The Capitol Hill Putsch
“Those who do not read history are doomed to repeat it.” -George Santayana
On January 6th, 2021, the United States, and indeed, the eyes of the world, watched in abject shock as images poured in from news outlets, independent journalists, and social media: the storming of the United States Capitol Building by right wing insurrectionists. Brawling broke out in the Capitol halls, three improvised explosive devices were found, a man suffered a fatal heart attack when flashbang grenades blasted the grounds of The Hill, and a woman was fatally shot by Capitol Police when she tried to break into the Congressional halls. Confederate flags in the United States Congress, a sight not even seen in the Civil War.
Decried almost instantly by nearly everyone, one cannot feel but a sense of schadenfreude at what Malcolm X noted as “the chickens coming home to roost” so many years ago. Democrats, of course, were quick to denounce the violence, and some Republicans did as well. But the same Republicans calling for a cessation of violence were the same ones fomenting the conditions which had set the framework for the insurrection to occur in the first place. Sens. Ted Cruz, Josh Hawley, Tom Cotton, Marsha Blackburn, Mitch McConnell, Reps. Dan Crenshaw, Kevin McCarthy, and others rank among those who, like Dr. Frankenstein in the eponymous novel, denounced the violence wrought by their creation.
Other Republicans were content to simply offer empty words with zero action to back them up: notably Sens. Ben Sasse and Susan Collins — both of whom had voted to acquit President Donald Trump in the 2020 impeachment trials over the Ukraine quid-pro-quo scandal — who roundly denounced the President’s words and their supporters despite having the opportunity to take concrete action and adamantly choosing not to.
But violence in all forms is a bipartisan pursuit, and the foreign policy of the United States has very often reflected what we saw today in Washington D.C. Numerous examples, from the democratically elected and overthrown governments of Guatemala and Iran to the US backed dictatorships of South Korea and South Vietnam. Just two years ago, in 2019, a failed coup occurred in Venezuela with Juan Guaido, backed by the State Department, and even stated publicly as a coup by Democratic Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut. Scenes like what we witnessed in Caracas replayed themselves in Washington D.C. As George Seldes once said, fascism is nothing more than imperialism turned inwards.
The Beer Hall Putsch is viewed as one of the inaugural events that led to the rise of the Nazi Party and its leader, Adolf Hitler, into the national mainstream of the Weimar Republic. Two thousand Nazis marched on the city hall of Munich and confronted a police cordon, resulting in the deaths of 16 Nazis and 4 police officers. Hitler fled, leaving the putsch to collapse.
It is crucial to keep in mind that it failed. Hitler was convicted of treason and spent nine months in prison, where he wrote Mein Kampf. It made the good people of Weimar Germany complacent — and when Hitler was democratically elected years later and cemented his power using the Reichstag Fire and later with the Night of the Long Knives, those same people who had proclaimed the defeat of fascism found themselves on the receiving end of a gun barrel or blade as the fascists took over.
Just because the Beer Hall Putsch failed then does not mean that the Nazi Party failed.
Just because the Beer Hall Putsch failed does not mean that the Weimar Germans could become lax in their attitudes toward fascism.
Just because the Capitol Hill Putsch failed this time does not mean that the people responsible will not try again, and it does not mean that the American people can get complacent because Joe Biden got elected.
Neville Chamberlain famously proclaimed “Peace for our time” in response to his cessation of Czechoslovakia to the Nazis in exchange for a false promise that they were appeased and would seek no more land. Proven false by history, and the subsequent World War that ended with millions dead, it is crucial that we continually be on guard against fascism and all its forms here in these United States of America, and never, ever, seek to appease it. Fascism must be stamped out. It cannot be allowed to be integrated into society, it cannot ever become part of the mainstream, and it cannot be allowed oxygen to breathe.
The onus to do so is on myself.
For freedom.
The responsibility is yours.
For democracy.
The duty to do so falls upon all of us.
For the life of the Republic.
