As with many other people, I’ve been watching the events unfolding in Washington with a mixture of anxiety and concern. While the situation remains confused, I thought it would be worthwhile noting some initial thoughts and observations about what took place, and also making some suggestions as to what that means for civic educators like myself; certainly, there’s an added urgency to the work of civics and citizenship educators
The first thing that I noticed is that the protestors seemed to be a very diverse group of individuals. As might be expected, there seemed to be the general alt-right kind fo grouping – male, middle-aged, heavily armed. There also seemed to be a mix of Q-Anon people – I think the only way to describe these people is as cultists. A large proportion of them seemed to be women, and I wouldn’t be too surprised if many of them were well-educated and well off, too. Already, we’ve heard reports of doctors, lawyers, government officials and elected representatives taking part in the attack. And then there are the more sinister individuals: the ones who, by some reports, flashed military or police ID, and certainly looked equipped to do more than ‘smash and grab’ – judging by their reasonably high level of equipment and they way they made use of it. And, it’s important to mention the out and out Nazis. The lines between all these groups are increasingly blurred, and perhaps the first thing to note is that it’s testament to the pull of Trump that he managed to consolidate these groups and then energise them to act in such a violent way.
The next observation is that, in many ways, these people are destroying the Republican Party. Of course, I don’t doubt that the GOP will somehow survive this, but in what shape or form remains to be seen. Perhaps what they are destroying is the thin veneer of decency that remained amongst Republicans. I’m put in mind of the bot that Twitter deployed to ban Nazis – it had to be discontinued because it kept banning Republican politicians. In the same way, these terrorists are what I call ‘Franken-Citizens’. Dr Frankenstein’s obsession ends up creating a monster who ultimately destroys him; there are some similarities here.
The increasing polarisation of the media – led, for the most part, by right wing press, such as Breitbart, and other, more extreme examples, and by more mainstream outlets and even politicians themselves, has highlighted the lack of trust increasing numbers of citizens have in what is reported. I imagine there is a degree of confirmation bias, too. Rather than there being any kind of discussion taking place, the two groups work at the opposite ends of the spectrum – connections are limited, and antagonistic when they do take place, for the most part. There is certainly no Habermasian dialogue here. And of course, the way that social media aids the spread of conspiracies, through the ease of sharing and publishing, only adds to the doubt and confusion sown across different platforms here.
At first, this worked in the favour of those seeking to create alternative narratives, and to ‘build the base’, but, just like Frankenstein’s monster, these groups have escaped the control of their owners, and now are being both productive, in that they are building their own narratives, their own stories, their won networks, but also destructive, as we saw in the assaults on the Capitol.