The Coup Plotters in Power: The Scandal That Wasn't

There's another missed story the media seems unwilling to focus on. The January 6 Committee (working parallel to the Department of Justice) largely focused on the foot soldiers and militia thugs who participated in the event. Consequently the committee provided a degree of cover for the high-level architects and congressional collaborators who participated in the attempted coup. Trump was certainly cast under a shadow but his allies in the congress, his cabinet, the Supreme Court, and even in law enforcement and the military were all effectively given a pass.

This was in keeping with historical precedents. From the Church Committee to Iran-Contra, these investigations function as a form of damage control. There is scandal and revelations to be sure – but these things were already in the process of coming out. The investigative committees provide a pretense of investigation and due diligence but in the end accomplish little. If anything the fact that they drag on as they do, they always seem to run out of time – almost conveniently so. This was certainly the case with the January 6 committee. It seemed like the most serious matters were relegated to the last few months of its tenure.

Consequently we've witnessed something amazing and yet few have noted it. While most focused on the theatrics of the House Speaker election and the fact that it made the GOP look foolish, there's another story here. Some might say the episode represents a warning, as this kind of dissension has not been seen since the time of the Civil War. This is a good point but there's something even more striking.

The congressmen (and women) who were holding up McCarthy's election to Speaker, the ones extracting concessions and empowering their own hands in the upcoming congress – are the coup plotters themselves.

Two years after the coup attempt, rather than be ousted or imprisoned, or put on trial, we see the militia-collaborators effectively calling the shots. As mentioned in other writings, in some respects the movement is starting to move beyond and transcend Trump. These folks are still 'Trumpites', as is McCarthy but they're splintering and pushing harder to the Right. McCarthy has the office but he enters it from a position of great weakness and has handed these people the rope with which he can be strung up. Additionally they've been promised committee appointments and they've made their agenda clear – they plan to attack the working classes and the poor, and any kind of government programmes and subsidies available to them.

This is an unreported scandal and people should be upset, but the 'liberal' media and the DNC are playing along. Why? Because in the end, the agenda of the misnamed Freedom Caucus is backed by powerful Wall Street interests – the same interests that call the shots when it comes to the DNC and the media.

Ohio's Jim Jordan, Trump's Chief of Staff, Mark Meadows, Arizona's Andy Biggs and Paul Gosar, Scott Perry of Pennsylvania, Colorado's Lauren Boebert, Matt Gaetz of Florida, Marjorie Taylor-Greene of Georgia, and Chip Roy of Texas (among others) are all members of this caucus. These people were all active in rejecting the results of the 2020 election and setting the stage for the events on 6 January 2021. Some of them (along with some senators) were in touch with the militias, or contact persons, and a case could be made that they were provided and perhaps even were providing active information. Others kept a degree of distance from the nitty-gritty and the actual events, but still played a part in the lead-up, cover-up, and now the clean-up.

These are the same people that blocked McCarthy, extracted concessions from him, and stand poised to wield undue and excessive power and influence in the upcoming One-Hundred and Eighteenth Congress. These people should be censured, and in other cases in prison. The fact that they were voted back into office testifies to the fact that the public does not understand what they've done, or on other level it reveals the serious defects in the American democratic system. As mentioned previously there remains a degree of schizophrenia within US politics as the country was (after all) founded on the basis of armed revolution and bloodshed.

The real scandal (I think) is the fact that media has not called attention to this but has instead made it the fodder of late-night comedians. Politically speaking, it's no joke and represents a rather significant development if not a turning point – a new normal in the post-Trump era.