Good Germans: The Republican Party and the Insurrection of January 6, 2021

This article is an outgrowth of a post I made on LinkedIn regarding the culpability for the violent insurrection at the United States Capitol on 1/06/2021 by the Republican electorate that had voted for Donald Trump in November. I posited that all those who voted for Trump in the November 2020 election, whether or not they were physically present at the capitol that day, were just as complicit for the insurrection, sedition, treason, and murders, as were those who were. I base that opinion on the concept of the Good German. The Good German is a person who knows that there is something quite evil happening in their country, but being a Good German means staying true to your political party, to your government, to your tribe, and not rocking the boat, even when you know that something bad is going down all around you. You put blinders on to try and shut out the absolute horror, but you can never really block it out.

Good Germans vote for people that are rude, crude, aggressive, a little threatening, and who really like to shake up the system. Violence is alright if used for the right reasons. Their elected officials say and do things in public that they wish they could say and do in public. Especially Donald Trump. He really sticks it to those socialist libs! Sure, he may ruffle a few feathers and maybe even break a few laws, but hell, as long as he doesn’t put up with any liberal, socialist crap, he can break all the laws and traditions he wants!

Good Germans didn’t always agree with everything he said, and after the election Trump really started to say some radical stuff. He even seemed to be inciting people to violence, to prepare them to actively stop the transition of power to Joe Biden on January 20th, by force if necessary. As Good Germans, they believed every word their president told them, even if it contradicted reality, or meant committing acts of violence against their own government, against other Americans, or even sacrificing their own lives if need be. After all, they were Good Germans.

At the end of WWII, the American and allied Armies liberated a series of Nazi concentration camps housing hundreds of thousands of Jews, Gypsies, gays, disabled persons, political prisoners and other unfortunates. The scenes the allies encountered were horrific beyond words. Living within site and smell of one of the most notorious of these camps, Buchenwald, was the village of Weimar. American servicemen forced many of the residents of Weimar to tour the camp, making sure they saw the fruits of the Master Race and the Final Solution up close and personal. Some German women vomited and fainted. So did some men. The soldiers then forced these civilians, both men and women, to dig mass graves for the deceased and carry the bodies to the graves for burial.

Why am I presenting this disgusting slice of human history? Because these same Germans, these Good Germans, refused to take any responsibility for the crimes against humanity taking place inside the gates of the concentration camp located within earshot, within the noxious smell on the breeze, and within sight of their homes. They “knew nothing” of the evil taking place practically in their front yards. They also knew nothing about the other horrific crimes committed by Der Fuehrer and his henchmen since 1933 in Germany and throughout Europe and Russia. Of course, there were rumors, stories, and even some eyewitness accounts from servicemen at the front, or relatives in the SS or Gestapo. These stories were terrible, but like all Good Germans, they decided that if the stories were true, then they actually supported and approved of much of what they heard. They were Arians after all, the Master Race and the victims in these stories were all Untermensch, or subhuman, not Germans. The stories they heard reflected their true feelings towards these Untermenschen, so why complain? Der Fuehrer mirrored the people, and they mirrored Der Fueher. They were all one: Den Deutschen Volk.

So it is as well, I would argue, with the cult-like supporters of Donald Trump and the GOP. Maybe some of them were not really sure who they were voting for in 2016, but four years later in 2020, they knew exactly who Donald Trump was and what he stood for, and they absolutely loved what they saw. Here was a president who finally understood them, their fears, their anger, their frustrations, their disenfranchisement, their resentment at the coastal elites, the globalists, the socialists, the libs, the people of color, the gays, and at their being left behind by a world they did not and could not understand. Donald Trump seemed to understand all of that. He got them. And Trump hated all the people and changes they hated as well. They had a lot of hate in common. And that raw hatred, that burning rage made them feel part of a larger family based almost solely on hatred, anger and revenge. They had finally met their cult leader and he had met his disciples. They were all one: Den Americanischen Volk.

When these 74 million Americans voted for Donald J. Trump on November 3, 2020, they knew exactly who and what they had voted for. There was no ambiguity then or now. When Trump stood on that stage on Pennsylvania Ave. the morning of 1/06/2021 and commanded his people, his Volk, to march down that street to the U.S. Capitol and “cheer on our brave senators and Congressmen and women”, and “we have to fight like hell”, followed by, “We will never give up, we will never concede”, as well as other inciteful words, the people at the rally as well as Trump voters who watched the speech on TV or streamed it on the Internet had no doubt whatsoever that he was inciting the crowd to march on the Capitol and do whatever had to be done to stop the certification of Joseph Biden as President, to launch a coup attempt by whatever means necessary. They had watched and listened to Fox News, Breitbart News, OAN, Alex Jones and others for several weeks prior to announcing the march on Washington on 1/06/2021 to stop the vote count for Biden. They knew why the crowd was there, why the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers and the Three Percenters were there. They all knew what Donald Trump, their president, was asking them to do. And even sitting at home watching it unfold on TV, they wanted to be part of it. And by casting their vote for him on November 3rd, indeed they were.

So it came as no surprise to these voters that shortly after the Trump incited rally, they saw the siege, the violent attack, and finally the occupation of the U.S. Capitol that afternoon by Trump supporters. In fact, in at least one poll taken after the insurrection (YouGov), 44% of Trump voters supported the insurrectionists attack on the capitol, and 69% of Trump voters hold him totally blameless for the insurrection. In fact, 52% believe that Biden is to blame. That same poll shows that 73% of Trump voters believe Biden is an illegitimate president who stole the election, and about 52% of Trump voters believe the QAnon lie that, “Democrats are a group of Satan-worshipping elites who run a child sex ring and are trying to control our politics and media.” 

To say that the 74 million Americans that voted for Donald Trump on November 3, 2020 after experiencing his first four years in office were naïve rubes who unwittingly voted for a conman without having any knowledge of the kinds of actions he would take (or continue to take) if he was reelected, defies all logic and common sense. I am not buying it and neither should you. It just does not pass the giggle test. They knew exactly who they were voting for and why they were voting for him. They willingly bought into the whole package: white supremacy, violence, authoritarianism, insurrection and all the rest. He was and still is their hero, their torchbearer, the man who best personifies their deeply held prejudices, racial and ethnic hatred and bigotry, fear of technology and internationalism, of socialism (they are still not quite sure what that is), of being left behind in an ever changing world they understand less and less, a world that they believe hates Christianity and the white race. Trump also understands their need to violently act out to take back whatever they perceive was stolen from them. In fact, he encourages their violence and their hatred. He was and is one of them and they love him for it. They especially loved him on January 6, 2021.

And as Good Germans, they owed it to him to support his every wish, even if that wish included insurrection, a coup, treason, and murder. After all, that is what Good Germans do.