Free the Q Shaman!
And the rest of that rabble. If we are to be a nation of laws and not men, the instigators must be punished first.
Man, from my vantage point — semi-Thoreauan isolation deep in Trump country, but cosseted in a bubble of leftist podcasts and mostly moderate left message board groupthink — our side of the aisle has lost the plot. I see all sorts of expressions of glee, schadenfreude, and “fuck around and find out” sentiment with each new arrest of a January 6 rioter, and I understand it. I really do. In fact I have not been above some of those reactions myself, and not just privately, but in public forums.
However, when I did so, I was still kinda-sorta under the extremely naive impression that some of the instigators of this fiasco would face consequences of some kind. No, I didn’t think we’d see Josh Hawley perp-walked out of the Capitol, but he certainly deserves it. And of course the same or similar for Trump, Sidney Powell, Alex Jones, Roger Stone, Ted Cruz, Michael Flynn (can we stop calling him “General Flynn” now? Please?), Lin Wood, Rudy, the Watkins family of Q-Anon infamy, and on and on.
But it appears all of them are going to face few or no consequences whatsoever, and in fact either get rich or see their campaign coffers swell. Yes, Hawley did lose his little book deal — the graft by which impoverished youngsters enter the Senate and leave with tens of millions of dollars — but he’ll get another blockbuster book deal one of these days.
But that appears to be all that will happen to any of this collection of cheapjack insurrectionist fucksticks and incompetent revolutionary asshats. I mean, Tommy Tuberville, a man who has fallen upward since he was managing an Arkansas catfish joint not so long ago, is now a failed right-wing Che Guevara. (I think? Maybe he’d been one for a couple of days.) But unlike Che, he will not be hunted down and killed by the military. Instead, he will retired in about 15 years, much wealthier than he is now (thanks to those book deals and similar) and his descendants will brag about his bold feats.
Meanwhile, the feds are out cracking skulls on the idiots who…did what they were told by these clowns. This is unparalleled in United States history. Directly before the storming, The commander-in-chief of the armed forces, told this mob (citing specific numbers in specific states) that what effectively was a coup was underway, and only somewhat ambiguously, told that mob to march to the Capitol and storm it. And they did.
And now you’ve got one deranged woman shot through the neck, a cop or two dead for reasons as yet unstated officially, a couple more dead rioters, and hundreds facing prison time and ruined lives because they did what they believed they were told to do by the president of the United States.
Who is skating from this, as are all his minions, the partners in crime who egged this mob on before the storming, during the storming, and continue to do so to this day.
Look, I understand the schadenfreude. After four years of this obnoxious lot hollering “Fuck your feelings” at us, it’s all too easy to wish nothing but long terms in prison on the rioters. If you’ve got Trumpers among your family or your (likely now ex-) friends, it’s especially easy to end up there. It’s all too easy to shake your head in disbelief at the entitlement some of the arrestees have wallowed in. How can they arrest me? I flew there in a private plane?
But: How much money are the feds going through tracking down every face in that deluded mob? How much is it going to cost on prosecuting them all? To house them all in federal prisons and then watch over them on supervised release?
Others, like the Q Shaman, who now faces a potential 20 years in prison and may well get close to that if for no other reason than he has become the mascot for the whole clusterfuck, are borderline or entirely mentally ill, either with maladies you can find in the DSM-5 or utterly brainwashed by Q-Anon theory.
How would justice be served by jailing these peasants — some of whom are unwell — and leaving the royal court — one that definitely knows better — to remain free?
The way we are going about this right now, we would have executed the entire Manson family except Charles himself, who would have remained free to start a new family. (“But no tell-all books for you, Charley! You’ll have to just find a vanity press and do a GoFundMe.”)
After all, Manson wasn’t even present at any of those murders. How could he be responsible for the actions of those who believed in him?
Yes, that analogy is a little dramatic, but tell me how the logic is faulty, please.
Our politicians are weaseling out of any kind of self-investigation of this right now, even as the FBI continues rounding up more and more of these deluded rubes. So long as none of the ringleaders — and no, I am not talking about ranking members of the Proud Boys or the Oath Keepers or any other such dorks, but rather Trump and his sycophants — face any real consequences, up to and including criminal prosecution, each new arrest of their seems now to be a grave injustice and a terrible precedent for the future.
I mean, only the paranoid used to say we were just pawns in the game of life back in the day. Right now, with each moment that Donald Trump, Josh Hawley and their buddies draw free world air and the Q Shaman does not, the analogy becomes painfully acute.
What we are seeing now is not justice but revenge, and misplaced revenge at that.
Actions have repercussions, but ...
Prison seems harsh. I'd give the ones that entered the Capitol 20 years, suspended. And take away their rights to voting and gun ownership for the duration. It's a shame we can't strip them of citizenship. Exile would be a nice alternative.
Yes. So many questions about that day. As always, the lowest pay the price. In everything.