The January 6 Insurrection Hoax

Article subtitle: 
Reflections on our ruling oligarchy
Article author: 
Roger Kimball, Editor and Publisher, The New Criterion
Article publisher: 
Imprimis, Hillsdale College
Article date: 
4 October 2021
Article category: 
Our American Future
Medium
Article Body: 

Notwithstanding all the hysterical rhetoric surrounding the events of January 6, 2021, two critical things stand out. The first is that what happened was much more hoax than insurrection. In fact, in my judgment, it wasn’t an insurrection at all....

Note that phrase “our democracy”: Nancy Pelosi, Joe Biden, and various talking heads have repeated it ad nauseam. But you do not need an advanced degree in hermeneutics to understand that what they mean by “our democracy” is their oligarchy....

But in truth, the Steele dossier was just opposition dirt covertly paid for by the Democratic National Committee and the Hillary Clinton campaign. From beginning to end, it was a tissue of lies and fabrications...

At least 74 million citizens voted for Donald Trump in 2020, which is at least 11 million more than voted for him in 2016....

Why is there some 14,000 hours of video footage of the event on January 6 that the government refuses to release? What are they afraid of letting the public see?...

My own view is that turning Washington into an armed camp was mostly theater....The message was: “We’re in charge now, rubes, and don’t you forget it.”...

 

Many people have been quoting Benjamin Franklin’s famous response when asked what sort of government they had come up with at the Constitutional Convention of 1787. “A republic,” Franklin said, “if you can keep it.” Right now, it looks like we can’t. It looks as if the American constitutional republic has given way, as least temporarily, to an American oligarchy....

As the years go by, historians... may well count the 2016 presidential election as the last fair and open democratic election in U.S. history.... every honest person knows that the 2020 election was tainted....

Among the many sobering realities that the 2020 election brought home is that in our current and particular form of oligarchy...

The central fact to appreciate about Donald Trump is that he was elected president without the permission... Trump was the greatest threat in history to the credentialed class and the globalist administrative state upon which they feed....

Donald Trump’s accomplishments as president were nothing less than stunning....

It was not so long ago that an American could contemplate totalitarian regimes and say, “Thank God we’ve escaped that.” It’s not at all clear that we can entertain that happy conviction any longer....

Another lesson was perfectly expressed by Donald Trump when he reflected on the unremitting tsunami of hostility that he faced as President. “They’re after you,” he more than once told his supporters. “I’m just in the way.”

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Imprimis is the free monthly speech digest of Hillsdale College and is dedicated to educating citizens and promoting civil and religious liberty by covering cultural, economic, political, and educational issues. The content of Imprimis is drawn from speeches delivered at Hillsdale College events. First published in 1972, Imprimis is one of the most widely circulated opinion publications in the nation with over six million subscribers.
 

 

Related

 
How It Might End, Act I, by Roger Kimball, American Greatness, September 25, 2021:
 
David Hume once observed: “It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once.” It seems to be that we have alarm bells going off all around us. The oddity is that so few people seem to hear them. No wonder secession is once again in the air.