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Celebrating A Near Coup [1]
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Date: 2023-01-06
There is nothing new about the current nihilism of the Freedom Caucus. History is rife with examples of miserable people who wanted to burn it down, blow it up, overthrow it, and take it all – every last crumb so that those “undeserving” other people who believe in human rights and economic justice cannot even nibble at the trough. The ambition of such nihilists poses a serious threat to our government and to our values, and we breath a sigh of relief every time we fend off one of their attacks. But after that sigh we move on and act surprised when the attack is renewed. We seem to need a reminder that those attacks are symptoms of a chronic malady rather than isolated events. The British remind themselves of the danger by celebrating the failure of a very serious an attack on their government:
Guy Fawkes Day, Bonfire Night and Fireworks Night, is an annual commemoration observed on 5 November, primarily in Great Britain, involving bonfires and fireworks displays. Its history begins with the events of 5 November 1605 O.S., when Guy Fawkes, a member of the Gunpowder Plot, was arrested while guarding explosives the plotters had placed beneath the House of Lords. The Catholic plotters had intended to assassinate Protestant king James I and his parliament. Celebrating that the king had survived, people lit bonfires around London; and months later, the Observance of 5th November Act mandated an annual public day of thanksgiving for the plot's failure.
Now we Americans, ever late to the game, have our own Guy Fawkes event. Granted that in 1933 we had the Business Plot (also called the Wall Street Putsch) in which there was a conspiracy to overthrow the government of President Franklin D. Roosevelt and install Smedley Butler as dictator, but this foiled plot was never revealed to the public in any memorable way. We are Americans; we demand more. We want something flashy, like something a tawdry reality show grifter would produce. You know, something like neofascist paramilitary groups leading delusional white nationalists in storming the capitol, battering police officers, and threatening the lives of law makers. I know the attempted coup d' etat of Jan. 6, 2021 is probably too recent to be celebrated as a grave threat that American democracy survived, but history's judgment of this attempted coup will not be rendered until well after this old man is gone. So while the Freedom Caca, including members of congress who participated in the attempted coup by refusing to certify legitimate electors, are defying the majority of their party by giving Kevin (the lame) McCarthy the finger in an effort force a return of the social Darwinism that existed prior to the New Deal, I propose a January 6 holiday named Coup de Trump day.
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