Sunday, January 10, 2021

Hey, Twitter, Are You Sure About This?

 It's John Harris, no stranger to the need for alternative media, at Politico, which he co-founded:

For a half-century, the trend in political culture has been inexorably in one direction: toward the steady loosening and eventually the near-obliteration of media filters.

If someone has a voice that other people want to hear, that voice is going to be heard. No smug editor at the New York Times or damn anchorman at CBS News is going to get in the way. Who the hell elected them, after all, to decide what points of view were worthy of dissemination, what facts or rumors or even flat falsehoods should reach average citizens, who could decide for themselves what to make of it?

The erosion of traditional establishment filters — first by such mediums as direct mail, talk radio and cable, later and most powerfully by social media — has been a primary factor in the rise of potent ideological movements on right and left alike.

It is why the election and bizarre presidency of an insurgent disruptor like Donald J. Trump — inconceivable in the 20th century era of establishment media—was eminently conceivable in this era.

And it is why the decision Friday night by Twitter to permanently ban Trump from its platform is a signal moment — a historic move, even before we know the consequences that will flow from it.

It represents an effort to reassert the notion that filters have a place in political communication and that some voices have lost their claim on public legitimacy — even when that voice has 89 million followers and is just two months past receiving the second-highest number of votes in U.S. election history.

Twitter’s announcement was made with a righteous air, as the company said it was acting “due to the risk of further incitement of violence” after Trump’s raucous lies about a stolen election inspired backers to take over the Capitol on Wednesday. Across a wide spectrum of politicians and commentators, there were exultations of relief, many mingled with it’s-about-time exasperation.

Twitter’s move is plainly an effort to act responsibly in the face of Trump’s irresponsible words and actions.

Even so, the question seems unavoidable: Are you sure about this?

Still more.

 

Matt Taibbi, Hate Inc.

Following-up, "Matt Taibbi on the Capital Fiasco (VIDEO)."

At Amazon, "Matt Taibbi, Hate Inc.: Why Today’s Media Makes Us Despise One Another.




Matt Taibbi on the Capital Fiasco (VIDEO)

It's worth a listen:


'Oh, my goodness. The gloves are completely off now...'

That's Robert Stacy McCain responding to this:




Tessa Fowler in Slow Motion

Ms. Tessa's not holding back these day, dang!

WATCH: "[Ms. Tessa in] Slow Motion."


I'm Not Quitting Facebook and Twitter

They can boot me off, but I'm staying on these platforms for the fight:

Gonna quit social media if I’m booted off Facebook and Twitter. The fight is on these platforms, not Parler, Gab, etc., which are mere echo chamber outlets with no power.

See Arlen Williams as well: 




Nikki Richards Speaks Out!

She used to have a blog, like 10 years ago, and I lost contact with her.

But she posted on Facebook yesterday, and, I mean, wow! She's got it! 

Before I completely delete my account from Facebook and most of social mafia, I have something to say. This assault on free speech is disturbing and should terrify EVERYONE. These are the rights our government should be protecting and now they are promoting the silencing of millions. Conservative platforms are being removed and censored, not just the President, but his supporters and those with monetized platforms. This is America, and now my fellow citizens you have only one view that you are being fed by the media. You will be next. Soon your speech will be censored too. The reactivation of my Facebook account was met by community standards violations that were mere articles from conservative sources. The civil rights of millions were taken away the past couple of days and you all are silent. Your rights are next, unless you comply with the left. The exchange of ideas and debate is over. You may despise Trump and his so called rhetoric but now that is the excuse for silencing millions. And ask yourself what your current rhetoric is towards Trump supporters. Are you feeding a tyrannical silencing? The information you are getting from the MSM IS FALSE. You are all on the WRONG SIDE OF THIS FIGHT. PS. Parler is being shut down by the Apple and Google platforms unless they comply with their censorship guidelines. Afraid yet? You should be.

PPS. With a dominant Democratic congress and executive branch, this will only get worse.

 

'There will be all sorts of depredations visited upon us by those who wield all the influence of culture, academia, and state...'

 It's Krakatoa, at AoSHQ, "EMT 1/9/21 - The Stupid Edition":

Don't do stupid things.

Take it from a moron: You know they are stupid, deep down, when you have to tell other people, often relative strangers, all about the stupid thing you really want to do hoping for some validation and fellowship.

At that point, even if that thing wasn't really stupid to begin with , it turned stupid once it left your mouth and hit the ears of people you don't know enough about to be able to trust.

Generally, people that encourage your stupid ideas aren't quality friends.

Stupid things will get you in trouble. Could be small trouble. Could be really big trouble.

I have a friend who does more than his share of stupid things, and since his two closest friends kept trying to talk him out of those things, he cultivated new friends. At his heart he is a prepper. He is far too unhealthy to be any sort of danger, and he acknowledges that.

One of those new friends just got picked up by the state B.I., along with all his computers, guns [and] other assorted stuff. Blowing off steam is one thing.

Using a "free" email service to sending emails that entertain all sorts of vengeance plots is another. Participating in email groups where that sort of thing goes on is stupid.

Following up those emails with in-person meetings of supposed like-minded travelers is running the stupid flag to the top of the pole for everyone to see.

Some of you may know that old poker saying: If you are sitting at the table and you can't figure out who the donkey is, you are the donkey.

Well similar to that is that in any group of 3 people plotting violence, no matter how justified two of those my feel, the third is probably an informant.

It was stupid of my friend to visit with those people a few weeks ago, even if his goal was to talk them down. We tried to talk him out of it, but now I fear he will soon be joining his new friend in trouble with the law, even though his focus is prepping and personal defense.

Things are bad, and they are going to get worse.

There will be all sorts of depredations visited upon us by those who wield all the influence of culture, academia, and state...

Still more.

 

Paige Spiranac for Sports Illustrated Swimsuit (VIDEO)

Flashback, "Golfer Paige Spiranac Is the Newest Member of Sports Illustrated Swimsuit 2018."




Saturday, January 9, 2021

Christopher Lasch, The Culture of Narcissism

At Amazon, Christopher Lasch, The Culture of Narcissism: American Life in An Age of Diminishing Expectations.




Dueling Protests and Violence at Pacific Beach?

Actually, no. 

Or is that Ngo, as in Andy Ngo, "A mob of antifa assault a small group of conservatives in San Diego, Cal. The black bloc mob is also waving an #antifa flag."

Antifa goons are using the Capitol riot to get him banned from Twitter, which they've been trying to do for years, to say nothing of murdering him.

Also at ABC News 10 San Diego:


Amazon Suspends Parler, Threatening to Take Pro-Trump Site Offline Indefinitely

It's actually Amazon's "AWS" --- Amazon Web Services, where Parler's been hosted. The alternative social media platform has already been de-platformed off Apple and Google's app stores. Amazon's AWS move is the coup de grĂ¢ce.

From Ed Driscoll, at Instapundit, "UPDATE: Amazon Is Booting Parler Off Of Its Web Hosting Service":

“In a post on Sunday evening following publication of this story, Parler CEO John Matze said it is possible ‘Parler will be unavailable on the internet for up to a week as we rebuild from scratch.’”

ANOTHER UPDATE (FROM GLENN): I don’t know if you can buy Parler stock, but it should be rising on the strength of its private antitrust suit against a bunch of deep-pocketed tech firms.

Tested: 2021 Mazda 3 2.5 Turbo vs. Audi A4 45

 From Glenn Reynolds, at Instapundit, "MAZDA’S LUXURY-BRAND AMBITIONS":

Bottom line: “As it stands now, the Mazda 3 2.5 Turbo offers a hell of a lot of car for the money, while the Audi A4 offers an appropriate amount of car for the money.”

 

Chad Felix Greene is Absolutely on Fire!

I've been meaning to follow him, but wasn't sure if he was the genuine article. But after seeing this thread, I'm gobsmacked!

And it's now available on the Thread Reader App (which hasn't been banned yet by Big Tech). 

Here, "Chad Felix Greene":

Every person on the left believes they just survived the parallel to the rise of Nazism in Germany and they defeated it.

They stopped it.

They believe all Republicans are 1950's white racists.

They feel empowered to live out their Civil Rights warrior fantasies. They imagine themselves toppling Jim Crow and the Confederacy and the Nazi army in one swoop and every powerful authority is on their side.

They aren't silencing conservative speech.

They are eradicating violence, terrorism, racism and hate from the internet.

*****

They are *gleeful* we are vulnerable and scared of our voice being suppressed.

They think we are the people in old 1950's photos angrily shouting at black school children.

We are not people to them.

We are symbols of what they feel morally driven to remove from the world.

The most powerful people who influence technology see us the same way.

We aren't customers.

We aren't users.

We aren't people with real lives and families and businesses.

We are a problem to be solved and they've been trying to figure out how for years and finally can do it.

The reason free market ideals no longer work is because the market is controlled by fewer and fewer people who dominate all options.

And those people are ideologically driven to eradicate from society all sources of hate.

Its a religious crusade. And we are the target.

*****

We cannot reason with them. They see our pleas for fairness like you would imagine a segregationist doing so.

They believe - believe - that once we are gone the internet and therefore society will be cleansed, free, peaceful and able to heal FROM US.

I say 'us' because we are not the one's defining our place in this world.

We aren't white supremacists or nazis or bigots or violent insurrectionists.

But the powerful have segregated society into good and bad thought and their strict and narrow worldview has placed us here.

We are innocent.

But it doesn't matter to them.

They *hate* what they imagine we are.

They cannot be persuaded otherwise. You cannot convince them *you* are a good person wrongly categorized.

The only people with influence have made up their minds and don't care to change it.

The *only* option is a steady Civil Rights movement to make it illegal, step by step, to do this to us.

They won't voluntarily stop. They think they are the heroes of the story fighting for the good of humanity.

Each remaining GOP leader MUST begin NOW.

Legal action.

Now.

*****

This means adding Political Affiliation to anti-discrimination law in red states.

We no longer have the luxury of arguing against the idea of protected classes.

We are now a marginalized group.

You need to accept that and behave as such.

This is a Civil Rights movement. If you think you are exempt from this because you didn't vote for Trump or you defend businesses with 'they have a right to' you are not paying attention.

*You* do not define your status.

Its imposed onto you.

Just like every prior targeted group.

You are a minority now. You are targeted for what you believe, who you are associated with and - be very clear - your existence. You cannot change that fact.

This has been applied to you.

Enough bickering over the philosophical nuances.

You are a marginalized minority now.

1st step is adding Political Affiliation to anti-discrimination AND hate crime laws because the left targets us for physical violence.

Create the legal framework to force businesses and corporations to defend their discrimination policies.

Force them to second guess them. We don't need the federal level to do this.

We just need a solid foundation to force their hand legally.

This will not stop until it is illegal and enforced to stop.

You will not shame them into acting ethically or fairly.

Any GOP who refuses to act must be voted out. Eventually we must stop treating the internet as a fad and gadget we can just toss aside and move on from.

We must have an internet bill of rights.

Legal rights protecting all people from censorship and banning for who they are or what they believe.

This is a new world.

*****

Again.

I understand the traditional free market arguments, but they no longer apply.

Businesses are behaving collectively as they did in the 1950's Jim Crow era and joining together to discriminate against a single group in order to protect themselves from popular outrage. You are now in that group.

Your entire online life.

Your online communication.

Your digital currency.

Your job.

Your healthcare.

Your access to the world.

Its not 'just Twitter.'

It can be taken from you for nothing more than a photo or an association.

You cannot compete. People who believe your skin color, your sexuality, your gender identity, your faith and the core beliefs that make up how you engage in politics place you in a category deserving of discrimination and violence *control* your life right now.

Understand this.

Stop fighting it.

It is time to relentlessly legally fight back.

We don't like to do this. But its our only option to regain liberty.

******

Every act of racism, seismic, discrimination, religious discrimination - all of it must be treated like an LGBT person suing over a wedding cake.

I cannot repeat this enough. The powerful left **will not** voluntarily stop this crusade.

We must use available legal efforts now to overwhelm them with lawsuits and legal challenges to stop all forms of discrimination they feel entitled to now.

Political Affiliation too. I am a gay/trans man and a Jew.

I know what discrimination and marginalization is.

I know what its like to be hated for nothing more than who you are.

This is it.

This is real.

 

New Impeachment Would Damage the Constitution

From Professor Jonathan Turley, at the Hill, "Swift new impeachment would damage the Constitution":

The author Franz Kafka once wrote, “My guiding principle is this. Guilt is never to be doubted.” Democrats suddenly appear close to adopting that standard into the Constitution as they prepare for a second impeachment of President Trump. With seeking his removal for incitement, Democrats would gut not only the impeachment standard but also free speech, all in a mad rush to remove Trump just days before his term ends.

Democrats are seeking to remove Trump on the basis of his remarks to supporters before the rioting at the Capitol. Like others, I condemned those remarks as he gave them, calling them reckless and wrong. I also opposed the challenges to electoral votes in Congress. But his address does not meet the definition for incitement under the criminal code. It would be viewed as protected speech by the Supreme Court.

When I testified in the impeachment hearings of Trump and Bill Clinton, I noted that an article of impeachment does not have to be based on any clear crime but that Congress has looked to the criminal code to weigh impeachment offenses. For this controversy now, any such comparison would dispel claims of criminal incitement. Despite broad and justified condemnation of his words, Trump never actually called for violence or riots. But he urged his supporters to march on the Capitol to raise their opposition to the certification of electoral votes and to back the recent challenges made by a few members of Congress. Trump told the crowd “to peacefully and patriotically make your voices be heard.”

Still more (via Memeorandum).  


The All-Out Assault on Conservative Thought Has Just Begun

 A great piece, from Tyler O'Neill, at Pajamas:

After the white nationalist riots in Charlottesville, Va., in 2017, the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) and others renewed their demands for the suppression of conservative speech on social media. After Trump’s supporters breached the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, Big Tech companies clamped down on President Donald Trump and many of his supporters. Incoming President Joe Biden has said he plans to pass a law against domestic terrorism.

While conservatives rightly denounced the violence this week, this response bodes ill for conservative speech not just on social media, but in the public square and even in private organizations.

In the aftermath of the Capitol riots, Twitter suspended President Donald Trump’s account for the first time and Facebook permanently banned the president. After Trump deleted the tweets Twitter had flagged and had his account restored, Twitter proceeded to ban him entirely on Friday, and then it banned the official President of the United States (POTUS) account.

Facebook throttled the great Rush Limbaugh, notifying him that his “Page has reduced distribution and other restrictions because of repeated sharing of false news.” Limbaugh left Twitter in protest after the platform banned Trump. Apple and Google attacked Parler, claiming that the new haven for conservatives had allowed people to plan the violence of the Capitol riots on its platform.

House Democrats filed articles of impeachment that explicitly blame President Trump for the Capitol riots, even though he never told his supporters to invade the Capitol. While the president’s exaggerated rhetoric inflamed the rioters, Democrats repeatedly did the same thing this summer. Before and after Black Lives Matter protests devolved into destructive and deadly riots, Democratic officials repeatedly claimed America suffers from “systemic racism” and institutionalized “white supremacy.”

Big Tech did not remove House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s accounts when she called for “uprisings” against the Trump administration. Facebook and Twitter did not target Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez when she claimed that allegedly marginalized groups have “no choice but to riot.” These platforms did not act against Kamala Harris when she said the riots “should not” stop.

This week, Joe Biden condemned the Capitol rioters, saying, “What we witnessed yesterday was not dissent, it was not disorder, it was not protest. It was chaos. They weren’t protesters, don’t dare call them protesters. They were a riotous mob, insurrectionists, domestic terrorists. It’s that basic, it’s that simple.”

Yet he refused to speak in those terms when Black Lives Matter and antifa militants were throwing Molotov cocktails at federal buildings, setting up “autonomous zones,” and burning down cities. Instead, he condemned Trump for holding up a Bible at a church — without mentioning the fact that that very church had been set on fire the night before.

Despite this hypocrisy, Biden’s speech on Thursday proved instructive. Biden used the Capitol riots to condemn Trump’s entire presidency, accusing Trump of having “unleashed an all-out assault on our institutions of our democracy from the outset.” Biden twisted Trump’s actions into an attack on “democracy.” He claimed Trump’s originalist judges were a ploy to undermine impartial justice — when they were truly the exact opposite. Biden claimed Trump’s complaints about the Obama administration spying on his campaign were merely an “attack” on America’s “intelligence services.” Biden said Trump’s complaints about media bias constituted an attack on the “free press,” when the Obama administration actually attacked the free press...

Keep reading. The article is backed up with tons of link-citations. 

 

Katie Pavlich Calls Out Michelle Obama (VIDEO)

My wife called out Michelle Obama, lol.

But here's the lovely Ms. Pavlich's take, at Fox News:



Jason Whitlock Decries the Elites' Sellout of the American People

Following-up from yesterday, "The Elites Have Unmasked Themselves and Declared War."

See Jason Whitlock, at the Blaze, "Ignoring the concerns of Trump supporters will destroy America":

Ashli Babbitt's blood is on the hands of Jack Dorsey and Mark Zuckerberg as much as, if not more than, on President Trump's. That's why Dorsey and Zuckerberg rushed to silence Trump on their respective platforms, Twitter and Facebook.

Political tension and violence are fomented, planned, and monetized on Silicon Valley's social media platforms. Wednesday's "violence" hit the wrong target. The Capitol is where global elites exchange cash for influence and privilege. It's where $150,000-a-year politicians become multimillionaires building cozy relationships with Big Tech lobbyists and American corporations looking to curry favor with China.

The Capitol is sacred ground for elites. The way you might revere a church edifice is the way millionaires and billionaires revere the Capitol.

The NBA multimillionaires said they played with "heavy hearts" Wednesday night after seeing the Capitol desecrated. They made twisted, illogical analogies between nonviolent civil disobedience and the rioting, looting, and violence that occurred in Minneapolis, Atlanta, Kenosha, and across this country all summer.

"It reminds me of what Dr. Martin Luther King has said, that there's two split different Americas," Boston Celtics star Jaylen Brown told reporters. "In one America, you get killed by sleeping in your car, selling cigarettes or playing in your backyard. And then in another America, you get to storm the Capitol and no tear gas, no massive arrests, none of that."

Brown is right. There are two different American realities. There's the false reality world created by and for elites and their groupies. In this world, progressive elites feign concern for poor black people by championing the cause of a tiny handful of black resisting criminal suspects harmed by white police officers tasked with subduing them. The elites have no interest in the thousands of black men and boys killed annually due to random gang, street, and drug violence. Those black lives do not matter. Progressive elites live inside a social media matrix where they call the Crips and the Bloods to protect them from the police.

The rest of America lives in an alternate universe driven, at least partially, by reality, facts, and common sense. We don't see the norms of Western Civilization as the root of all evil. We have no interest in disrupting the nuclear family. We don't think the storming of the Capitol is analogous to the months of looting, arson, shooting, rioting, and anarchy we watched throughout 2020.

Philadelphia 76ers coach Doc Rivers, a man I greatly respect, lives in a different reality than I do. His interpretation of Wednesday's chaos baffles me.

"No police dogs turned on people, no billy clubs hitting people. People peacefully being escorted out of the Capitol," Rivers told reporters Wednesday. "So it shows you can peacefully disperse a crowd. It basically proves a point about a privileged life in a lot of ways. I will say it, because I don't think a lot of people want to: Can you imagine [Wednesday], if those were all black people storming the Capitol, and what would have happened? That, to me, is a picture worth a thousand words for all of us to see, and probably something for us to reckon with again."

What is he talking about? We've watched buildings burned to the ground this summer. We've seen "protesters" prowling the streets of Atlanta with semi-automatic weapons. We've seen protesters berate and spit on police officers. David Dorn, a 77-year-old, black retired cop, was assassinated. Parts of Portland have been under attack from Antifa and Black Lives Matter for months.

There have been no dogs, no billy clubs.

We don't have to imagine how law enforcement would react to black, lawless protesters. It has aired on CNN, MSNBC, and FOX News all summer. The police have been remarkably restrained.

The media, athletes, and celebrities have treated black protesters as heroes. Politicians have taken knees and worn kente cloth to show allegiance with black protesters. Every national sportscaster and head coach has gone along with the facade that police pose a greater threat to black men than black men. We're inundated with television commercials promoting Black Lives Matter. The NFL has celebrated criminals involved in drive-by shootings. A laundry list of media personalities have taken turns rationalizing every violent, lawless action taken by Antifa or Black Lives Matter. No one cares that George Floyd stuck a gun in a pregnant black woman's belly or that Jacob Blake sexually assaulted a black woman. The New York Times commissioned a group of black female reporters to rewrite American history to fit the narrative of the critical race theory taught at our academic institutions.

The concerns propagandized by the ministers of black victimhood are a high priority in American society. Sinners are excommunicated from their employment. There is so much money, fame, and adulation from joining the Church of Black Victimization that white people such as Shaun King and Rachel Dolezal have disavowed their natural heritage to identify as black.

A Trump supporter? He or she is an American pariah. A racist. A coon. An idiot. A sellout. Someone to be silenced or ignored.

Trump supporters will not go away quietly or peacefully. It's their country, too. Their concerns are legitimate. The lawmakers they chased to the basement of the Capitol sold out the American working-class man and woman...

RTWT.


Friday, January 8, 2021

Where's the Actual Incitement?

Did President Trump "incite" an "insurrection" against the government of the U.S.? 

Actually, no. 

But see Ed Driscoll, at Instapundit, "THAT’S DIFFERENT BECAUSE SHUT UP."

Ann Althouse is linked there, "The 7 most violence-inciting statements in Donald Trump's speech to the crowd on January 6th":

There are places where he clearly talked about a peaceful protest march. He says: "I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard." And: "So we’re going to, we’re going to walk down Pennsylvania Avenue... So let’s walk down Pennsylvania Avenue."

But here are the 7 most violent statements. Please, if you can find anything more violent or more related to the idea breaking into the Capitol and physically disrupting the proceedings, let me know, and I'll add it to the list. This is what I've found and have put in order from least to most violent:

7. We’re going walk down to the Capitol, and we’re going to cheer on our brave senators, and congressmen and women. We’re probably not going to be cheering so much for some of them because you’ll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength, and you have to be strong.

6. To use a favorite term that all of you people really came up with, we will stop the steal…. We will not let them silence your voices.

5. The Republicans have to get tougher. You’re not going to have a Republican party if you don’t get tougher.

4. [W]e’re going to have somebody in there that should not be in there and our country will be destroyed, and we’re not going to stand for that.

3. We will never give up. We will never concede, it doesn’t happen. You don’t concede when there’s theft involved. 2. We’re not going to let it happen. Not going to let it happen.

1. Together we are determined to defend and preserve government of the people, by the people and for the people.

Not violent, at all. 

More at Instapundit.


The Elites Have Unmasked Themselves and Declared War

President Trump has been permanently banned from Twitter, and most other "unsocial" media platforms. 

The left is bringing on the civil war for which they keep blaming the other side. It's not going well.

At AoSHQ, "Lee Smith: The Elites Have Unmasked Themselves and Declared War." 

Here's Smith's essay, originally published at the Epoch Times:

When a regime sanctions the political violence of one faction against another, events like Wednesday’s bloody skirmishes at the Capitol are a foregone conclusion. Presumably the country’s corporate, political, and cultural elite assumed that after four years of trying to humiliate and unseat President Donald Trump that his supporters would simply accept their continued degradation, impoverishment, and disenfranchisement. Or maybe they thought that with their allied press and social media obscuring reality, no one would notice they were waging war on Americans.

Details of Wednesday’s events are still unfolding. In places, protestors overran police. A Capitol Police officer died of injuries suffered while holding off protestors and others were reportedly injured. Elsewhere it seems that law enforcement welcomed Trump supporters into the Capitol and posed for pictures with them. No doubt there were agents provocateurs among the MAGA crowd, but Ashli Babbitt, who was shot and killed by a Capitol Hill policeman when she tried to crawl through a window, wasn’t with Antifa. She proudly supported Trump, as she proudly served her country, doing four tours of duty in Afghanistan and Iraq.

No one in the building the 15-year Air Force veteran entered illegally can explain why America is still committed to those strategically pointless wars.

Neither can anyone on the Democratic or Republican side rationally justify why large parts of the country are still under coronavirus lockdowns—public health measures draining Americans’ life savings and, as importantly, their hope—to fight an illness with a 99.7 percent survival rate.

No one can say why the senior FBI, CIA, Justice Department, Pentagon, and State Department officials from the Obama administration who plotted against Trump’s White House before he was inaugurated are still at liberty, and why some have been named to the incoming Joe Biden administration.

Nor can the representatives of the American people explain to them why the lights went out in half a dozen states election night with Trump holding commanding leads and came back on hours later with Biden in front in all six.

But don’t blame the people sent to Washington for the fate and fortune of the Americans they’re supposed to represent. Rep Liz Cheney says Trump is at fault for Wednesday’s unrest. “The president formed the mob, the president incited the mob, the president addressed the mob,” she said. The Wyoming Congresswoman is one of the staunchest supporters of the Afghanistan war, begun when her father was George W. Bush’s vice president. To hand down a war from one generation to the next is the sign of a careless and depraved elite.

Trump’s former Defense Secretary James Mattis also blames Trump. “His use of the Presidency to destroy trust in our election and to poison our respect for fellow citizens has been enabled by pseudo political leaders whose names will live in infamy as profiles in cowardice,” wrote the retired Marine General. In June, he defended the Black Lives Matter and Antifa riots that caused billions of dollars in damage across the country and left dozens dead, including law enforcement officers. Those protests, said Mattis, “are defined by tens of thousands of people of conscience who are insisting that we live up to our values.”

Both parties within the Beltway are joined in their attacks on Trump because partisan identity—Democrat and Republican—is no longer relevant in U.S. politics. It’s the Country Party, currently represented by Trump, vs the Establishment Party, representing the interests of an oligarchy anchored by Big Tech and owing its power, wealth, and prestige to its access to cheap Chinese labor and China’s growing consumer market.

The establishment party protects its protestors because they are the instruments weaponized to target Trump supporters. “Protestors should not let up,” vice president elect Kamala Harris said of the summer’s violence. “There needs to be unrest in the streets as long as there’s unrest in our lives,” said Rep Ayanna Pressley. “I just don’t even know why there aren’t uprisings all over the country,” said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

It is not hypocrisy that corporations like Bank of America and Coca-Cola that issued statements in support of the summer riots were quick to denounce Wednesday’s protests. Nor is it hypocrisy that the activists who took over parts of a Senate office building to protest the Supreme Court nomination of Brett Kavanaugh were celebrated while Biden and the press labeled the people who broke into a federal building Wednesday domestic terrorists. It is not hypocrisy for the establishment to draw a sharp divide allies and enemies, but just evidence that they are at war with the party of the country.

History, simple common sense, tells that when one side shoots at the other, the side taking incoming has two choices: surrender or shoot back. There is little doubt the party of the establishment will use the events on the Hill to implement further measures to punish the party of the country, for they would use any pretext—a respiratory illness, for example—to serve those ends. But now they can no longer be sure how the party of the country will respond.