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On January 6, 2021, Befana brought Biden two senators. Both Democrats.
The first one is called Jon Ossof. At 33, Ossof is the youngest senator ever. Born in Atlanta to a family of Jewish origins, Ossof has worked with John Lewis – a civil rights icon who died in 2020 – and later became CEO of Insight TWI, a company that produces investigative documentaries against corruption. The newly elected senator supports abortion, cannabis legalization, and the Paris Agreement, but does not support the Green New Deal. Ossof defeated Republican challenger David Perdue by 32,000 votes out of a total of 2 million.
The second one is called Raphael Warnock. He will be the first African-American senator elected from Georgia and the first African-American Democrat elected from a Southern state. He holds degrees in psychology and theology. He was the pastor of a Baptist church in Atlanta. In his campaign, he strongly supported extending health insurance coverage to the poorest. Warnock defeated Republican challenger Kelly Loeffler by a margin of 54,000 out of a total of 4 million votes.
Green light
With this victory, Biden takes home the 50 seats which they need to gain a majority in the Senate (they already had a majority in the House of Representatives). This will allow the Biden-Harris duo to expedite the implementation of their electoral platform, without necessarily having to compromise with the Republican Party. It means speeding up the reconstruction of an America devastated by the health, economic, political, and social crises it has been experiencing for almost a year now. The confirmation of the two Democratic senators in Georgia has contributed to a modest increase in the financial markets, who were desperately waiting for a sign of stability, but are not enthusiastic about the prospect of tax increases.
From red to blue
The election of the two Democrats marks a profound change in the recent political history of Georgia, considered a Republican stronghold. If one looks at the presidential elections, the last time Georgia voted Democratic was 1992 with Clinton. If you look at the senatorial elections, Georgia has been voting red since 2003. But on November 3, 2020, the Peach State (as it is called) elected Biden as President and on January 5, 2021, it chose Ossof and Warnock as representatives to the Senate. To indicate the situation in which a state switches from one party majority to another, the term "flipped" is used in America.“Georgia flipped from red to blue”. Georgia went from red (Republican color) to blue (Democratic color).
Flipped out
The same verb "flip" is used in the expression "flip out" to describe someone who's going crazy. "He flipped out." He went crazy, he went nuts. And at 11 a.m. on the same January 6th when the Democrats were celebrating their victory, Trump didn't hold back. He went nuts, so much so that he enchanted the supporters he had called to gather in front of the Capitol for "“Save America March”", a rally to protest the results of the presidential election. The numbers he listed are the votes he's missing for victory, and they seem nowhere to be found. Votes, Trump claims, that were supposed to arrive at the polls by mail but were thrown into the streams, votes that the Democrats threw out during the count, votes that were lost somewhere in this election—he always maintains—rigged.
Rigged election
Even before Election Day, Trump used his power and visibility to tell Americans and the world the story that the presidential election was rigged, that he should have been the clear winner, and that he wouldn't easily concede to his opponent. And he continued to tell this story even a few days later. after election day, even after each polling place and state conducted recounts, even after each state's electoral colleges confirmed Biden's victory, even after his lawyers lost their appeals before the courts of key states. After each of these steps, Trump continued to recount the story of the rigged election unabashedly. In an hour-long call, he even pressured Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to find the 11,000 votes he needed to win Georgia, making not-so-subtle threats. call It has been published in full by many newspapers.
Trial by combat
Trump also told the story of the rigged election to the thousands of supporters he gathered in front of the Capitol an hour before Congress began voting to confirm Biden's victory. During the rally, he at one point warmed up his army with these words:
“We're going to have to fight much harder, and Mike Pence is going to have to support us. If he doesn't, it will be a sad day for our country because he swore to uphold our Constitution. Now it's up to Congress to address this grave assault on our democracy. After this, we're going to march, and I'm going to be with you. We're going to march. We're going to march, whoever you want, but I think right here. We're going to march to the Capitol, and we're going to cheer on our brave senators and members of Congress. We probably won't cheer for some of them as much, because you don't take back your country by being weak. You have to show strength, and you have to be strong.” Donald Trump, “Save America” Rally, January 6, 2021
Rudy Giuliani, former mayor of New York in the 1990s and Trump's lawyer, attended the rally and addressed the crowd as follows:
“"If we're wrong, they'll think we're crazy, but if we're right, a lot of them will go to jail. So let's have a trial by combat!" Rudy Giuliani, "Save America" Rally, January 6, 2021
Capitol
An hour after the end of the rally, starting at 2:15 PM, the Trump supporters stormed the Capitol. The crowd managed to break through four police lines. Shouting "USA USA USA," "This way," "You ain't gonna stop us," "Take that house, take it now," and "Trump won that election," and waving flags in support of Trump and the Confederacy, the protesters invaded the corridors and rooms of the most important building of the world's most powerful democracy. Some wore helmets, others were armed. One wore a fur coat that barely covered his chest. Others filmed the event with cameras and cell phones (probably to post on social media). They managed to break into the Senate, while the chamber of the House of Representatives remained inviolate. One Trump supporter even managed to enter Nancy Pelosi's (Speaker of the House of Representatives) office, sat on her chair, and put his feet up on her desk. Protesters broke windows and kicked down doors to enter the buildings. One woman was shot and died a few hours later. Around 5 PM the mayor of Washington DC. Muriel Bowser activated the National Guard and imposed the curfew starting at 6 PM. Twitter has decided to suspend the’Trump's Twitter and Facebook accounts for 12 hours.
I wouldn’t be surprised if history – in memory of the March on Rome in 1922 – calls this event the “March on the Capitoline Hill.”.
The show must go on
At 8 p.m. on January 6, Mike Pence, Vice President of the United States, and Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House of Representatives, reconvened the chambers to continue the vote that had been interrupted by protesters. "Let's get back to work," Mike Pence said, reopening the debate. Late that night, members of Congress confirmed the votes received by the two presidential candidates: 232 for Trump and 306 for Biden, who will be inaugurated as the 46th President of the United States on January 20.
Bullshit
If you keep telling a lie over and over again, sooner or later someone will follow you. If you persist, you'll find someone who will agree with you, even if only to indulge in the pleasure of not hearing you repeat it anymore. And if you keep repeating your lie from the most powerful chair in the world—a world where the lies you tell take less than a few seconds to reach mobile phone screens—your followers can swell to hundreds, thousands, millions. Under these conditions, it can take you just under four years to go from hundreds to millions.
P.S
Two months earlier, on November 6, more than 25 CEOs of the largest corporations in the United States met in a video conference to discuss how to behave in the event that Trump refuses to leave the Oval Office or promotes new actions to remain in power even after November 20. They also invited to the meeting Timothy Snyder, American historian and author of “On Tyranny,” “On Tyranny”,“ a bestseller first published in 2017. The book is divided into 20 lessons that explain how authoritarian regimes arise. Lesson No. 16 is titled ”Stay Calm When the Unthinkable Happens” and says:
“"Modern tyranny is terror management. When a terrorist attack occurs, remember that authoritarian leaders exploit these events to consolidate their power. The sudden event that necessitates the end of the system of checks and balances, the dissolution of opposition parties, the suspension of free speech, the right to a fair trial, and so on, is the old Hitlerian playbook. Don't fall for it." On Tyranny, Timothy Snyder
If you don't have any other books on your nightstand, I recommend reading it. You might find in it tales of past phenomena that explain what's happening in our absurd present.
Alessandro Casiraghi
https://acasiraghi0.wixsite.com/night-night-america/post/flipped[:]
