is the morally or objectively right balance of blame, e.g., ~60% for group i and ~40% for ii, vice versa, or something else? How would Hank Williams see this, or should anyone (maybe other than Hank and his friends) not give a damn? 

Footnote: 

1. In a recent interview that NPR broadcast, a Harvard ethics professor argued that there is no moral reason to treat an unvaccinated person differently from one who is. His logic was that people often show up in hospitals after doing things they should not have done, and those people are treated no differently than ones who show up due to no fault of their own. That logic holds up under normal circumstances where there is adequate capacity to deal with both kinds of patients. But what about under current circumstances where (i) the unvaccinated people at fault have taken up all the capacity, leaving the not at fault patients to go pound sand and wait in suffering, and sometimes (ii) keep no-fault patients out of medical facilities simply to try to keep them from getting infected? IMO, the professor’s reasoning is flawed and not persuasive.

The mental state of the American radical right: Is civil discourse possible any more?

“There's a kind of notion that everyone’s opinion is equally valid. My arse! A bloke who’s been a professor of dentistry for 40 years doesn’t have a debate with some eejit who removes his teeth with string and a door!” -- Dara Ó Briain, Irish comedian exemplifying the informal logic fallacy called the balance fallacy or in the context of journalism, false balancing

The balance fallacy is an informal logical fallacy that occurs when two sides of an argument are assumed to have equal or comparable value regardless of their respective merits, when in fact one side is invalid or false. Accepting the bad side as valid or at least debatable can lead to the conclusion that the answer to a problem is to be found between the two extremes. The latter is effectively an inverse false dilemma, discarding the two extremes, one of which is true or correct, rather than the middle or false extreme, neither of which is not true or correct. -- RationalWiki on the balance fallacy

Since the departure of Lyin’ Donnie (the ex-president), accumulating evidence indicates that most of America’s radical right has neither calmed down nor changed their minds about the major lies the movement is currently mostly based on. Most of them, about 66% of Republicans as of Aug. 4, 2021, still believe the 2020 election was stolen and ~4% of Americans, ~13 million, are willing to engage in violent protests to rectify the terrible injustice that Lyin’ Donnie suffered. By now it is clear that at most, very few of those deluded, manipulated minds are going to change. The moral outrage and seething anger is not going to go away.  

To a major extent, radical right outrage and anger are significantly focused on fighting against the falsehood that Democrats are evil socialist tyrants. Some, only a few I hope, also believe they are other bad things such as alien lizard people, pedophiles and/or Chinese agents. Most appear to believe that they are fighting for liberty and truth against socialist tyranny and persecution. In fact, they actually support a fascist Republican Party (FRP), which is a force that actually fights for tyranny and persecution and against liberty for outsiders and truth.

Unless one comes to have some understanding of the working of the human mind, this would see to be such a confounding state of affairs that it literally is not possible. Well, it literally is possible and it is influential right now in the minds of tens of millions of deluded Americans.

Sometimes, I get pushback here that I am too soft on people who come here and repeat what are known lies, including the stolen election whopper. Under current dire, anti-democracy circumstances, it is objectively wrong to leave blatant falsehoods insufficiently challenged. I tend to commit that logic error, called false balancing or bothsidesism, by merely leaving disagreement as something like, ‘well, we disagree on the facts’ and then walk away from it. 

However, that is in fact not a disagreement on the facts. It is a disagreement over (i) facts and true truths competing against misinformation and/or disinformation, and/or (2) sound reasoning competing against partisan motivated reasoning, which is often crackpot.

Misinformation vs disinformation: The distinction lies in the intent of the falsehood's speaker or spreader. Misinformation is false information that one spreads because they believe it to be true. Disinformation is false information that one spreads even though they know it to be false, but they are knowingly trying to deceive people. 

Motivated reasoning: Emotionally biased reasoning to produce justifications or make decisions that are most desired rather than those that accurately reflect the evidence, while still reducing cognitive dissonance. In other words, motivated reasoning is the “tendency to find arguments in favor of conclusions we want to believe to be stronger than arguments for conclusions we do not want to believe.” It can lead to forming and clinging to false beliefs despite substantial evidence to the contrary. 

I got a nudge on this yesterday after I committed a false balance mistake with a commenter who was new here: “The crucial point is that if the GOP in its current form regains the Senate, and perhaps the House, all bets are off. BigC’s status as either gullible or mendacious matters little in the big picture. I only suggest that his/her comments be held to the same epistemic standards as any others here. By that standard his or her “evidence” (if you even call it that) is severely sub-par. That's all. .... The stakes are very, very high right now. It's far less important to “understand” each passing foot-soldier of the radical Right than to repel the fast-growing movement and the spread of conspiracy theory and pure falsehoods which draw new recruits to “the cause” every single day.”

One can’t argue with that.

I did not know the new person and out of caution wanted to extend respect by according them the benefit of my belief that their mindset was grounded in (i) misinformation, not disinformation and/or (ii) sound reasoning based on false belief instead of partisan motivated reasoning. One can see my mistake in that -- it jumps right out. There is no easy way of divining the speaker’s state of mind, and maybe no at all, easy or hard.

Given the stakes, and they truly are very high[1], the benefit of such doubts are not warranted any more. Arguably, they never were warranted. For the sake of truth, rationality, democracy and respect for other people, one really should not extend such benefits in the face of blatant falsehoods, regardless of the speaker’s intent or origin (dark free speech) of false beliefs. False information and beliefs should always be respectfully but firmly rebutted.

Question: Given that most radical right adherents react badly to being corrected when they cite false information or apply motivated reasoning, is civil discourse between the radical right and everyone else possible any more?

Footnote: 

1. The criticism I got yesterday was packaged with this point about the high stakes in a May 31, 2021 article published by The Hill:

Michael Flynn, former national security adviser in the Trump administration, appeared to call for a Myanmar-like coup to take place in the U.S. during a conference in Texas attended by many supporters of the QAnon conspiracy theory.

MarketWatch reports that Flynn made the remarks while speaking at the conference in Dallas, which was called "For God & and Country Patriot Roundup." In a video shared online, someone from the audience asks Flynn, "I want to know why what happened in Myanmar can’t happen here?”

This question elicited a round of cheers from the audience.

Once the crowd quieted, Flynn responded, “No reason. I mean, it should happen here.”

Flynn is a fascist and a convicted felon that Lyin’ Donnie pardoned. Flynn openly called for a military coup and the audience loved it. That is how high the stakes are. The fascist threat to democracy, the rule of law and civil liberties could not be any clearer, short of the actual military coup that some significant minority (~30% of Republicans?) of the radical right would support. Since most Republicans believe there was corruption in the 2020 election and probably most anything Democrats want to do, many people appear to be open to a military coup right now.

Analysis of participants in the 1/6 coup attempt

In this 18 minute interview, the people who had been arrested were analyzed for why they participated in the 1/6 attack on the US Capitol. A dominant reason was that the attackers were driven by fear of the Great Replacement (the Great Replacement Theory). The person interviewed was Professor Robert Pape, director of the University of Chicago's Project on Security and Threats. Pape is an expert on political violence, insurrections, coups and the like. His research found that fear of the Great Replacement was a dominant driver among the people who had been arrested, nearly all of whom supported the ex-president. Pape defines fear of the Great Replacement as a perception among some White people that rights for non-White people are increasing and outpacing the rights of White people.

Pape's research indicates that of the 420 arrested at the time of the interview, 45% were professionals, including business executives and attorneys, nearly all of whom were White males in their 40s and 50s with families. These people came mostly from urban areas that voted for Biden, but that had significant increases in the proportions of non-White people living in their areas. 

Pape's analysis indicated that an increase in the county non-White population was the single most important predictor for counties where the attackers came from. Only 7% of the 420 were unemployed, which matched the national unemployment rate at the time. Thus, unemployment or low wages was not the main driving force for most of the 420. And, only about 10% of the 420 were affiliated with right wing militant groups. Rural counties were less likely to be where the attackers came from.

  

Pape's team also did a national survey asking people if the election was stolen and if so, whether they would participate in a violent protest against the steal. About 4% said yes. That data extrapolates to about 10 million Americans who would agree to participate in a violent protest against the steal. The common factor among those people was fear of the Great Replacement.[1]

It's not racism, it's fear of unequal rights

An important point was that the fear was not about non-White people, but about rights of non-Whites outpacing White rights. That is not an expression of racism or bigotry, unlike the core belief among most Christian nationalists that God chose the White race to rule over all others. Thus, even though Republican Party policy often is racist, some of its support is race-related, but not racist as such.

To me, that indicates that as non-Whites exercise their rights, there will inevitably be conflicts and Whites fear those conflicts will be resolved in favor of non-Whites. Intentionally divisive propaganda can exacerbate those fears, and it probably is. 

All of this research indicates that if ways to communicate that rights will be equal, while conflicts still need to be resolved. White people need reassurance that their rights will not be subordinate to rights of others. The problem is that when rights collide, there will usually be a person(s) who feels their rights were subordinated to the perceived winner. For example, Christians who refuse to serve a same-sex couple in commerce feel that they have been terribly persecuted when forced by law to serve them. That the same-sex couple was persecuted by being publicly discriminated against is of little or no concern in the weighing of rights, especially when those rights are preordained by a God.

What about the Republican Party?

These results indicate that in addition to special interest money and Christian nationalism, fear of the Great Replacement is another dominant force in the GOP, and idea that was suggested by PD, a commenter here. That could be true. If so, one can look at the dominant influences in Republican Party as a Venn diagram with three overlapping forces, money, Christian nationalism and great replacement fear. The thing is that Christian nationalists cannot be reasoned with and they will usually not listen or compromise. The money is also intransigent, especially Christian nationalist money. Maybe some or most the fearful Great Replacement crowd can be talked to and reassured somehow.

Question: Is the Republican Party probably mostly driven by some combination of those three political forces, or is the situation more complicated than that? 

Footnote: 

1. In a 2018 research paper, Status threat, not economic hardship, explains the 2016 presidential vote, researcher Diana Mutz wrote: 

Results do not support an interpretation of the election based on pocketbook economic concerns. Instead, the shorter relative distance of people’s own views from the Republican candidate on trade and China corresponded to greater mass support for Trump in 2016 relative to Mitt Romney in 2012. Candidate preferences in 2016 reflected increasing anxiety among high-status groups rather than complaints about past treatment among low-status groups. Both growing domestic racial diversity and globalization contributed to a sense that white Americans are under siege by these engines of change.  

The 2016 election was a result of anxiety about dominant groups’ future status rather than a result of being overlooked in the past. In many ways, a sense of group threat is a much tougher opponent than an economic downturn, because it is a psychological mindset rather than an actual event or misfortune. Given current demographic trends within the United States, minority influence will only increase with time, thus heightening this source of perceived status threat.  

Most critically, these results speak to the importance of group status in the formation of political preferences. Political uprisings are often about downtrodden groups rising up to assert their right to better treatment and more equal life conditions relative to high-status groups. The 2016 election, in contrast, was an effort by members of already dominant groups to assure their continued dominance and by those in an already powerful and wealthy country to assure its continued dominance.

To a significant extent, that accords with the kind of fear that Pape found among the 1/6 attackers, but that is also at least compatible with some core Christian nationalist dogma.

Broad police immunity for bad actions

St. Paul. MN, police officer Officer Heather Weyker 

The New York Times reports on a conservative federal court trend to further expand police immunity to their illegal and harmful actions. In my opinion, this is more evidence of the inherently fascist, or at least authoritarian, intent of the Republican Party and its hostility to civil liberties and the rule of law. The NYT writes in an article entitled, If the Police Lie, Should They Be Held Liable? Often the Answer Is No.:

In 2010, Officer Heather Weyker of the St. Paul Police Department in Minnesota had the biggest case of her career: a child sex-trafficking ring said to have spanned four states and involved girls as young as 12. Thirty people, almost all of them Somali refugees, were charged and sent to jail, many of them for years.

Then the case fell apart. It turned out, the trial judge found, that Officer Weyker had fabricated or misstated facts, lied to a grand jury and lied during a detention hearing. When three young women unwittingly got in the way of her investigation, according to their court filings, she had them locked up on false charges.

“She took my life away,” said one of the women, Hamdi Mohamud, who was a senior in high school at the time.

But there is little Ms. Mohamud can do. For decades, the Supreme Court and Congress have declined to close the many legal loopholes, like qualified immunity, that protect the police from accountability. Now legal advocates say that an increasingly conservative Supreme Court has emboldened lower courts to close off the few avenues that plaintiffs once had to seek redress.

“If a federal law enforcement officer lies, manipulates witnesses, and falsifies evidence, should the officer be liable for damages?” the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit wrote of Officer Weyker, whose investigation ultimately resulted in no convictions. The answer was no. 

More than 20 civil lawsuits have been filed against Officer Weyker, a former vice officer who is still the subject of an internal department investigation. Some of the suits failed because she was granted qualified immunity, a doctrine created by the courts that shields officers from lawsuits unless they violate a “clearly established” right.  

Locked up for over a year, Ms. Mohamud said she was kept in a cell 23 hours a day. “I would cry all night, sleep all day,” she said.  

“I don’t know whose life I’m living right now,” she said, “but this is not my life.”

What on Earth is a “clearly established” right? Isn’t it clearly established that we have a right to not be locked up and our lives ruined based on false evidence and false charges? 

The NYT article goes on to point out that although she did violate people’s rights, another form of immunity that extends to federal law enforcement officers shielded Officer Weyker in other lawsuits. Those courts gave her the broader federal officer immunity even though she was not a federal law enforcement officer.

In Weyker’s case, she got federal law enforcement immunity because she was part of a joint task force with some federal agents. According to that legal reasoning, if that is what one can call it, the federal immunity just sort of slops over onto non-federal law officers on joint task forces. In theory, federal law allows state and local officers, but not federal agents, to be sued for rights violations, even when their actions are the same. 

Based on that, a federal judge told the Black Lives Matter organization that it could sue the local — but not the federal — police officers who violently cleared protesters from Lafayette Square in Washington in June 2020.

Whether the federal immunity law applies to state or local law enforcement officers is arbitrary. The NYT makes the government’s irrational, rule of law mocking caprice crystal clear: “In a case argued before the U.S. Supreme Court last year, James King, a college student walking to work in Grand Rapids, Mich., was mistaken for a suspect by two plainclothes members of a fugitive task force — one federal, one local — who beat him so savagely that bystanders called 911. The government contends that he should not be able to sue either officer.”

Questions: Would Officer Weyker have been given federal immunity if she was a non-White person, and the people she lied about were White? Are calls to reform police departments to get rid of this kind of law enforcement warranted or not? Is this evidence of fascism in the form of hostility to civil liberties, or is this just a case of one bad apple in the cracker barrel? Or, was the apple not a bad one at all? Is it reasonable to suspect that this kind of policing reflects the ideology and mindset of Christian nationalism?

Some observations on the role of Christian nationalism in the 1/6 coup attempt

Treasonous Christian nationalists in the US Senate, praying to God

for thanks in helping them attack the US Capitol on 1/6 and restoring 

America as the Christian nation God intended

“Mark my word, if and when these preachers get control of the [Republican] party, and they're sure trying to do so, it's going to be a terrible damn problem. Frankly, these people frighten me. Politics and governing demand compromise. But these Christians believe they are acting in the name of God, so they can't and won't compromise. I know, I've tried to deal with them.” -- ascribed to the old fashioned Republican conservative, Barry Goldwater, presumably said in the 1960s (today, Goldwater would have been RINO hunted out of the FRP as a radical liberal)

A July 28, 2021 article by Andrew Seidel writing for Religion Dispatches, THE JANUARY 6 SELECT COMMITTEE CANNOT IGNORE THIS CHRISTIAN MOVEMENT, discusses the overarching role of Christian nationalism (CN) movement in the attack on the capitol.  RD writes:

Yesterday, for the first time, we heard about Christian Nationalism in a government conversation about the January 6 insurrection. The conversation some of us had been having about Christian Nationalism may have entered the mainstream in the wake of that attack, but politicians—even those promising to get to the bottom of the attacks—ignored the role this political theology played in the attack. They can ignore it no longer.

Christian Nationalism is an identity based around the claim that America was founded as a Christian nation, that we’re based on Judeo-Christian principles, and, most importantly, that we’ve strayed from that foundation. It’s a political identity based on lies and myths. It’s a permission structure that uses the language of return, of getting back to our godly roots, to justify all manner of hateful public policy—and even attacks on our democracy.

Every day I learn more about how the permission structures within Christian Nationalism motivated the terrorists and how it cuts across the other motivations and identities we saw that day, including the absurd Qanon conspiracy. They believed that they were fighting for God’s chosen one. And if God was on their side, who could be against them?

Trump’s second impeachment featured the first full airing of the January 6 attacks. But, despite the conversation entering the mainstream, nothing was said about the Christian Nationalist aspect of this assault. I feared—and still fear—that the January 6 Select Committee would do the same. When Rep. Cheney trotted out in her opening statement the Christian Nationalist war cry frequently heard in the lead up to January 6, “One Nation, Under God,” I was worried all over again that they were going to ignore, or cover for, Christian Nationalism.

 
Officer Hodges, who was the officer trapped and nearly crushed to death between the doors as the mob surged through the Capitol, spoke about the Christian Nationalist aspect of this assault, though not in those terms: “It was clear the terrorists perceived themselves to be Christians. I saw the Christian flag directly to my front. Another read ‘Jesus is my savior, Trump is my president.’ Another, ‘Jesus is King'”

That Christian flag was carried into battle against America—carried alongside the Confederate flag.  

The idea that “the United States of America [should] be reborn” and reborn “in Christ’s holy name,” which is how the prayer concluded, is central to Christian Nationalism. We cannot understand what happened on January 6 without understanding Christian Nationalism.

Seidel’s description raises two aspects of CN that most Americans, probably ~85%, are mostly or completely unaware of. First, is the degree to which CN ideology is integrated into the fascist Republican Party (FRP) and controls it. The only other overarching influential in FRP ideology is the capitalist profit motive. That influence billionaires and multi-millionaire elites who dictate policy and tactics. They pay to buy that power. Probably most of those elite influencers, i.e., rich anti-government radical conservatives, are themselves Christian nationalists or allied to the movement. The two main influences in the FRP are inextricably intertwined and overlapping. 

This lack of understanding of the radical fundamentalist nature and influence of CN on the FRP is why Officer Hodges didn't refer the Christian symbolism in terms of CN influence. He just thought they were regular garden variety Christians. He did not understand that he was facing radical Christian fundamentalists intent on overthrowing secular government and replacing it with White male-dominated Christian Sharia. He probably still does not understand it.

The second, equally important point that Seidel’s article raises is that probably most rank and file FRP voters and supporters honestly believe that God really is on their side, and/or God chose Lyin' Donnie (the ex-president) to restore America to its fundamentalist, anti-secular, pro-White race Christian roots. The CN movement opposes secular public education and desegregated public schools. The White race is seen by God as superior and destined to rule above all others. At least, that's a core CN belief. It is a key lynchpin underlying the core CN myths (lies) that (i) America was founded as a religious nation, (ii) the US Constitution is a religious document, not secular, and (iii) American secularist society and government constitutes severe persecution of peaceful, humble Christians who just want to live and worship as they wish in peace. That is how radical and inherently anti-democratic, authoritarian, theocratic and autocratic the CN movement really is. That is why Goldwater would be RINO hunted out of the modern FRP.

Thus, more than influence from QAnon, anti-vaxxers, and other secular influences in the FRP, CN is simply bigger and more unifying than all the rest. It easily sweeps in racism and bigotry because those influences are quite compatible with the ideology. It also easily accommodates the current FRP assault on voting by rigging elections (God destined morally superior wealthy White males to run the country) and by suppressing votes, including Democratic, racial minority and LGBQT community votes (God destined White race heterosexual Christians to dominate). In my opinion, CN ideology and beliefs are the single most dominant influence in the modern FRP.

Question: Are CN ideology and beliefs the most dominant influence in the modern FRP, i.e., even more important than special interest money and rich donor money? Or, is the money, or something else, the main influence?