The Week the Trump Supporters Disappeared

[Zorro]

In Washington, D.C., our leaders sealed themselves off from a rebel force that didn’t arrive.

As the new President took the oath of office on Wednesday, there were neither parties nor protests in the streets of Washington. Instead, there was mostly quiet, punctuated by the sirens of convoys careening around, the churn of helicopters overhead, and newscasters narrating the unseen news for viewers around the planet. Deep within the rings of checkpoints and soldiers, Joe Biden became President. People outside the security watched on their phones or not at all; most of them were reporters, soldiers, or police. There were rumors that a pro-Trump gathering would be held on the plaza at Union Station, but no such spectacle appeared: a few preachers droned about Hell and feminists while passersby heckled them and pigeons swooped low over their heads. At Judiciary Square, a lone middle-aged man made his way along the sidewalk, wearing a plain winter hat rolled low over his forehead and a disposable blue medical mask. He was an unremarkable figure except for the sign he carried: “THIS LOOKS LIKE PYONGYANG / THERE ARE ONLY POLICE AND MILITARY / NO CIVILIANS.”

The man didn’t want to speak, he explained to reporters. His signs contained everything he wished to express. He pulled a second placard from behind the first and propped it against a nearby tree: “BIG TECH CENSORSHIP KILLED DEMOCRACY.”

The same eerie silence had stretched throughout the week, even as Washington and state capitals across the country braced for assaults resembling the insurrection on January 6th. A national manhunt sought the people who had stormed the Capitol, in defiance of the transfer of power from Donald Trump to Biden. Social-media companies purged the profiles of Trump supporters and militia members accused of inciting violence. Americans found themselves locked out of downtowns and public buildings. And after all that—perhaps because of all that—only a handful of protesters turned out for Trump.

A lone woman walked among the reporters near the Capitol on Wednesday afternoon, wearing a maga sweatshirt and carrying a sign that read “Impeach 46”—but she, too, declined to speak. A Trump supporter wandered around in a spotless white suit and shiny white shoes, with an American-flag bandanna tied over his mouth, wondering aloud why more of his comrades weren’t there. Jesus groups preached into loudspeakers against homosexuality and Muslims; a few outlandish YouTubers trawled for someone to prank on camera. These were provocateurs, come to sop up the overflow attention of a rowdy crowd but instead finding themselves, awkwardly, at the center of the action.

https://www.newyorker.com/news/the-political-scene/the-week-the-trump-supporters-disappeared

[regnaD kciN]

1. "...and there was great rejoicing."

[Harker]

2. Maybe the bulk of the republican't guard is in jail

or on the run... at least, the most well funded, extroverted, and mobile of them.