The seeds of insurrection were planted long ago, dropped by Republican politicians by the handful into fertile ground, much of it in rural Missouri.
So when President Donald Trump last week told his conspiracy-theory-believing followers to head to the Capitol and he was riling up a crowd that would go from rally to insurrection, but he was hardly alone.
When Trump’s lawyer, Rudi Giuliani, told the frenzied election-deniers to hold a he was nurturing those seeds, but they had been fertilized by others long ago.
When Sen. Josh Hawley held his fist up to salute the insurrectionists as they prepared to lay siege to the U.S. Capitol, he was adding water to the soil, but white nationalistic anger had been fed over a period of years.
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Some of the seeds found their targeted soil as far back as 2009. That was the year that the Missouri Information Analysis Center — one of dozens of national so-called “fusion centers†established after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in 2001 — published an advisory called “The Modern Militia Movement.â€
The document was sent to law enforcement agencies across the state, describing the growth of white nationalist and other extreme movements, and detailing how dangerous such groups could be to police officers and other targeted groups, including Jews and people of color. How did Missouri Republicans react to such a publication? Did they stand up for the men and women in blue, to protect them? No. They played the victim because portions of the report hit too close to home. Then they shut it down.
Because some of their followers in the nascent days of the Tea Party had adopted the same sorts of symbols that were common among white nationalists — such as the Gadsden flag and the Confederate flag — Republicans were apoplectic that public money would be spent on such a document, which was intended to inform law enforcement.
Right-wing radio host Alex Jones agitated his listeners over the report. The Republican response to the report eventually had policy implications, feeding anti-federal legislation such as the bill that passed that kept Missouri for years from producing Real ID-compliant driver’s licenses, and nullification proposals that would have made criminals of any federal law enforcement officials who sought to enforce federal gun laws.
The seeds of an insurrection were planted.
More than a decade later, members of several white nationalist extremist movements, and adherents to the QAnon conspiracy theories, attacked the U.S. Capitol, with violence in mind. A police officer died — the very result the 2009 report in Missouri was seeking to prevent.
These days, the right-wing misinformation machine is massive compared to when Jones was but a fringe figure. It continues to have a Missouri connection, with propagandist Jim Hoft publishing his unhinged conspiracy theories online on his Gateway Pundit site. They are repeated in other right-wing blogs and Internet sites, all in an attempt to rally the sort of extremists that lifted Trump to the presidency in 2016 and are attacking the foundations of American democracy to keep him in autocratic power.
Now, a week after the U.S. Capitol riot, with arrests of the insurrectionists mounting, the FBI is warning of potential violence at all 50 state Capitols, as extremists gather their guns and bombs, and talk on various unchecked communications platforms of mass violence against those who defend the free and fair election that defeated their dear leader.
It turns out that the day before the Capitol insurrection, FBI officials in Virginia had to some law enforcement agencies about the potential for violence, with some participants urging fellow insurrectionists to “go there ready for war.â€
It’s unfathomable madness, except that it has been fathomable for a decade or longer to the very law enforcement agencies that now find themselves girding for another attack.
American ground was fertile for the seeds of insurrection to grow because too many Republican politicians, over too long a time, refused to tell the truth to the deplorables among us, choosing to pander for votes rather than stand up for democracy. The extremism didn’t pop up overnight, and it won’t disappear on Jan. 20 when Joe Biden is inaugurated as the nation’s 46th president and Kamala Harris becomes the nation’s first Black female vice president.
On Wednesday, some member of the party that nurtured an insurrection years in the making, started to make amends. Ten Republicans voted with Democrats to impeach Trump, the most bipartisan impeachment vote in history. They were guided by the words of Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, : “There has never been a greater betrayal by a president of the United States of his office and his oath to the Constitution.â€
Whether or not the Senate votes to convict Trump, there will be difficult days ahead, and years of re-planting the seeds of American democracy in fields poisoned by the dangerous dishonesty of a political party that has lost its bearings.