It might be mind-bending to think that there are American people who still think that January 6, 2021, or J6, was an acceptable day in America. It was not!
It has been 2 years 1 day since the U.S. Capitol was assaulted, what have we learned in these 731 days?
I remember Wednesday January 6, 2021, vividly. This is the day when the insurrection and attack to Capitol Hill occurred. I was on leave, sitting by my desk in my home office and my TV was streaming live video of the events as they were unfolding. I further remember thinking that there were so many glaring indicators and rhetoric through news stories and a lot of independent journalists warning about a possibility of violence – months ahead of time. As I sat there, I realized the obvious – all the people who conglomerated that day in Washington D.C. and subsequently infiltrated Capitol Hill were not in attendance by chance. It would have needed a lot of planning and logistics in order to draw a crowd that size.
Obviously, I was never “sent an invitation” – nor would I have accepted even if I did. In fact, I would have reported that to the cognizant authorities if I ever would have received anything of the sort. Being a military service member with almost 20 years of service at the time I write this article, I am very cognizant that any of these movements are contrary to our core values. U.S. military service members swear an oath to defend the constitution of the United States of America against all enemies foreign and domestic. And the word “enemy” can have a very wide level of connotations based on the context. For the purposes of this article, I’ll define what I mean in regard to insider threat.
The insider threat.
There are two main categories when it pertains to an insider threat. A witting insider threat, and an unwitting insider threat. And the latter is more dangerous than the former because they can be exploitable by somebody else pushing a particular rhetoric or agenda. Let’s quickly define these two terms in order to further gain context for the scope of this article. This will be important as it will help you understand the problematic events that lead, occurred and followed the day of the insurrection against the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021.
Witting Insider Threat.
This someone who is very well aware that what they are doing is contrary to the established laws or regulations governing that jurisdiction. Their actions are premeditated and have a clear intent to carry an action against their perceived adversary. Further, they would have an understanding that their actions could very well lead to an illegal activity which could result in punitive repercussions. These insider threats already have a placement and access that gives them an opportunity to mingle with what they consider the adversary with relative freedom of movement.
Unwitting Insider Threat.
This is someone who is convinced that their actions are justified as a necessary “cause.” Especially if this cause could be considered illegal or otherwise get them in trouble. This category is what I call a “useful fool” – as this person becomes a tool for a witting insider threat to carry out their agenda. The most disgusting part is that the witting insider threat would latch to an otherwise “altruistic” sentiment from the unwitting insider threat and prostitute it in a way that gets distorted from the actual facts.
How does this happen? The easiest way to explaining this is by the realization that we all have biases. Every last one of us. A bias is a preconceived notions based on what we consider “our normal.” There are religious biases, political biases, organizational biases… or combination of these. These biases are highly exploitable by somebody who understands these vulnerabilities. For a parallel example, in marketing they use these all the time – hopefully to sell you something. Or to create a sense of product or brand loyalty. This is especially important because people tend to gravitate towards what they consider familiar – or condoned as “acceptable.” But between those two points there are many shades of gray that could be highjacked in order to distort a fantasy as factual. Distorting a reality on purpose in a deceitful manner of course could constitute fraud. In marketing, hopefully they just want to advertise a product and sell it to you without being deceitful.
But when it comes to manipulating a group of people, this nefarious control happens whenever somebody is high-jacking the narrative their unwitting insider threat target audience consumes. And one classic way to do so is by discrediting any other “dissenting” points of view before these can be objectively analyzed or scrutinized. Of course, actual existing self-incriminating facts will be taken off the narrative by a propagandist. Or in the very least present a highly distorted version of the facts, laced with spin – in other words, there is no debate in the matter. It is not convenient, they want people to believe a narrative at face value, even if they give some out-of-context examples to push that narrative. Whomever is controlling this rhetoric will only pushing conveniently “relevant” information. A good telltale sign if you have been pushed this type of narrative, look if the person controlling the narrative is attacking a person or is instead attacking a doctrine.
We are all fallible, every last one of us. Therefore, a person who is trying to manipulate others in the way I described above would latch onto any shortcoming a person they want to demonize happens to exhibit. And this could be something as easy as getting a screen cap when a person is making a funny, or less than flattering face. And yes, we all can have an unflattering expression, no matter how cute we think we are. Don’t believe me? Do this, record a sort selfie-video of yourself reading a sizable paragraph. Then go ahead and review the footage and frame by frame. Count how many times you make a face that looks unflattering, regardless of the context you’re reading.
Keep this in mind whenever you see memes of somebody who is looking less than favorable from a screen capture, and adding something further unflattering about that person. That is a cheap shot and it has been used for a very long time. In fact, that’s why caricatures of people would be stylized in a way to push a particular political agenda. Its part of propaganda. Why? Because it incites a reaction to that facial expression.
Has this propaganda evolved and become even more subtle? Absolutely yes! In fact, that’s why a lot of people do not even realize they are peppered by this storm of advertising and propagandistic views. It has been normalized, and accepted as part of our civilized society. Again, this can very well be utilized for marketing in order to promote a product or a service. However, this is very well be used to incentivize people to follow a particular narrative. And the desired end result of any narrative is a call for action. What this call for action may be? It can be anything.
To oversimplify for the sake of timelines, it follows this pattern: An idea turns into narrative –> a narrative turns into rhetoric –> rhetoric turns into action.
In either case, this idea/narrative/rhetoric/action is only as powerful as those willing to follow it. That’s why the controlling of this narrative in a way that will discredit any inconvenient facts is so important when pushing an idea towards a particular target audience. There are millions of ideas generated every day, but the majority of those might not gain traction and will simply dissipate. The same is true to each subsequent step. A narrative, or a rhetoric might lose traction and won’t result into the intended action. Or if it does, depending how strong or weak those basses were the resulting action will either be strong or subpar.
In other for a message to resonate and turn into action, we have to realize that it will likely won’t happen overnight. It will definitely will start with a bias, but then it will require “rapport” in order to build trust. Even though this trust is gained through deceitful narratives. And that’s why I say it can be despicable on how otherwise good people are seduced to do something utterly self-destructive, whilst convinced they are doing the “right thing.”
I wrote a manuscript about propaganda and authoritarianism, where I go in depth about all this. But until that book comes out (whenever that will be), I find it important to start giving more context because this phenomenon is truly an important part in our contemporary history.
So, what have we learned from January 6, 2021?
Well, a lot actually! And all that we have learned is not only limited to the January 6, 2021 Committee which was in charge of fact finding what occurred on that day, and what should be the next pertinent course of action. Aside from this Committee there was also a plethora of criminal prosecutions that took place after the insurrection. And these criminal proceedings spanned essentially the entire country. And yes, the majority of the defendants used “President Trump directed me to do this” as their line of defense. To my knowledge, that defense did not work in every case, and people were held responsible for their actions – regardless of who was promoting or directing their actions.
How many of the people who attacked Congress were useful fools? And how many were actual witting insider threats? That’s a hard question to answer, because if they showed up that day after traveling from all corners of the country, that entire logistical sequence of events was more than likely not done in a whim. It is logical to deduce that there had to be planning, there had to be investment of both time and money, the people who stormed the Capitol had to be following a certain narrative and rhetoric for a while in order to feel endowed with the fervor to pursue these actions. And yes, it could very well be that they were seduced by a witting group of people who exploited their biases.
And this is an important factor, because I know many people who were (or still are) Trump supporters and they are actually very nice and decent people. Do I agree with their political admiration for Trump? Not at all, and that’s ok – because my disagreement with their political view does not mean that I don’t like them or respect them as individuals.
With that said, what I can tell you is that it is very likely that we consume information in a vastly different manner. And that can be attributed to the phenomenon I was speaking before. If a person is receiving a certain segment of the narrative, but the rest of the facts are hidden from them – then it is obvious that their reality will be skewed at some point. If there was a particular bias, then it will be a lot easier to disregard other facts. Especially because those dissenting facts will not be heard in the first place.
This is how telecommunications management works. Much like the algorithms in social media or any other advertising industry. If you show a platform that you like something, they will give you a lot more of that – whatever is it that you like. So, for example, if you like a particular news channel than another, then any additional information you consume will likely be very much aligned with that type of content. That’s one way on how echo cambers are created. Dissenting views are not even going to be presented to you – unless they are editorialized in a way that will further push your “already compromised position” in a way that will galvanize support to whatever is it that you were led to believe.
When I used to study video production, this terms that’s what was known as a “target audience” – and this is an important point… Who are you trying to target in order for them consume your message? Some people are going to be a lot more receptive to your message than others depending on what world view or biases they already possess. In the realm of propaganda this could be of course prostituted by a skilled orator (even if they are not particularly eloquent) in a way that will separate you from the facts.
That’s what happened in the events leading to the insurrection. Rhetorical “seeds” were planted stating that there were going to be “irregularities” – in the event Trump did not win the election. This is very likely a deliberated narrative to start firing up loyal supporters. And it worked. Trump and his allies started by demonizing the opposition and call them liars and cheaters, and further pushed a fervent narrative that they (Democrats) had zero chance of winning. This of course was erroneously validated by a lot of the Trump supporters, because they likely did not see any campaign or narratives or anything that would be supportive of Joe Biden in the communication media they consumed.
And the Biden campaign could have very well predicted that Trump supporters were not going to be voting for Biden at all, no matter what – so why even try. And that would have been a very fair strategy. If you’re a Trump supporter, would you have voted for Biden? Would you have even look at Biden’s political ads, or would you just ignore it and do anything else during that TV commercial break?
It is fair to assume that the Biden campaign realized that Trump supporters will be sticking with Trump no matter what he said or did. So, under that logic, why they hell would Biden spend millions of dollars on campaign ads in Trumps-supported-media if they knew for a fact that money would have just been wasted? Best course of action is NOT to spend money in an no sequitur and rather invest those political contributions to reach people who will likely go out and vote against Trump, including those who would prefer voting by mail. The Biden campaign encouraged – Go vote, and that it was best if you voted by mail – because COVID was rampant… or if voters wanted to risk it, go in person. Anyway, their message was “as long as it is legal just cast your vote.” And people did vote, a huge segment by mail.
The Trump campaign demonized mail-in-voting and urged people to vote in person. And the great majority of Trump voters did vote in person. Because Trump himself told them to do so. Part of his political campaign was to downplay COVID and anti-masking. Democrats on the others side were very much about preventing COVID and would wear their mask. Biden as also able to get a lot of people who were on the fence because they were not happy with Trump. In fact, a lot of people were not necessarily voting for Biden, they were rather voting against Trump. However, a lot of them still voted Republican, just not casting vote for Trump. For example, the Republicans kept the Senate. Trump would also have derogatory choice words for these republicans by calling them “RiNOs” or Republican in Name Only.
Trump’s claims that the 2020 elections were stolen is what is commonly known as the “Big Lie.” And what makes it extremely dangerous is that many people who believed this lie were very much willing to take the country by force. Which is by the way treason.
Fast forwards to our times, and Trump was not only found guilty of all the charges. In fact, that’s why he got impeached the second time. But after the investigations and all the evidence that came to light it only demonstrated what we already had realized that very day. Trump was at fault, and he was the main instigator. In a different article I’ll talk more about the motives that seem to be contributing to this, because there is plenty to talk about. For meanwhile, we know that people believed him, and a lot of his supporters are distancing or deserting him.
And the fact is that Trump himself used those who besieged Capitol on that day as political pawns. At some point he praised them, at some other points he disavowed them – depending on how convenient it was for him. A lot of them who thought would get a pardon did not get it. And this is after they not only just showed up to this “stop the steal rally” – but they have showed to many rallies before… and have put time and money into his support. Yet, when they were deemed a liability, Trump and some of his most famously political vocal supporters disavowed the people who stormed Capitol. The information is out there, you can literally read and view images in the public domain. If you look at it all, it will take you possibly several months when you combine every case and each piece of evidence that exists.
Are there people who still think that attacking Capitol was not a big deal? Yes, there are sadly a lot of people who think this was not a big issue. Worst, there are people out there that had no idea that this event even happened. Which in a way makes me want to lose faith in humanity, but fortunately this segment of the population is becoming a smaller group. The more you learn the more you get to understand the context. Mostly because they are realizing that they were lied to by Trump. And this is not only evident in the aftermath of the January 6, 2021 insurrection. There is plenty of legal issues the former president is facing. Unfortunately, a lot of accountabilities had to wait until post presidency.
And people often say hindsight is 20/20… but I have to admit that it seems very naïve for anybody to think that this was not a provocation. Just look at the name of the event that brought all those supporters from far and wide. “Stop the steal” rally and “Saving America.” What do you think are the actions these words could elicit on such a receptive audience?
Well, obviously we saw what happened. Those who were more prone to violence did in-fact go to Capitol and caused violence. And despite pleas from anybody under Trump and everybody else inside the Capitol to call the National Guard to assist the Capitol Police, Trump did nothing for several hours. Blood was shed in Capitol and the rioters caused millions of dollars’ worth of damage. They were even planning on hanging then vice president Mike Pence! There were gallows out there for f—k sake! And of course, there are literally thousands of combined hours of footage, some of which was recorded as a live-stream from the people attacking Capitol.
And we know that these attackers were there because of Trump requested their presence. And we know because Trump finally told them to “go in peace” and that he “loves them,” they finally left. Which with that logic, it does not take a PHD to realize that Trump could have done just that hours before without even needing to call the National Guard – if he wanted to. It is obvious he did not, and a lot of evidence that came to light demonstrates exactly that.
So, was Trump unable, or incompetent, or complicit? There is no way that the person holding the most powerful office in the world at that time was not able to do something to protect the U.S Capitol – in American Soil no less at that time… just blocks from where he was sitting in fact.
Despite all the criminal prosecutions, and unsubstantiated cases trying to prove election fraud, there was not one credible evidence that Trump won. In fact, you can look at all the lawsuits (they are all public record), and none of them actually fight on those merits, because there are none. And attorneys won’t risk being disbarred by defending something they know they cannot defend. There were some creative narratives, but that still did not make it real.
There are official transcripts of everything that had occurred, therefore I won’t talk in detail about them. For one because there are thousands of pages. Second, because I’ve already written articles about it. And third because what I wanted to focus on his article is the fact that everything we thought would happen – it did happen. People who assaulted Congress got criminally prosecuted and even Trump himself disavowed them when they were considered a political liability. Also, it was proven that this was a very much premeditated action. And I would say that there was also quite a failure in the Homeland Security apparatus to ensure the insider threats were taken at least more seriously. The narrative and the rhetoric were escalating for months leading to that day. This should have not been a surprise.
With all this context, what have we learned? We learned that all of us who did not trust Trump were right not to trust him. And right now, Trump himself is a political liability to his own party, and therefore he’s threatening with running third party. In the last three elections, Trump’s endorsees underperformed. This is clear evidence that American people are clear that even if they vote Republican, they are no longer enamored with Trump. For most of us who saw this trend even when he was in the campaign trail – we anticipated something like this could happened. Therefore, we did not vote for him. We just have not changed our mind this entire time, because it was very obvious to see that there could be a lot of – let’s say problematic facets to having a person like that holding to power. The indications were there for several years. We are just seeing in legal papers a reconstruction of what was obvious to most of the world from the very start. I’m sure it will take quite some time for his most fervent fans to believe the challenging revelations what has been clearly demonstrated. Don’t take my word for it, there is plenty of evidence in the public record. Thank you again for reading this far and for your objectivity. HLC