As much as it's tempting to Monday-morning quarterback now, I think it's dangerously premature. The intent of this post is something I don't think I've ever done before: within my own small reach, I'd like to raise awareness of a couple of things and if possible lower the temperature too.
I have spent the last 2 months trying to figure out where to find the on-line leaders for the various MAGA groups and allies who have concerns about the election. That's included everything from lawyers to MIT statisticians to professional insurance fraud analysts to patent-holding inventors in the field of optical scanning. (I've even tracked down some of the influential QAnon'ers. They're ... interesting ... but that's a story for another day.) I have not heard any of the conservative influencers call for violence; I have heard consistent calls for peace. That includes the lead-up to January 6, where the intended plan of conservatives at the rally was not violence -- and definitely not insurrection -- but to ensure that the legislators listened to the key evidence of election concerns and cheer for their pending proposal of 10 days to audit the vote. The conservative speakers had already worked out who was presenting which evidence, and the big rally was all about being heard. The bad actors -- and they were a mixed bag -- effectively sabotaged the conservatives' last chance pre-certification to break through the news embargo and get their voices heard. The main reaction among the MAGA people that day was both the horror of what happened and the creeping suspicion that the whole thing was orchestrated precisely to silence and discredit the peaceful majority. To be clear, I'm not weighing in on whether anyone else should agree with their assessment; I am saying that is the most common assessment that I've seen from the MAGA people.
Here's a significant risk moving into this week: By deplatforming the peaceful conservative leaders not just once but twice in the last 10 days, the rank-and-file conservatives do not necessarily know where to find their trusted voices, who to the best of my knowledge were unanimously calling for peace. De-platforming the leadership and hounding them from one platform to the next makes the situation that much more dangerous. In the switch from Twitter to Parler, then from Parler to a diaspora of whatever scattered other platforms exist, several key account names have been grabbed by impersonators. To state the obvious: I doubt that all the impostors are benevolent. Not all the impersonated people have been able to get the impersonators shut down yet on the various scattered platforms. There is no guarantee that everyone is aware whether someone is impersonating them on a platform that they never use, but where people may go to see if they can find a voice that they miss. What would happen if a trusted voice is being impersonated by a bad actor who calls for violence? On the off chance that any MAGA people are reading this: If you see a call for violence, consider that someone may be playing you.
Truly, the leading opinion on the MAGA side of the house is that they were played on January 6. I'd give that claim a mixed review in this: Clearly 99+% of the people there were peaceful. Clearly there was no plan at an actual insurrection even from the bad actors, who generally had round-trip tickets or plans to drive back home. And yet there is no doubt that the woman who was shot was MAGA, and was where she should not have been. One of the people in the vicinity at the time she was shot, and apparently from some audio may have been egging her on, was ... well.
By now, you have doubtless been informed that there were no left-wing agitators
at the capitol impersonating Trump supporters on January 6.
You may have heard that from a very reliable source.
I think it's good to look for ourselves and think for ourselves. It can be informative to see who works well together as a team, making sure a clear and consistent message is heard. At a time like this, it's important not to believe unsubstantiated stories. There's a lot of bad information out there.
Right now, the biggest fear that I'm hearing in the MAGA diaspora is that there will be another false-flag attack (from their point-of-view) on inauguration day, possibly even called for by a hijacked "trusted name" who is being impersonated, and that the next false flag will be a pretext to either rob them of their remaining civil liberties or prevent their evidence from ever seeing the light of day.
It is so, so vital this week that we all keep our heads, and do not let ourselves be provoked into turning on each other. Especially if someone starts trouble. The first way not to start trouble is for everyone to be of goodwill; I don't see that as a good bet right now. The other way to stop trouble is by not piling on.
"Stand down. Stand for peace." "Do not escalate." "Do not retaliate." "Do not reciprocate." "Do not follow a bad order."
Ready?
Lord, make your people instruments of your peace. I hope I'm wrong, but there's a genuine chance that this week is the week where we must raise our voices for peace more insistently and calmly and urgently than ever before.
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