I presently do not believe that there was any widespread voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election simply because there has been no evidence produced to the contrary. Despite former President Donald J. Trump’s constant election fraud complaints and thorough voter recounts and investigations from Arizona to Pennsylvania, it strongly appears that the “Pillow Guy” Mike Lindell got it wrong despite spending $25 million on voter fraud, and the American people legally elected Joseph R. Biden on November 3, 2020.
I believe that President Trump should be commended for quickly implementing Operation Warp Speed, building the Mexican border wall, destroying the ISIS caliphate, deescalating North Korean-American tension, initiating Right to Try, establishing the Abraham Accords and creating Space Force. In many ways he exceeded expectations for a political rookie, but in some other ways he greatly disappointed. I frankly think that too many American people, especially women, got tired of his “mouth” along with such other reasons as the virulent Covid-19 pandemic and constant negative impeachment publicity about unproven “Russian collusion.”
Trump for some unknown reason never knew when to shut up. His Roy Cohn, malevolent legal fight-cat strategy along with juvenile name-calling and bullying got old. He was just too much vinegar and not enough honey. Unfortunately, most septuagenarians are rather set in their ways. However, he still should have listened to and learned from the 1964 audio recording entitled “The Kennedy Wit” numerous times before declaring his bid for the White House in June 2015.
The book by the same title is good, but the vinyl record or CD is much more instructive and entertaining. JFK always knew how to use charm, humor and wit among other aspects of his likeable personality to befriend, ingratiate himself and at times mildly manipulate such reporters as Ben Bradlee, the Washington Bureau Chief of Newsweek, and numerous other journalists especially during an interview, press conference or diplomatic reception. These three endearing and pragmatic qualities of JFK’s personality often seemed to be an alien concept to Trump most of the time. I also strongly suspect that even if Donald J. Trump is reelected as president in 2024, he will never be affectionately referred to as DJT after January 2029. However, I could be wrong.
I must honestly say, however, that I was never fully enamored with JKF, who was a World War II PT boat commander in the South Pacific and combat veteran. His debacle at the Bay of Pigs on April 17, 1961 was the result of his refusal to give any air or naval support to the 1,500 stranded anti-Castro insurgents at the beach landing site for three days. His lack of foresight and strategic planning let alone common sense resulted in a military disaster. The U.S. through private donors eventually had to pay approximately $50,000 in ransom per prisoner along with hundreds of farm tractors and tons of other agricultural supplies to Castro’s Cuba in order to guarantee the nearly 1,500 prisoners’ safe return to Miami on December 25, 1962.
Unfortunately, not all the prisoners were ransomed. A small handful, which totaled less than fifty, were never repatriated, and slowly died or were worked to death on Castro’s notorious Island of Youth (Pines) or other Stalinist prisons. JFK’s foreign policy debacle also sent a clear and unequivocal message to the patient Ho Chi Minh in Hanoi, North Vietnam, who realized that if the U.S. could not support 1,500 soldiers in nearby Cuba, it would eventually over time waver in its support of South Vietnam, and cut and run like Washington did in April 1975 and later did in Afghanistan in August 2021.
To be fair to Trump I must say that he always gave an exciting and crowd-cheering rally speech, which was often televised nationwide, and always most eagerly and profitably covered by all the 24/7 cable news networks such as Fox News, CNN, MSNBC along with CBS, NBC and ABC in 2015-16. As CBS CEO Leslie Moonves once non-jokingly said about Trump’s presidential campaign in February 2016, “It may not be good for America, but it’s damn good for CBS.”
Another serious problem with Trump was that he also was not a fiscal conservative. During his presidency the national debt exploded just under $8 trillion from approximately $19.9 trillion to $27.7 trillion partially because of Covid-19, which increased the debt by approximately $2 trillion. Never once can I recall Trump vetoing a Congressional spending bill with the usual fraud, waste and abuse while he was in the White House. I suspect that his fiscal policies may have encouraged too many apathetic independents and Republicans to sit out the 2020 election.
However, was President Trump responsible for the so-called “insurrection” on January 6, 2021, which was two weeks before the inauguration of Joseph Biden? I have listened to his full speech again from that date.1 During his almost seventy-one minute speech at the “Save America March” at the Ellipse, which is a fifty-three acre park south of the White House, Trump repeatedly exhorted a crowd of at least five thousand people in frigid 43° weather in front of fifteen towering ten-foot-high U.S. flags NOT to accept the election results. He often sounded like a bitter and angry loser during the first twenty-five minutes of his speech. He stated that the 2020 presidential election was both “stolen by emboldened radical-left Democrats” and the “fake news media” (1:44 minute mark). He added, “We will never give up, we will never concede” (1:55). The crowd responded over two minutes later by chanting in unison for about nearly twenty seconds, “Fight for Trump” (4:15). To his credit Trump, who urged both nonviolence and obeying the law, explicitly said, “I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully [my emphasis] and patriotically make your voices heard” (15:53).
The remainder of Trump’s speech mentioned massive election “fraud” in six swing states: Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Georgia, Arizona, Nevada and Michigan. He offered a myriad of examples on such wide-ranging topics as the abolition of “signature verification requirements” (32:43), casting of “over 14,000 ballots … by out-of-state voters” (34:27), “illegal ballot harvesting” (35:52), illegal counting of 10,000 late ballots “received after Election Day” (34:53), and “absentee ballot” fraud (36:10), which all occurred in Pennsylvania. He mentioned that there were “500 illegal, unmanned, unsecured drop boxes” (43:32) in Wisconsin along with the “illegally backdating [of] nearly 100,000 ballots” (45:10) in the same state. He also mentioned the ejection of “Republican poll watchers” (49:15) in Georgia, illegal casting of “over 36,000 ballots … by non-citizens” (52:44) in Arizona, more than 42,000 double votes (53:45) in Nevada, and the rescanning of ballots “up to three or four or five times” (55:07) in Michigan ad nauseum.
However, never once did Trump offer any evidence or proof of this nationwide, alleged criminal wrongdoing, especially in the twelve months after he left the White House on January 20, 2021. He concluded his speech by emphatically stating twice, “… we’re going to walk down Pennsylvania Avenue. I love Pennsylvania Avenue. And we’re going to the Capitol, ….” (70:05 – 70:16) …. “So let’s walk down Pennsylvania Avenue” (70:41). Despite Trump having previously said four times (15:00 – 15:13) that he would accompany the crowd to the Capitol, he was a total no-show.
The last time that the Capitol had been breached was over 207 years ago. That was when invading British soldiers entered and burned down the building on August 24, 1814. So was the breaching of the Capitol’s outer doors and windows on January 6, 2021 by Trump’s fanatical supporters really an “insurrection” as described by such left of center newspapers and broadcasters as the The New York Times, National Public Radio and PBS?2
I answer that question with an unequivocal NO. It was more like a riot or a violent mob. It is extremely difficult to have an insurrection without such modern weaponry as firearms, ammunition, grenades and RPGs (rocket-propelled grenades). To my knowledge none of the rioters so far have been charged with insurrection, sedition or treason except for eleven extremist Oath Keepers. However, in all fairness to a few Republicans in Congress I would not exactly call most of these people “demonstrators” or “tourists.” In my opinion, all the rioters, who either breached the Capitol’s perimeter or entered the building itself, should be fully prosecuted according to federal law. They should all be charged with property damage, assault or trespassing etc., which resulted in hundreds of police and other law enforcement being seriously wounded and two killed along with extensive property damage estimated to be in the millions of dollars.
During President Biden’s nationally televised speech commemorating the first year anniversary of the riots while in the Capitol’s National Statuary Hall he used the word “insurrection” four times. Before his speech Vice President Kamala Harris ludicrously compared the storming of the Capitol to December 7, 1941 and September 11, 2001. Although these two esteemed individuals are both college and law school graduates, they are either incredibly ignorant of U.S. history or they are lying.3 I honestly think the latter, and the schoolyard rhyme of “liar, liar, pants on fire” best describes my skepticism.
Unfortunately, the two highest ranking Democrats in the U.S. shamelessly want to memorialize or exploit a day of “infamy” similar to what the Nazis did after the burning of the Reichstag (Parliament) in Berlin on February 27, 1933 in order to further their political agenda. Although I am not ideologically comparing the Democrats to Nazis, to say that January 6, 2021 was an insurrection, which reeks of propaganda, is a rape of the English language.
In my opinion, the response of the outnumbered U.S. Capitol police also bears great responsibility for this national security disaster. It is obvious that they were ill trained, ill equipped and ill prepared due to poor leadership and intelligence. I have four questions. Where was the National Guard? Why were they not called up before the breach? To whom does the chief of the U.S. Capitol Police answer? Who in Congress was ultimately responsible for this fiasco? I highly suspect the answer to my third or fourth question may ultimately be the Democratic Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, who had de facto control of the House of Representatives, and her Republican counterpart the former Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.
When I think of an insurrection either the American War of Independence or the Confederacy immediately comes to mind. Now those indeed were insurrections from U.S. history. January 6, 2021 was truly not similar to April 18, 1775 at Lexington and Concord in Massachusetts. It certainly was not similar to the Whiskey Rebellion from 1791-94, which was a genuine insurrection, despite no deaths after President George Washington ordered the army to march near Pittsburgh in October 1794, crush the rebellion, and enforce the collection of federal taxes.
January 6, 2021 without a doubt was not similar to John Brown’s raid or insurrection on Harpers Ferry, Virginia (West Virginia) from October 16 to 18, 1859, which resulted in ten killed, nine wounded and seven later executed. Nor was the storming of the U.S. Capitol even remotely similar to April 12, 1861 at Fort Sumter in Charleston, South Carolina, which started the Civil War. Calling January 6, 2021 an “insurrection” is simply a lie. It is nothing more than a vain attempt among Congressional Democrats and a handful of Republicans to convict former President Trump of violating the third section of the 14th Amendment so that he is ineligible to be elected as president in 2024.4 Eighty-one year old House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who is unbelievably second in line to the presidency, the irrelevant AOC and the rest of the far left “Squad” along with such other House Democrats as Jerrold Nadler and Adam Schiff would not know an insurrection if it bit them in the tuchus.
Calling January 6, 2021 an insurrection is not only a lie, but mostly pure Democratic and leftist media propaganda very similar to how the Bolsheviks quickly labeled the “Russian Revolution” in October 1917 a “revolution” when in fact it was nothing more than a coup d’etat, which initially did not have much political support of the Russian people outside of the capital of St. Petersburg. The phrase “Russian Revolution” is an Orwellian manipulation of language, and not based on truth. The arch criminals Vladimir Lenin, Leon Trotsky, Joseph Stalin and other Bolshevik leaders fully knew how to lie, distort the truth, and create propaganda to advance their Communist political agenda. The rest of the sad Soviet totalitarian “workers’ paradise” after 1917 became a history of millions starved to death in the Ukraine (1932-33), hundreds of thousands executed in Stalin’s Purges (1929-38), and another million or more worked to death as slave labor in his Arctic or Siberian Gulags (1919-53).
Like the so-called Russian Revolution, the deplorable mob or riot on January 6, 2021 never had the backing of the overwhelming majority of sane or rational Americans whether Republican, Democrat or Independent regardless of ethnicity. The mob of violent misguided lunatics, who actually charged and trespassed on the U.S. Capitol grounds beyond the outer perimeter, despite barricades, fencing and repeated warnings by federal and District police, all need to be prosecuted. This especially includes those rioters, who entered the Capitol building, in an attempt to “occupy” both houses of Congress, and prevent former Vice President Mike Pence while acting as president of the Senate from officially certifying the 2020 presidential election results.
The House January 6 Select Committee and Merrick Garland’s Justice Department need to conduct a thorough nonpartisan investigation, and the federal judges need to sentence any convicted rioters, especially the far-right leadership of the neofascist thuggish Proud Boys, Three Percenters and Oath Keepers, to long prison sentences; this most especially includes the rioters who shouted, “Hang Mike Pence.” The House Select Committee also needs to thoroughly investigate both far-left Antifa and Black Lives Matter for federal property destruction, murders and assaults on law enforcement, which they and other “demonstrators” helped cause throughout the U.S. during the riots of 2020 and 2021. The Committee could start with the extensive property damage of the Mark O. Hatfield U.S. Courthouse on March 11, 2021 and many other federal buildings in downtown Portland, Oregon and elsewhere. Or better yet they could start by investigating their own massive security failures on January 6, 2021.
– Robert L. Maronic
Notes:
1 For a full text of Trump’s speech see https://www.npr.org/2021/02/10/966396848/read-trumps-jan-6-speech-a-key-part-of-impeachment-trial or https://web.archive.org/save/https://www.npr.org/2021/02/10/966396848/read-trumps-jan-6-speech-a-key-part-of-impeachment-trial
2 Other national media describing January 6, 2021 by using the words “insurrection” or “insurrectionist” include the Associated Press, CNN, Time, The Guardian, The Washington Post, The New Yorker and USA Today. This also includes Encyclopedia Britannica’s definition of insurrection at https://www.britannica.com/topic/insurrection-politics (last sentence) or https://web.archive.org/save/https://www.britannica.com/topic/insurrection-politics and Michael B. Curry, the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, who used the equivalent hyperbolic phrase of “attempted coup,” at https://www.episcopalnewsservice.org/2021/01/06/presiding-bishop-condemns-coup-attempt-at-us-capitol/ or https://web.archive.org/save/https://www.episcopalnewsservice.org/2021/01/06/presiding-bishop-condemns-coup-attempt-at-us-capitol/
3 The Japanese killed 2,403 Americans at Pearl Harbor. These included 2,008 sailors, 218 soldiers, 109 Marines and 68 civilians. See https://www.defense.gov/News/News-Stories/Article/Article/2857206/nation-observes-80th-anniversary-of-attack-on-pearl-harbor/ or
https://web.archive.org/save/https://www.defense.gov/News/News-Stories/Article/Article/2857206/nation-observes-80th-anniversary-of-attack-on-pearl-harbor/. 2,977 Americans and a some foreigners (excluding the nineteen terrorists) were killed at the World Trade Center in New York City , Pentagon (Virginia) and Shanksville, Pennsylvania on September 11, 2001. See https://www.britannica.com/event/September-11-attacks or https://web.archive.org/save/https://www.britannica.com/event/September-11-attacks
4 Also, according to 18 U.S. Code §2383 an insurrection against the authority of the federal government is a crime, which states, “Whoever incites, sets on foot, assists, or engages in any rebellion or insurrection against the authority of the United States or the laws thereof, or gives aid or comfort thereto, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both; and shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States.
