The Snowflake Coup
Former President Donald J. Trump’s seditious snowflake coup has melted under the hot flame of American democracy.
Illustration by Carolyn Burt | The Corsair
Treasonous domestic terrorists failed in their Jan. 6 attack on our nation’s Capitol — a pathetic last-ditch effort to overturn the will of the American people and stop the peaceful transition of power. On a day that will forever live in infamy, thousands of safe-space snowflakes attempted to undo the results of a free and fair election by violently laying siege to the beating heart of our democracy.
The date of their planned and coordinated assault wasn’t chosen haphazardly — it was the day Congress was to fulfill their constitutional duty and count the already state-certified Electoral College votes. It was the day Joseph R. Biden and Kamala D. Harris were to be officially declared the next President and Vice President of the United States.
Every presidential election is essentially the same: Americans vote, the votes are counted, and recounts are conducted when appropriate. Electoral College electors from each state, chosen by the various political parties and empowered by the states, then cast the official votes for president based on the popular vote tallies. Those Electoral College votes are then ceremoniously counted by the U.S. Congress prior to inauguration day. This is how American democracy has worked for over 200 years.
Trump’s unwillingness to accept his election loss and continued incitement of violence was one of the least surprising things in recent memory. When asked during a Sept. 23 White House press briefing if he would accept the results of the upcoming Nov. 3 presidential election, the snowflake-in-chief responded, “Well, we’re going to have to see what happens. You know that I’ve been complaining very strongly about the ballots, and the ballots are a disaster.”
The president who would end up inciting a deadly attack on his own government continued, “Get rid of the ballots, and you’ll have a very — we’ll have a very peaceful [transition of power]. There won’t be a transfer, frankly. There’ll be a continuation [of my administration].” Every deceased American president simultaneously rolled over in their grave.
Just before the attack, Trump spoke to thousands of his supporters at the “Save America Rally” taking place mere blocks from the Capitol building. The focus of the event was once again to perpetuate the big lie — that the election had been stolen. The inciter-in-chief whipped up the crowd by telling them, “We’re going to walk down to the Capitol...You’ll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength, and you have to be strong.” Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani threw more gasoline on the fire by stating, “If we’re wrong, we will be made fools of. But if we’re right, a lot of them will go to jail. So — let’s have trial by combat!"
Central to Trump’s failed snowflake coup was the idea of the “big lie”. Timothy Snyder, professor of history at Yale University and author of “On Tyranny”, cautioned just days before the Capitol attack that the country was moving "towards authoritarianism and away from democracy".
"We are now moving dangerously towards the territory of a big lie. The idea that Mr. Biden didn't win the election is a big lie," said Snyder in an interview with Brian Stelter on CNN. "It's a big lie because you have to disbelieve all kinds of evidence to believe in it...you have to believe in a huge conspiracy in order to believe it...[and] if you believe it, it demands you take radical action.”
Baby Donny’s pre- and post-election soiling of his diaper had its intended effect: 72% of Republicans do not trust the accuracy of the 2020 presidential election, according to a recent NPR/PBS Newshour/Marist survey. That means if you got 100 Republicans into a room right now, roughly 72 of them wouldn’t be able to accept the objective fact that the guy they supported lost bigly. Out of those 72, a not insignificant number have been radicalized to the point of violent insurrection. That ugly reality is at the core of Trump's legacy.
To be clear — no American should be happy with every election result, every political agenda, or every government policy. This democratic experiment we call America only works if people don’t burn down the system every time they get triggered. Don’t like the results of an election? Organize and vote in the next one. Still not satisfied? Wipe away the tears and run for office yourself.
Trump and his allies lost dozens of court cases in their attempts to undo the election, including many in front of conservative judges that Trump himself appointed to the bench. If Trump or his allies had any actual proof of widespread election fraud, as they continue to claim without evidence, then why didn’t they ever provide it to the courts, Congress, or the American people?
Trump knew better than anyone that he lost — that’s why he tried to strong-arm the Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger into overturning the election during a Jan. 2 phone call. “So look. All I want to do is this. I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have," pleaded the crybaby-in-chief. "Because we won the state.” Trump lost Georgia by 11,779 votes. Trump’s decision to put himself above the country directly led to the deadly insurrection.
While Jan. 6 will go down in history as a historic disgrace, things could have been infinitely worse. Numerous firearms and explosive devices had been brought to the nation's Capitol to aid in the attack. The terrorists were literally chanting “Hang Mike Pence” as they assaulted police and breached the building, expressing their desire to string up the sitting vice president for the unforgivable crime of not supporting the attempted coup. The two saving graces that day ended up being the heroism of law enforcement and the cowardice of the terrorists.
Not every Trump supporter there that day was an insurrectionist traitor — only those who stormed the Capitol building. Numerous videos show the terrorists violently assaulting law enforcement personnel, including one in which they nearly crush a police officer to death against a doorway as he helplessly screams for assistance. As that officer later described to CNN, “A guy was ripping my mask off, he was able to rip away my baton and beat me with it. He was practically foaming at the mouth. These people were true believers, in the worse way.” Apparently, these pro-Trump “Patriots” had forgotten about their Blue Lives Matter and Thin Blue Line bumper stickers.
As Democratic Rep. Jason Crow said to Wolf Blitzer on CNN following the attack, “As one of the members of Congress who was trapped in the House gallery for over half an hour as we were surrounded by the mob...my experience is one of overwhelming courage and bravery by these [law enforcement] officers. I think the story that will unfold is that most of these officers did their job. They did it honorably, they did it with courage, and they were put into a position that they never should have been in.”
Three law enforcement officers died as a result of the terrorist attack. Dozens of others suffered serious physical wounds, including traumatic brain injuries, crushed spinal discs, and stabbings. One officer lost an eye, while another required partial amputation of a finger. The events of Jan. 6 will forever live on in the minds of those true patriots who battled the terrorists in hand-to-hand combat that day.
The irony of that treasonous Trumpster mob calling police officers “traitors” as they attacked our nation’s Capitol is not lost. In an interview published by The Telegraph, a man who was later seen on video beating law enforcement officers with an American flagpole says, “Everybody in [the U.S. Capitol building] is a disgrace. That entire building is filled with treasonous traitors. Death is the only remedy for what’s in that building.” The actual treasonous traitor continued, “Every single one of those Capitol law enforcement officers — death is the remedy. It is the only remedy they get.”
Members of that radicalized mob included a West Virginia state lawmaker, a former two-time Olympic gold medalist, a marketing technology company CEO, school board members, anti-vaxxers, social media influencers, as well as current and former members of law enforcement and the military. A disproportionate number of the terrorists that day were military veterans, including Air Force veteran Ashli Babbitt, the only insurrectionist killed by law enforcement during the attack. The QAnon conspiracy theorist had recently retweeted a post that read, “Give me liberty or give me death.” Let us never forget those responsible for radicalizing Babbitt and others like her.
Seven Republican House lawmakers from California joined 140 of their Republican colleagues in voting against certifying Biden’s victory, including House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy of Bakersfield. For comparison, no Democratic member of Congress voted against certifying Trump’s 2016 Electoral College victory.
Media outlets like Fox News, Newsmax, and One America News, have organized their business models around feeding audiences a steady diet of lies and disinformation, in a continuous trigger-cycle that plays on the way our brains are naturally hardwired. Media personalities like Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, Roger Stone, Tucker Carlson, Steve Bannon, and Alex Jones have acquired great personal wealth and power by turning Americans against each other. Those who have purposely fanned the flames of insurrection and violence by intentionally spreading fake news and “alternative facts,” will find their place in history at the feet of the worst president America has ever seen — licking his boots one last time.
History will also show how media platforms like Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube put profit over the country as they continued to allow the poisonous virus of disinformation eat away at our society from the inside. Safe-space echo chambers on social media have insulated people from the harsh reality of objective facts. Tens of thousands of QAnon and “Stop the Steal” accounts were banned in the days following the attack — all it took was a deadly coup attempt on our nation's Capitol.
Anyone who helped organize, incite, or execute the Jan. 6 attack should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law — especially current or former members of local, state, or federal government. True law and order means that no one is above the law.
America also needs to start viewing and treating domestic terrorists stateside the same way we do foreign terrorists overseas.
The individual rights of freedom of speech and freedom of assembly cannot be falsely equated to incitement of insurrection and violent attempts to overthrow the government. The people who defend and make excuses for the Jan. 6 terrorists are no different from those who did the same for the 9/11 hijackers.
To stay silent in these times is to be complicit. If you see something, say something — reach out to family, friends, and neighbors who have shown signs of radicalization. “There are people who we have known, who are normal people, who have now adopted these conspiracy theories. It’s like there’s no limit to the things they think and the things they say,” said former Ohio Republican Governor John Kasich to Blitzer in a separate interview. “Everybody in this country needs to reach out to somebody who you think might be caught up in this...It’s on everybody to try and help everybody, to calm themselves down, and put the country first.”
In the words of former Republican President Teddy Roosevelt, "Patriotism means to stand by the country. It does not mean to stand by the president."
Modern-day Americans would do well to heed that wisdom. Real patriotism means putting country over party, principles over pride, and ensuring that future generations inherit a stronger democracy than the one we were born into.
