NEW YORK – Much tension about nothing. As was widely expected, it was a flop the demonstration organized in Washington by extreme right to express solidarity with the 638 people indicted for the attack on Capitol Hill on January 6: yes, when the crowd, incited by Donald Trump, broke into Congress in an attempt to block the certification of the presidential victory of Joe Biden. Event that also led to the second impeachment of the former president.
Of course, in the armored and deserted capital – the offices of Congress empty, as well as the White House – the two-meter-high gates erected nine months ago, on the occasion of the presidential inauguration, were back. And a hundred men from the National Guard had also come to the aid of the police. But at the rally organized by Matt Braynard, a former employee of The Donald’s campaign, showed up less than a thousand fanatics.
However noisy in repeating at the top of their lungs on the green of the only stretch of Mall granted to them, slogans against Biden: guilty, according to them, of violating personal freedom by forcing the vaccine. And in favor of Donald Trump, “champion” in the fight against the “Deep State” (the state within the state that according to them is rooted in politics, the Army and Intelligence. revolt in January – where, we recall, five people died while three policemen present committed suicide in the following months – still held in prison because they were considered dangerous by the authorities, but by the demonstrators in Washington considered as “political prisoners, unjustly persecuted”.
For heaven’s sake, some small incidents have occurred. Like when a banner of Black Lives Matter held by a man, however, promptly surrounded by police on a bicycle and escorted out of the area. But in reality even the counter-demonstrators – militants of anti-fascist and anti-racist organizations, that is – who worried so much, were few. The agents intervened only to put out some bickering.
“It is a trap for the Republicans: if they do not go en masse they will say that it is for lack of spirit. If there are people they will call them violent” had already said Trump. Continuing on the one hand to repeat to be in solidarity with those who “were unjustly arrested while protesting against the rigged elections” (according to that “Big Lie”, great lie, as the American newspapers have already renamed it for some time, according to which he is the real winner of the election). On the other hand, however, he kept well away from the event, spending Saturday in play golf at his resort in New Jersey. And the republican parliamentarians were not shown at the meeting, even though they spoke in favor of the rioters. Just as absent were the far-right groups, so much so that only a couple of Three Percenters flags were seen at the protest.
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