Washington braces for a second gathering of domestic terrorists

WASHINGTONâ€"The fences went back up around the Capitol building on Thursday. The city is on high alert over a protest scheduled for Saturday in support of the insurrectionist rioters arrested on Jan. 6. The D.C. Metro Police Department will activate its entire force for the day. The Capitol Police have requested the National Guard be at the ready to assist.

As the fences went up, neighbourhood resident Veronique Singh, who served in the Air Force during the time of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, choked up a bit when speaking to a Washington Post videographer about the Jan. 6 riots. “It was hard to see. Yeah, I think most veterans recognized the insurrectionists for what they were, domestic terrorists, you know. And â€" yeah, I never expected to see that happen here.”

“Domestic terrorists.” The link she drew â€" between the Jan. 6 rioters and the foreign terrorists who have for two decades dominated U.S. security policy â€" was one also made by former president George W. Bush in his remarks on the anniversary of 9/11 in Shanksville, PA last Saturday.

“There is little cultural overlap between violent extremists abroad and violent extremists at home,” Bush said. “But in their disdain for pluralism, in their disregard for human life, in their determination to defile national symbols, they are children of the same foul spirit.”

As you might guess, Trump himself doesn’t see it that way. In a statement Thursday, Trump said “Our hearts and minds are with the people being persecuted so unfairly relating to the Jan. 6 protest concerning the Rigged Presidential Election.”

For their part, Saturday’s protest organizers have tried to distance themselves from both Trump and the threat of violence. They’ve asked attendees not to wear any Trump clothing or bring signs or flags supporting him (or any other partisan political messages), and have emphasized calls for non-violence.

Matt Braynard, the former Trump campaign staffer organizing the event, says it is focused on due process concerns for what he says are the “vast majority” of those arrested who did not personally commit any violence. “They’ve been charged with expressing their first amendment rights in a public building at the wrong place at the wrong time,” Braynard told CNN on Wednesday.

Of course, in this case those people got into the public building by trampling police fences, smashing windows, and brutalizing police during hours of hand-to-hand combat. Their purpose inside the building was to prevent Congress from certifying the results of the election, and they invaded the Senate chamber and ransacked congressional offices to do it. They chanted for the deaths of elected officials. They erected a gallows on the front lawn.

But there’s a fair chance Braynard’s promise of a peaceful demonstration Saturday will be realized: after intelligence reports raised significant fears about the protest over the past month and authorities mobilized in preparation, it has been reported that online chatter in extremist groups has encouraged the most militant from skipping the event. Congress is still in summer recess, the building will be empty.

Yet the potential for political violence, and the memory of the recently demonstrated capacity to use it, still hangs in the air.

On Thursday, an Ohio Republican congressman who voted to impeach Trump over Jan. 6 announced he would retire from politics, citing threats of violence to his family from Trump supporters as a main reason. The same day, a video went viral showing a New York City restaurant hostess being beaten by Texas tourists because she’d asked to see their proof of vaccination as the city’s laws require. Through the summer, there were waves of reports of school administrators being assaulted or threatened over mask mandates. Well before Jan. 6, election officials in many states were inundated with threats to themselves and their families. Prominent COVID health officials such as Dr. Anthony Fauci had their lives threatened. Last year, six men were arrested for a plot to kidnap Michigan’s Democratic governor.

Some of this is explicitly tied to Trump and his false claims of election fraud (claims which about 78 per cent of Republicans now believe according to a recent CNN poll). Much of it is more generally tied to the conspiratorial right-wing circles in which a huge chunk of Trump’s supporters reside â€" those who see a tyrannical plot in every COVID-19 measure, Black Lives Matter protest, or plane full of immigrants.

The upshot is that the threat of violence, on behalf of Trump specifically and the Republican party more generally, is now an implicit part of everyday U.S politics.

Some Republicans try to disavow it: Sen. Lindsay Graham said if protesters get out of line on Saturday police should be ready to “whack ’em.”

Others essentially embrace it. Rep. Madison Cawthorn told his supporters this month they should be “storing up ammunition,” because there would be “bloodshed” coming. Rep. Matt Gaetz said earlier this year the U.S constitution’s second amendment was to protect the ability to “maintain an armed rebellion against the government” and said “I think we have an obligation to use it.” In January, immediately after the insurrection attempt, a Wisconsin GOP chairman told supporters to “prepare for war” and a California GOP official posted on social media “The war had begun! Citizens take arms!” Trump has spent months portraying Ashli Babbitt, the insurrectionist who was shot on Jan. 6, as a martyr.

What do you call the threat of violence for political ends? You could call it terrorism. You could also call it a fact of contemporary American politics.

That threat feels vivid to many in Washington this week. The fences are back up. Even after they are removed, no one is likely to let their guard down.

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