There is an early scene in the 1987 movie, “The Untouchables” when a tough street-tested Chicago cop, Jim Malone (Sean Connery) is explaining in church to FBI agent Elliot Ness (Kevin Costner) about how to take down Al Capone. The existential question that Malone puts to Ness about Capone is, “What are you prepared to do?”
The most remarkable consequence of the Civil War, after four years and 620,000 casualties, there were no consequences. No Confederate leaders, civilian or military, ever had to answer for their role in attempting to overthrow the United States government.
A couple of days before Christmas, and after an 18-month investigation, the Select House Committee investigating the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol released its report. The report documents Donald Trump’s failed attempt to organize a coup against the US Government while President of the United States.
The report not only dealt with what everyone witnessed on January 6, but also the planning and scheming that gave rise to the attack, which was not a random act of mob violence, but an organized insurrection. An insurrection is an attempt to overthrow a government, attempting to stop the Congressional certification of the legally elected 46th POTUS qualifies as insurrection.
How should one think about the events and the report? There is an inclination to believe that the first time you experience something, that’s the first time it happened. That inclination is understandable but wrong, particularly in this case. This is not the first time Americans, White Americans, have taken up arms against the government of the United States, or the first time privileged White men have conspired to overthrow said government(sedition).
Contrary to the myth America tells about itself, there’s a strong strain of authoritarianism and lawlessness in the American cultural and political DNA. The preamble of Declaration of Independence and the Constitution are at best aspirational statements, not the operational predicates the Republic was actually organized around.
After the all verbiage about slavery, states rights and whatever side orders you want to include, what we call the Civil War was really an attempt to overthrow the elected United States government and seize territory that was legally part of the US. The most remarkable consequence of the Civil War, after four years and 620,000 casualties, there were no consequences. No Confederate leaders, civilian or military, ever had to answer for their role in attempting to overthrow the United States government.
MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow Ultra podcast tells a story of a more recent history of sedition and treason by wealthy American business and financial leadership conspiring with the Nazi government to undermine and possibly overthrow the United States government. The cabal included over 20 members of the US Senate and House of Representatives. The attempt to bring the conspirators to justice collapsed and the final report wasn’t released by order of Attorney General Tom Clark and President Harry Truman. Maddow, as always, is a through and excellent storyteller, and her summation in episode 8 is masterful.What is interesting about both Maddow’s Ultra story and the January 6 House report is how, in both cases, the system can’t protect itself and but for heroic individuals acting in the moment, we’d be talking about different outcomes in both cases.
Donald Trump’s sedition and MAGA insurrection is neither an anomaly nor an aberration, but a periodic phenomenon that regularly appears in the American political ecosystem. It’s a feature not a bug. Their seditionist and insurrectionist activities didn’t happen in the shadows or the dark of night, but in the daytime on television. If you’re outside you don’t need the weatherman to tell you it’s raining. We now have documented evidence of what Trump, his treasonous co-conspirators and his mindless minions did, and the only legitimate question ought to be the severity of the punishment.
Once again Black America is cast as Jim Malone in a conversation with White America as Eliot Ness talking about ultra-right wing fascist America, and we pose the same existential question, what are White Americans. that know better, prepared to do about White Americans who won’t do better.
