Where is the Line?
This is Part 2 of a 2-part series on the events at the Capitol building on January 6th, 2021. In Part 1 I talked about the double standard of the treatment of those who rioted at the Capitol vs those who rioted in the streets. In this post I want to talk about what those events might mean for us as individuals going forward.
A Fraudulent Victory
I'm of the belief that there's a certain amount of fraud that occurs every election; the system simply isn't secure enough to prevent it. In most elections it probably doesn't amount to a whole lot. This election was not like most elections. It appears in this election there were statistical impossibilities and evidence of shady things that could equal fraud on a scale we had never seen before, but President Trump and his team of lawyers overpromised and underdelivered time and time again when it came to presenting evidence of fraud that, to many people, he became nothing more than a narcissist that cried wolf.
To his core supporters though, their President was screwed. They bought in 100% when he told them this election was stolen. They were on the Trump train then and they still are now. To them, President Biden is corrupt, his family is corrupt and the politicians who enable Biden and the system that allowed this to happen are corrupt as well.
Their Line was Crossed
I don't think the Capitol protesters were there just because of the election. In their minds, the stolen election was just another in a string of abuses. The corporate press, Democrats, and even some Republicans, had spent since the moment he was elected attempting to delegitimize and undermine Trump's victory and his entire administration. Stealing the 2020 election was a line in the sand and the ruling elite just crossed it. So they marched on the Capitol building to voice their displeasure, which unsurprisingly lead to a riot.
Culture War
You may not realize it until it happens, but everyone has a line. Everyone has something that will trigger them to say "enough is enough" and cause them to take action. We are in the midst of a massive culture war. The left is trying to silence anyone with a dissenting viewpoint. For somewhere around 800 people, their line was the unproven allegations of election fraud. Where's your line?
I fully expect during Biden's 4 year term there to be a major push for more gun restrictions. There'll be some kind of "assault weapon" ban (which is nothing more than a ban on scary looking, black guns), magazine limits, and at least the proposal for some kind of gun registry. 2A folks, where is your line?
Big tech will continue to censor dissenting views. There will be more groups and individuals deplatformed from Twitter, Youtube and others. In most cases you would expect competitors to pop up to fill that void, but as we saw with Parler, Apple and Google have a gated environment that will likely prevent a true, independent competitor from gaining traction, at least in the short term. 1A folks, where is your line?
The Next 4 Years
These next 4 years will be incredibly important. Not because of Joe Biden, I think his administration will be a culturally-amped up version of Obama with more war thrown in for good measure, but because it will set the stage for the next 25+ years of this country. The ruling class wants continued dominance and no threat to their positions of power. If the media and Big Tech attacks on dissenting views continue unabated, they will have get exactly what they want. The only real question is, will they cross your line?