Insurrection Day: Citizen-Journalism Edition Pt.5

[Generic Other]

60. An insurrection of upper-middle class white people

They flew from their affluent suburbs to the U.S. Capitol, ready to die for the cause of white privilege

The stunning pro-President-Trump insurrection that occurred at the U.S. Capitol less than a week ago must have been a carnival for one’s olfactory bulb, as the stinging aroma of tear gas blended with the pungent odors of the occasional joint, or maybe the piles of dung that some of the cruder mob members left in the hallways once graced by icons like Daniel Webster, Henry Clay, and LBJ. The only thing that wasn’t in the air on Wednesday was the smell of what so many have falsely tied to Trump’s authoritarian movement — any whiff of “economic anxiety.”

When fascism finally came to America in the form of an attempted coup to halt our presidential election, it came from lush-green suburbs all across this land, flying business class on Delta or United and staying in four-star hotels with three-martini lobby bars — the better to keep warm after a long day of taking selfies with friendly cops or pummeling the unfriendly ones, chanting “Hang Mike Pence!” and generally standing athwart democracy yelling “Halt!”

Long ridiculed as deplorables rising up from the muck of Rust Belt trailer parks, the Donald Trump counter-revolution has finally revealed itself as an upper-middle-class affair.

https://www.inquirer.com/columnists/attytood/capitol-breach-trump-insurrection-impeachment-white-privilege-20210112.html