The 1/6/2021 assault on the Capitol
The revolt of January 6 in Washington DC was a coup attempt. It was an ill-conceived one. It fell way short off the mark. Coups and insurrections are not toddler games. If you start one, you better have a viable end game in sight. This was a hail Mary pass by Trump, still shaken by his electoral grief. There was plenty of magical thinking on his part.
A likely goal in inciting the crowd to march on the Capitol on January 6 was to back up with mass muscle the somewhat incoherent attempt of (at best) 12 Republican senators and 150 reps willing to throw a monkey wrench on the vote count. They may have thought that, even if they didn’t subvert the vote certification (uphill battle), they would still get a strong objection in the congressional record, a political gesture that would give Trump the excuse to hang a sign of illegitimacy on Biden’s neck for the next few years. In tactics, audacity is a virtue, because in the ensuing chaos of a political battle, things can flow your way in a self-reinforcing dynamics. But audacity without proper preparation and a realistic assessment of the balance of forces can only go so far.
The crowd may have fetishized the White House and the Capitol as the sites of political power. But Marxists know, or should know, that political power is in fact labor productivity under another name; labor productivity directed in accord to politically sanctioned priorities. But for labor to be productive, it has to be allocated in due proportions — in time, space, and circumstance. Otherwise, one lacks the ability to impose binding legal, political, moral, and spiritual constraints on people, without which one cannot alter their behavior systematically in the sought direction.
Seizing and holding power may or may not require occupying a building. In the present conditions, at the very least, it needs control or significant influence over the press — and social and traditional media overall. It may also require control over key resources, access to parts of the infrastructure, etc. Ultimately (as the Ancient Romans used to say, force is the ultima ratio), it needs control, redeployment, neutralization, or disbanding and replacement of the police, security apparatus, and the military. A few rogue elements in the ranks do not suffice. A critical mass is required. And this is just to start!
Trump, used to bluffing his way to wealth, power, and celebrity may have fantasized that a show of mass force in the Capitol could conjure up the realignment of the pieces, all on the fly, but it is clear now that he grossly misplayed his hand. Now, Trump is a crass clown, but he is no idiot. He proved to be media savvy enough. He connects at a visceral level with many people insulted by the powerful coastal elites, by the snobby hyper-educated types, as well as with those scared of the increasing coloring of the population. Trump was masterful at redirecting their rage toward nonwhites, undocumented workers, China, etc.
However, as a political actor, Trump lacks the sharp focus, methodical organizational talents, and leadership attributes required to pull off a successful coup d’etat in the richest country in history, which also happens to be the current world hegemon. This is not to idealize the sturdiness of the US constitutional order. It is already under serious stress as a result of the ongoing sanitary, socio-economic, and environmental crises, to which one may add the embarrassing loss of global hegemonic clout. One or two extra straws on its back, and the camel could buckle or break. In any case, the obstacles proved to be too much for the puny capacities of Trump, his enablers and minions. And we are better off for it.
What can one say about the social composition of the Capitol insurrectionists? It is, more or less, the typical socio-economic base of most fascisms. ¿Who attended the rally in DC and heeded the delirious calls by Giuliani (“trial by combat”) and Trump (“show strength”)? A socio-demographic potpurri formed by a fistful of vulgar rich sociopaths, a bunch of small-shop hysterical middle classers, and — as cannon fodder — a heftier crowd of predominantly white and male ideologically-intoxicated working-classers — a good portion of which may be permanently unemployed, with one foot or two in the lumpenproletariat. (Was there also — as some people suspect — an organized force in motion, with Academi mercenaries, vets, and/or active-duty personnel experienced in spookery, special ops, etc? Was there a sinister plot to selectively assassinate some Congress people? Perhaps, but to little effect.)
Let’s admit it: The crowd that attended the rally and marched on the Capitol is, more or less, representative of the remarkable 74+ million people who voted for Trump in November 2020. This, in spite of the Covid debacle. That is why we have to view their actions as the symptoms of a social cancer. Where does that crowd come from? What is the source of their rage? Yes, there’s their immediate rejection of the election’s outcome, which most of them believe to have been fraudulent. And yes, there are, of course, longer-range historical tendencies at play that one can trace back to the bloody history of genocide, slavery, and territorial thievery on which the United States was erected.
However, the recent socio-economic ground that nourished these tendencies can be located in developments encapsulated in the term “postwar globalization”: The overreach by gigantic blobs of international capital, especially under the conceit of the End of History/TINA ideological mindframe that prevailed from the late 1970s on, to establish a neoliberal world order, with the US state as the last buck stopper, under the rule of cosmopolitan or transnational capital, all built on the fragmentation of working people the world over. International developments aside, the episode appears largely as social karma in action.
The left has no business excusing the actions of the individuals that assaulted the Capitol. But our political resources and the attention span of people are not infinite. We need to prioritize root causes. So, neither is our business to join the priests of the liberal establishment in their indignation against those who violated holy political ground, rending their garments at the desecration of the Capitol by — horror of horrors! — “mobs.” We must reject the tout court demonization of mass political participation. Our task is to keep shifting the political focus of the nation toward the class divide. And to do so with methods and tactical choices that prompt and promote the greater unity, organization, self education, and militancy of masses of working people. Because our strategy is still the unity of the direct producers to restructure the world for good.
