There is a member of Congress who is also a member of the Trump cult of personality who is taking an unusual approach to try to defend the indefensible. He recently claimed that those who participated in the storming of the Capitol Building back in January of this year.
Andrew Clyde, a House Representative from Georgia, recently likened the storming of the Capitol Building in Washington to, in his words, a “normal tourist visit.”
You know, because whenever tourists want to visit a place of interest, they always get directed by the sitting President of the United States, challenge police and braving tear gas to keep reaching their destination by breaking through police barricades, scale walls, and then literally break through doors and smash glass in order to gain access into that building. And whenever tourists go on a normal visit of a building, after doing everything just mentioned, they always find their way to important offices and destroy parts of the furniture and steal them as souvenirs. They always assault police officers and chase them down the hall. And employees, like the members of Congress and even the sitting Vice-President of the United States, always take cover and evacuate in fear of their lives.
Oh, and people always are killed, meeting their ends violently.
You know, just a typical day of tourism in Washington’s government district, right?
So, whar was Clyde thinking?
Well, he said that what happened on January 6th cannot truthfully be called an insurrection, and then went on to list official definitions of what an insurrection would consist of. He recited how an insurrection, according to the Cambridge English Dictionary, “an organized attempt by a group of people to defeat their government and take control of their country usually by violence.” And this, he claims, is proof that what happened in Washington’s Capitol building on January 6th cannot be defined as an insurrection.
However, this event did feature an organized attempt by a very specific group of people – namely rabidly loyal Trump cult supporters like Andrew Clyde himself – who were directed to the Capitol building by President Trump. Trump urged them not to be timid, because, in his words, “You’ll never take back our country with weakness.”
And so, Trump cult members went ahead and stormed the most iconic seat and symbol of the national government, wanting to take back control and stop the democratic process of lawmakers certifying the official results of an election that was not in favor of their man, Trump. In order to accomplish this, the mob struggled with police, grew violent, went past police barricades, scaled walls, and physically, violently forced their way into the Capitol building.
In other words, it sounds exactly like what Clyde was specifically suggesting it was not, by his own volunteered definition of it.
It appears that Representative Clyde was using one video clip, specifically, of the pro-Trump crowd who broke into the Capitol building and were indeed walking in Statuary Hall in a line and taking pictures inside, and suggesting that this one particular video clip that he is clearly cherry picking as an illustration of the storming of the Capitol, which showed people walking inside of the building and indeed doing things that tourist often do, might indeed seem like a typical tourist visit. Apparently, he conveniently missed all of the violent images of tear gas and dramatic physical struggles just outside of the Capitol building, which many of those who were inside had to do in order to gain access into the Capitol building. He also apparently and conveniently missed those same Trump cult members smashing their way violently into the building, and then destroying and/or stealing some things inside of it. And he also apparently and conveniently missed Trump’s speech directing the mob to the Capitol building to begin with, which seems to most people to be a clear and irrefutable attempt at undermining the democratic process and trying to retain his political office. He also apparently and conveniently missed the gallows that had been constructed and was on prominent display outside, and apparently, Clyde was and remains unaware that some of the people were chanting about hanging the Vice President and some spoke of shooting members of Congress.
Clyde goes onto say that he stayed inside of the Capitol building throughout the whole “tourist visit” by Trump cult members, and helped barricade the chamber, to boot. Yet quite paradoxically, he tried to make clear that the chamber was never breached. He did not elaborate as to whether or not his efforts to barricade the chambers had ever been breached in the countless other “normal tourist visits” that take place in the Capitol building on a daily basis.
You know, it is funny, actually. In the 8th grade, we took a class trip to the nation’s capital, as well. And believe it or not, I don’t remember any tear gas or struggles outside. I don’t even recall breaking windows or smashing through doors in order to get inside. Hell, I don’t even recall the then sitting President of the United States directing us to the Capitol building and urging us not to be meek, because strength is required to take back our country. Perhaps memories get fuzzy after many years have passed, but it all seemed a lot more peaceful and normal than that back then, in the spring of 1988.
Then again, we did not have lawmakers in such abundance who were quite as astonishingly idiotic as we seem to have these days. With prominent government members like Andrew Clyde, you can truly believe that we are edging ever closer to the world that George Orwell warned us about. Remember, the Party in his landmark book about a total dictatorship dictated everything, and that their ultimate command was the power that they have over their citizens. When they told you to “reject the evidence of your eyes and ears,” you had better do it. When they tell you that 2+2=5, you had better believe it.
Remember, Donald Trump once said, “What you’re seeing and what you’re reading is not what’s happening.”
Of course, he was insinuating that the “fake news” is basically everything and anything that is critical of him. Somehow, he never dares invite his cultish supporters to question anything that he ever does, though. Trump himself is so legendary as a liar that even his own political allies admit that he is hardly a model of truthfulness. Yet, he basically always claims to be a pillar of truth, and his supporters believe him.
If you want to live in that world, and try to be a Trump Party member in good standing, then what Representative Andrew Clyde is saying might indeed make sense. And all of those lies that Donald Trump and his cronies spread are also similarly accepted, if you want to live in that kind of a nightmarish world.
On the other hand, if you believe in American democracy, or even truth, then believe your eyes and ears. As Maya Angelou once said:
“When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.”
We have seen who Donald Trump is, and many, many times over at that. No endless rattling off of lies, ridiculous and obviously manufactured mythology, or dangerous political cult of personality will change that. We have also seen who Cult 45 members are. They showed us for over four years, and are still showing us right up to the present. They showed how far they are willing to go with their cultish behavior on January 6th.
Finally, lawmakers like Andrew Clyde are showing us who they are, as well. Clearly, he feels that enough Americans are stupid enough to believe his interpretation of events. In time, Cult 45 members will likely view this convenient version of history as the truth. That is how low he thinks of his fellow Americans, that he can get away with saying something as obviously idiotic, false, and frankly politically blasphemous as suggesting that what happened on January 6th was hardly anything more than a “normal tourist visit.”
Yes, he has revealed that he does indeed believe that the American people are that stupid and gullible, and that he holds our democratic institutions in contempt. As shocking as it may be - if by now we can still even be shocked by this kind of news anymore - that one of our prominent so-called “leaders” is indeed showing us that he has an incredibly low opinion of the very people whom he was elected to serve and the democracy and Constitution that he swore to protect, then we better take Maya Angelou’s advice, and believe him the first time.
Below are the links to the articles which I used in writing this particular blog entry, and from which I obtained all of the quotes used above, with the single exception of Maya Angelou's quote, which is actually quite well known. The earlier quote from Donald Trump issued to the cult members who he was firing up to storm the Capitol is from this first link to a New York Times article dated on the day that it happened. The second link was another quote from Trump from back in 2018, when he turned positively Orwellian with one of his speeches, when he declared that what we are seeing and reading is not, in fact, what we are seeing and reading. Finally, there is a link to a CNN piece about Andrew Clyde, specifically, with a short video showing that he did in fact compare the mob of violent Trump supporters to tourist visiting the Capitol building. Since he tried to defend himself later by saying, in effect, that what he said was taken out of context, I added a video of the entirety of his comments from a Youtube video of it posted by C-Span, so that you can see it in it's entirety and judge for yourself. Please take a look at all of these, to gain a full grasp of the positively Orwellian nature of the politicians who have effectively taken over one of the two major political parties of this country:
Trump Told Crowd ‘You Will Never Take Back Our Country With Weakness’ by Maggie Haberman, January 6, 2021:
As Congress prepared to certify the victory of his successor, President Trump railed against the election and helped set in motion hours of violence.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/06/us/politics/trump-speech-capitol.html
'What You're Seeing... Is Not What's Happening.' People Are Comparing This Trump Quote to George Orwell by Mahita Gajanan, July 24, 2018:
https://time.com/5347737/trump-quote-george-orwell-vfw-speech/
Watch GOP lawmaker compare Capitol riot to 'normal tourist visit' by CNN, May 13, 2021:
https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2021/05/13/republican-andrew-clyde-ralph-norman-capitol-riot-vpx.cnn
"Normal Tourist Visit" Youtube video posted by C-SPAN, May 13, 2021:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WLI0OH1ZWWc
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