The People’s House: A Defence of the Capitol Riot

Written May 24th, 2021

Before I fully dive into today’s topic of discussion, I would like to make two things abundantly clear. The first is that I am by no means a Trump supporter, his cult of personality, Second Amendment violations, drone strikes and inhumane immigration policy makes it difficult for any self-respecting liberty-minded individual to support him on the basis of policy or personality. Secondly is that I am in no way advocating for a violent overthrow of the government, that means that my allocated [insert country appropriate intelligence service] agent can stop reading now…

We shall now begin with some information. On the 6th of January 2021, a large group of centre to far-right protesters were in Washington D.C. as Donald Trump made a speech, alleging election fraud and encouraging his supporters to “fight like hell”. Some of those protesters were at the Trump rally, some were at the Capitol, some came pre-prepared with zip-ties and one group even brought a gallows for hanging their least favourite politicians (though the flimsy noose was more likely symbolic). What happened next should have surprised no one and yet seemed to surprise everyone, a group of these protesters breached the US Capitol building and began making their way through the rotunda, taking photos and videos, as if they were wealthy millennials from Beijing on a tour of America funded by their parents. There was inevitably a bit of violence, a bit of property damage (though the extent to which the government has property shall be debated) and even the theft of Nancy Pelosi’s lectern. Tragically there were 5 deaths, one of these being Ashli Babbitt, a 35 year-old military veteran who was shot through the neck despite being unarmed — her death at the hands of law enforcement would later be celebrated by some members of the ‘ACAB’ crowd. Since the riot there was an attempt to remove Donald Trump from office by impeachment, there have been many arrests of those involved and revelations that some of them were FBI informants — more interesting has been Alexandria Ocasio Cortez’s attempts to claim that she was traumatised despite even members of her own party saying that she was not in the main Capitol building at the time.

The points I will make from this point onwards are that the rioters did nothing wrong, that the politicians who feared for their lives did not deserve less and that this incident was not un-American as many pundits claimed, in fact it was the epitome of America.

The Capitol rioters did nothing wrong. A statement bound to cause controversy amongst the Cathedral-loving, democracy-worshipping section of the population who saw this event as a terrifying coup, a blatant attempt at insurrection and a violation of western principles. Except most people do not consider what the protesters were really doing. Videos from inside show one man even sitting on the Senate floor, covered in blood promising to make sure “they ain’t disrespecting the place” and many amongst the rioters looked like a group of schoolkids on an excursion, snapping photos of all the important parts of the home of the US Congress. Naturally, windows were smashed during the breach, there was further damage done to windows and doors on the inside and Richard Barnett tore down the fundamentals of democracy by putting his feet on Nancy Pelosi’s desk without removing his shoes (how awful). To allege property damage however, is to make the claim that the state in some way has a right to any property — which would in itself be arguing against democracy as under the majority-rule system the country is governed ‘for the people, by the people’ and is not a separate entity which imposes its will upon society (though in reality this is how it acts). The Capitol building is the people’s house and its upkeep is funded entirely by funds taken from the American taxpayer, 46.9% of whom voted for Donald Trump and so can stake their claim to 46.9% of the building. The second complaint is that members of congress feared for their lives, especially Mike Pence and Nancy Pelosi who were viewed as traitors by the rioters and a very small group of them sought to execute the politicians they viewed as enemies of the people. Whilst I have sympathy for those suffering with trauma — I cannot sympathise with members of the US Congress who have spent their careers sending young men and women to die in pointless forever-wars; endorsed president after president who orders missiles to be fired at villages, weddings, hospitals and American teenagers; voted for massive spending bills that send military funding to Egypt and Israel without even reading the content of the bill. In the words of Alan Moore “people shouldn’t be afraid of their government, governments should be afraid of their people”, Mr Moore is right. The US Congress is a collection of some of the most sociopathic, money-grabbing, child-murdering tyrants and when the main victims of their oppression, the working class, stormed their offices and made them tremble, I smiled and I kept on smiling. Those politicians who were so afraid were in a bunker, protected by row upon row of armed guard from an unorganised rabble of angry, working-class men and women and if that is too much for them to handle then they should never vote to send 18 year olds to die in the desert ever again. The young men in Iraq had a real danger to their lives, they saw a real insurrection and Congress was more than happy to let them die to boost their approval ratings. In spite of their broken politics and oftentimes racist and xenophobic attitudes, for those few hours the Q Anon nut-jobs were heroes.

“Temple of democracy!”, “the sacredest (sic) place!”, “un-American insurrection!” came the cries from the democracy cultists of the traditional left and right. To both CNN and Fox News the riot was terrifying, both of them were seeing their beloved establishment attacked and insulted, it was as if someone had urinated on a statue of Christ or worse, drawn Muhammad. But whilst “insurrection” is a strong word, an insurrection led by angry American men in costumes who are dissatisfied with their government should ring alarm bells in the heads of the masses. The cry of the bald eagle, the waving of the American flag and stylised numbers of ‘1776’ plastered across everything imaginable — the truth is that the only way the Capitol riot could have been more American would be if the rioters had guns and McDonald’s. America is a nation founded on revolutionary liberalism, the rights of the individual enshrined above all else, provisions in the constitution for freedom from unjust searches (broken by stop-and-search, no-knock and red-flag raids), freedom of speech and religion (need I provide examples), the right to bear arms (Waco), freedom from “cruel and unusual punishment” (Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib etc.). Though the constitution has been recklessly violated to the point where its structural significance is waning out of existence, its cultural hold will never be shaken and the right of the American people to topple any perceived tyranny is a right that those people shall continue to fight for. France forced out an unjust monarchy in much the same way, however their revolution was followed by the rule of proto-fascist tyrants and quasi-monarchs who crushed the liberal spirits of the French republic with their counterrevolutionary leadership, the US on the other hand was governed by a series of liberal leaders who respected their declaration of independence and their constitution.

Democracy is a false god and when it fails to serve its people it should expect to feel threatened. America is no democratic nation, America is a semi-constitutional, post-liberal, quasi-democratic empire that violently crushes resistance to its barbarism at home and abroad. Any threat to the seat of power of the American empire is a threat that should be celebrated by the common man. The message was clear on January 6th: ‘This is the people’s house, squatters are not welcome here!’.