The Chinese Cultural Revolution popped into my mind several times last night. I didn't have a chance to think it through. This is my thinking it through.
A coup d'etat dog-whistled from the top, carried out by the masses, not the generals, directed against the leadership substratum to restore the Maximum Leader to supreme power. The book-length manuscript published here written by my friend Zhang Mu was titled "Chinese Cultural Revolution as a Series of Coups." But I just remembered that now, I didn't think about that last night. Yet, the CR kept popping into my head last night. Why?
Yesterday's coup was formulaic (The cops would have used a different formula had Black Lives Matter been perpetrating the coup hoooo doggie!) in ways that reminded me of the CR. That is: Got a little notice? My God, Trump tweeted about a January 6 mass rally on Dec. 19! In China the struggle sessions were held in huge stadia. In both, state law enforcement ceded authority to the masses.
Can't dance without a partner. In both China and the U.S. there was partnership. The cop doorman. The U.S. police clearly danced with the coup perpetrators (They were both overwhelmingly white. Cop-felon dances are not racially integrated in America.) "As long as nobody gets hurt, let them have their fun," that seems to have been the mentality.
"As long as nobody gets hurt": Well, four people died yesterday, one was shot and killed, three died of natural causes brought on by the stress and excitement, heart attacks I imagine. No senators or representatives or cops. Three million were killed in the CR. That's a big difference. What would the coupsters have done had they found Nancy Pelosi, killed her? I don't think so. Struggled her? There was, I have to be careful with my wording here...the struggle session victims in China were not rounded up in stadia and executed. They were paraded on stage in front of the crowd, "jet-planed," had their faces splashed with ink, made to wear dunce caps. Thoroughly, utterly humiliated. Qualify the physical violence or not, the victims clearly could have been killed if that had been the Red Guards' aim (Three million were killed over ten years.). Yesterday some cops with machine guns were instructed to demonstrate some restraint even though "It's crazy in there." "We're the cops, these are real machine guns, we could kill you if we wanted to, but since you're White we don't want to so don't make us." There was (deadly) role-playing in the American Civil War. And reunions of combatants afterwards! There was clear role-playing in the CR. The oft-told story here of the man who got dressed and walked out of his home, locking the door behind him, and walked up to the stadium. "What are you doing here?! by the Red Guard doorman. "Aren't you struggling Mr. So-and-so today?" "What of it?!" "Well, I'm Mr. So-and-so. You can't have a struggle session without me, can you?" Can't dance without a partner!
Which brings up the ultimate question about yesterday: what were their aims? It doesn't seem to me that prevention of Biden's presidency was the aim. Personal violence cannot be ruled out since they didn't find any elected representatives and I do think "struggling" an elderly woman like Nancy Pelosi could have been their aim. However, we do know that although armed, only one shot was fired, that although some police officers were injured, none of them had life-threatening injuries, and we know that if the coupsters had wanted to whack a cop they damn sure could have. They didn't. Senators and congresspeople were thoroughly, utterly humiliated but none were harmed in the slightest. The country, as was China, was thoroughly, utterly humiliated, made to look crazy and half-civilized, and we are both. Having thought this through over the last couple of hours I think there's as good a chance as any that the aim of the perpetrators yesterday was to thoroughly and completely humiliate the government and political leaders of America but not to kill them, maybe to rough them up a bit. Dancing is a contact sport.
