Many people saw Jan 6th coming. We should be listening to them.

Arieh Kovler’s thread was amazingly prescient.

What was amazing about Arieh Kovler’s thread is that most of the talk was focused on Trump using the DOJ as a private military to prevent the election certification from occurring.


From Sasha Abramsky in thenation.com

“Like Fried, Steele in recent months concluded that Trump, aided and abetted by the GOP’s congressional leaders, is willing to “open up a Pandora’s box of mischief” to remain ensconced in the White House, Steele says. “He’s laying down the predicate—taking shots at vote by mail and saying he already knows there’s fraud— and therefore it’s likely he won’t accept the results of the election.” For Steele, Trump is “the P.T. Barnum of the 21st century, on steroids,” a man with a mastery of the art of manipulation. “He doesn’t give a shit about the people of Portland. He doesn’t give a crap about Chicago,” Steele avers. “This is not complicated. I don’t know why people keep overthinking this man. His goal is to protect himself. He uses the system against itself.”

And Sasha’s warning come damn close to what was described in the powerpoint.

While many in the press hoped that the GOP would come to its senses after a loss, Charles P. Pierce in esquire.com knew better.

“I hope I’m wrong, but I don’t think that the Republican response to a thumping Trump-inflicted wipeout in November is going to be a Kasichian return to simple Reaganaut extremism. I think that, driven by the base it has worked so hard to create, the party is going to respond by losing what little is left of its mind.”

This isn’t some kind of psychic power. Before the Stupid Coup there was the botched kidnapping. And the Oregon Republican who opened door to rioters.

This is a path that the GOP has been going down for decades and Charles Pierce has been paying attention to the GOP for that entire decline. While plenty of journalists hoped the GOP would snap to its senses after the Stupid Coup, plenty of journalists knew better. They fully expected the GOP to rally and double down and this is exactly what happened.

If you have been following the decline of the GOP since the tea party era, or since the Gingrich era-you knew this was happening. Daryl Johnson, who spent 25 years studying extremism wrote this for WaPo in 2017. His original warning was from 2009. This interview from 2011 is worth reading as well. Many people saw this coming.

Eight years ago, I warned of a singular threat — the resurgence of right-wing extremist activity and associated violence in the United States as a result of the 2008 presidential election, the financial crisis and the stock market crash. My intelligence report, meant only for law enforcement, was leaked by conservative media.

Daryl Johnson’s work predates even the seminal work from Ornstein and Mann, Let’s just say it: The Republicans are the problem

So, yeah. Many people saw Jan 6th coming and you should listen to them.