W. J. T. Mitchell
You will not be able to stay home, brother
You will not be able to plug in, turn on and cop out
You will not be able to lose yourself on skag
And skip out for beer during commercials, because
The revolution will not be televised.
–Gil Scott-Heron (1971)
The Trump-inspired insurrection at the US Capitol on 6 January 2021 was a made for television event. In contrast to the revolution that Gil Scott-Heron was urging in 1971, it did not involve a change of heart or mind, much less a change of behavior. Showing up for a “wild time” was enough. Sticking to your guns, and better yet, bringing them along. Acting out and dressing up for a selfie was enough. Waving a flag and shouting slogans was plenty. Breaking a window, sitting on a dais, stomping on a fallen policeman was a bit extra. Scouring the office spaces for a member of Congress to kidnap or kill was more than enough, and setting up a gallows for Mike Pence was excellent theater.
The thirteen minute “supercut” of the video archive assembled by the House of Representatives’ impeachment managers condensed the entire spectacle, cross-cutting three distinct, simultaneous lines of place and time: (1) Trump’s speech near the White House with its incendiary call to march on the Capitol and “stop the steal” known as the peaceful transfer of power; (2) the main spectacle of the mob surging into the Capitol carrying the American flag along with banners of the Confederacy, QAnon, and Trump; (3) the quiet scenes of mounting anxiety inside the Capitol as the Congress realized that its defenses were crumbling. If an eighteen minute “gap” in an Oval Office tape recording spelled the end of the Nixon presidency, this thirteen minute video played the same role for Trump. His defense lawyers recognized this when they accused the house managers of employing professional film editors to manipulate and manufacture evidence.[1]
The Trump epoch, gestated by reality TV and birthed by a popular vote defeat and an electoral college victory in 2016 ended with a spectacular bang not a whimper. Hopes that the defeated coward would slink away into retirement faded when he turned out to be the authentic psychopath and malignant narcissist that the American Psychiatric Association had been describing since before his election. Psychiatrist Jerrold Post’s final public appearance to promote his book about Trump, Dangerous Charisma, included precise descriptions of what would happen during the transition period between the election and the inauguration: not merely a refusal of the results but a manic spree of lawsuits, rallies, conspiracy theories, and threats of a military coup. Post‘s theory of charisma involves what he calls a “mirror psychosis” endemic to leader-follower relations. It is clearly one bridge (there are surely others) between individual and collective forms of madness. Charismatic individuals tend to be narcissistic in the first place, but when their wounded narcissism becomes malevolent, coupled with paranoia and grandiosity, they can become dangerous. Especially when acted out with the powers of the American presidency.
6 January 2021 exposed those dangers for all to see in the most completely televised revolution in human history. It will continue to resonate as more details surface from the archive and the time line is reconstructed down to the minute. The subgroups, lost souls, tourists, militants, and voyeurs will be exposed. Were you there to see or be seen? What did you really think would happen? What was the outcome you were hoping for?
The behavior of the First Spectator of the event, bathing in enjoyment in the Oval Office will begin to fill in. We might learn how he felt about the gallows; we already know about his affection for monuments of the Confederacy. All his darkest desires were made manifest, bringing to the surface what had been lurking in his language all along, and in the specific American psychoses (racism, white supremacy, predatory capitalism). All the hints, metaphors of violence, and sly provocations suddenly became literal and spectacular; Trump’s lawyers tried in vain to remetaphorize the “fighting words” by creating a counter-montage of Democratic politicians using the word, as if context of utterance, speech as action, was irrelevant.
We can hope that 6 January 2021 be the final spectacle of the Trump regime, its obscene underside finally exposed completely to view. The big question remains: What sort of beginning did it threaten? What did this unmasking of an endemic pathology in American national culture accomplish? Did it reveal an awful truth that has the capacity to awaken a nation to its own madness? Or will it (as many of the insurrectionists hope) stand as a historic triumph for White supremacy and fascistic nationalism? The very idea that a nation, much less an individual, could awaken from a collective psychosis may be impossible. The fact that the word woke has now become a sneer to chide anxious liberals is a sure sign of steadfast resistance and disavowal. The American dream, always a comforting delusion of an exceptional destiny, has become the American nightmare.
The television coverage created an unrivaled spectacle, emphasizing both the “big picture,” provided by the iconic architecture and landscape of the Capitol invaded by an overwhelming mob, and the innumerable little pictures, the closeups of agonized cops being stomped and crushed, the faces of frenzied rioters, the absurd images of militia members rifling through Senators desks and arguing about the meaning of the papers found there. Dozens of journalists armed with cameras accompanied the invaders, and the mob members themselves carried enough cell phone cameras to ensure that not a moment went unrecorded. Meanwhile, outside the building, rioters set about destroying the equipment of the main stream media (the “fake news”), blissfully unaware that the most comprehensive audio-visual archive ever made of an insurrection was being assembled in real time by their own traceable cell phones.
How can we grasp the choreography of the masses that gathered to perform at a sacred national temple whose symbolism dates back to the founding of the “USA”? The crowd chanted those letters (and other three-syllable slogans coined by Trump—“Stop the Steal,” “Hang Mike Pence”) as the rhythmic accompaniment to its movements. Superficially, the crowd was a chaotic mob, in sharp contrast to the geometries of Siegried Kracauer’s “mass ornament” of the Tiller Girls’s precision line dancing, an emblem of capitalist rationalism. Or the massed dancers of George M. Cohan’s “It’s a Grand Old Flag”:
Trump’s mob was an exact inversion of Cohan’s dancers, following a more archaic choreography, complete with a charismatic cult figure (already being compared to a Golden Calf), a gathering, parading, and demonstrating the vulnerability of American democracy to a premodern style of military siege and sacrilegious ritual. Wall climbers and columns of militias snaking through the crowd led it toward access points of the sacred space, where sacrilege and the instruments of public execution were put on display.[2] Most notable was the relation of the Trump insurrection to the landscaping and architectural form of the Capitol. The crowd’s movements followed the geometric laws of political power as expressed in built space and the radial lines of force indicated in the Washington, D.C. street plan. The Capitol sits on a hill, the highest point in the city, visible from everywhere. It sits at the center of the enormous geometric web of radiating lines and concentric circles that emanate from it. If there is a symbolic center to American power, it is there, not the relatively modest White House or the Supreme Court.[3] The route of the crowd, from its starting point on the ellipse near the White House, precisely mapped the narrative of an insurrection incited and inspired by the executive branch against the legislative, reversing the normal direction of the inaugural parade. Abraham Lincoln insisted on continuing work on the great dome as a symbol of American unity during the Civil War, and the presence of Confederate flags waving under that dome gave the whole scene a sense of uncanny reenactment or of an alternate history and a possible future.[4]
If the Capitol is primarily a place of assembly, the building itself is a kind of “assemblage” of the generic conventions of neoclassicism. No single architect of any note can be assigned as its “author.” Its history is one of constant renovation, expansion, and remodeling, often delayed or stymied by the contentions of the legislators assembled under its roof. All the same, the overall impression remains one of monumental unity, the central dome and two wings symbolizing the rational balancing of powers within the deliberative branch of the government, the House of Representatives standing for the rapid fluctuations of public opinion, the Senate symbolizing the more settled, “older” branch, resistant to the passions of the moment. As an architectural allegory of the nation and its constitution, it is the “first” and most important branch of the government, the place where the nation does its thinking––and therefore, where it periodically goes undergoes a “change of mind” induced by an election.
The analogy of architecture with the human body goes back at least as far as Vitruvius.[5] Exterior walls are the skin, the supporting structure is the skeleton, rooms are internal organs, the windows are eyes, the porches and doors are orifices for hearing/speaking, and the façade is the face. But the analogy does not stop with the individual body. In governmental structures, the metaphor extends to the “body politic,” a collective entity that, like an individual organic body, possesses a constitution that is more or less healthy, a structure that can endure and survive stress, just like a well-made building or a healthy body. The “framers” of the US Constitution regarded themselves as just that––architects of both structures and landscapes, and as designers of a mentally healthy body politic, constituted with a “balance of powers.”
The dome is thus the most conspicuously readable feature in the analogy of building and body. It is the head, the skull under which the collective “brain” of the nation takes shelter. The circular row of columns that supports the dome are the “thousand eyes” of a panopticon, admitting light and scanning the horizon in all directions. The association of domes with sovereignty and the heavens goes back to ancient times, and in its modern, secularized form becomes a symbol of popular sovereignty by the demos, the rule of the people as contrasted with the (temporary) head of state in the White House.[6] The Capitol, therefore, is deliberately an open, rather porous structure at ground level. Just the opposite of a citadel or fortress, it is vulnerable to invasion by design, and radiates its power and attraction outward in all directions.
So the mass ornament of 6 January 2021 derived its meaning from the backdrop against which it occurred, the stage set, as it were. Despite the chaotic and random appearance of the crowd, it rapidly became clear that significant numbers of the mob were following a choreographed plan, namely to penetrate to the center of the building and seize by force the power it symbolizes on behalf of one man. The threats to “hang Mike Pence” and the efforts to locate various Democratic legislators and take them hostage or murder them were designed to literalize the metaphoric relations of building and bodies.
Once inside the Capitol, the spectacle’s strange combination of absurdity and menace became evident. While some invaders were furiously searching through the offices for potential human targets, pounding on doors, others were like awestricken tourists, strolling through the Rotunda, carefully respecting the roped-off pathways across the open space. In the Senate chambers, rioters began quarreling among themselves about whether they should vandalize the space or respect its sacred character. One authoritative elder draped in military garb admonished his comrades that this was strictly an “informational mission,” and nothing should be damaged. A lone cop pleaded with the group to leave. And the QAnon Shaman howled like a banshee from the gallery above, then descended to arrange a photo op of himself occupying the chair of the President of the Senate.
The historic character of this spectacle was rendered instantly legible, with the comparisons to the British invasion of Washington in 1812 leading the way on the nightly news, while the rioters themselves (and their media allies) presented their activity as a replay of 1776.[7] In the made for TV spectacle, members of the intoxicated mob posed for selfies, while masked stage managers lurked around the edges, coordinating siege routes for the masses. Many members of a crowd that would ordinarily refuse to mask themselves in recognition of the contagious virus, masked up to preserve anonymity like ordinary criminals. Others, recognizing the historical importance of the spectacle, wanted to brag about their presence at the overthrow of American democracy, and posed brazenly next to statues of presidents or stationed themselves in positions of symbolic authority, feet up on Nancy Pelosi’s desk.
Another aspect of the spectacle has to be acknowledged, one that might not occur to someone who is steeped (as is this author) in the aura of the Capitol.[8] What about those viewers who see that building, not as an allegory of democratic openness and freedom, but as itself a monument to American imperialism and white supremacy? The easiest way to reframe the spectacle in this way would be to image an alternate scenario. What if it had been Black Lives Matter marching down Pennsylvania Avenue? Does anyone think that a demonstration by people of color, Latinx immigrants, or Muslims would have penetrated the Capitol’s defenses so easily? Would the “optics” have been so accommodating?[9] Would some Capitol police officers have taken selfies with the protestors and ushered them into the building? The bizarre irony of a White supremacist mob overwhelming a citadel of white power takes the spectacle beyond mere shock into a surreal fantasy of some very dangerous chickens coming home to roost, clearly feeling that they had every right to be there.
What will stick in memory? The mass against the backdrop of the Capitol? Or the individual portraits and the banners? What does it mean that Jacob Chansley, the QAnon Shaman, with his horns and Coyote pelt, has become the iconic figure? Was he there to personify the “mana” or magic of the mass?[10]
Even for the most devoted insurrectionists, it put the whole spectacle in danger of becoming a clown show. In many ways this was the final Trump Carnival-as-Carnage, where Lords of Misrule and Anarchy have always been tolerated. The Shaman presents himself as an avatar of “native Americanism,” as a composite of animal attributes, elaborate Nordic tattoos associated with white supremacy, face painted with national colors. He is evidently a compulsive performance artist who has been showing up at Trump rallies for some time. But I wonder how welcome he was among the more serious insurrectionists, the ones who came for violence. It must have made them uneasy, as if he were presenting a satirical caricature of the event, rendering it not only a tactical military failure, but a symbolic fiasco.[11] The QAnon Shaman is also the Fool or Clown at the carnival, the “licensed Fool” who personifies the mad magical thinking of the tribe. One of Trump’s ex-lawyers tried to circulate a rumor that he was a member of antifa, carrying out a “false flag” operation.[12] But the flags––Trump and Confederate most notably––made it clear that this carnival was a symbolic reenactment of the American carnage of the Civil War that Trump invoked four years earlier at his inauguration. Has Trump come full circle? Back to the clownish one-man band of his apprenticeship? Or are these images of a possible future, a rehearsal of sorts?
One issue that haunts this entire argument: What is the status of psychiatric language in diagnosing the American psychosis? The unleashing of psychiatric discourse into the public sphere is not without its dangers, a reduction of the language of mental illness too little more than polemic and accusation. On the other hand, as Jerrold Post argues, psychiatric understanding of anti-democratic, authoritarian leader-follower relations includes an ethical “duty to warn.” The Goldwater Rule, which protects the privacy of individual mental disorders from public exposure, clearly has to be revised for dangerous public figures. Those who are “woke” to the madness of the moment will have to adopt a politics of care for the enemy, and recognize that they too are inside the nightmare. We may want to put the dangerous leader in jail or at least keep him out of office. But we must try to understand his followers, to see the world through their madness.
In short, it looks as if liberals have to find a way to care for our deluded fellow citizens with patience and firmness. There is something deeply rotten in the USA at this moment, reminiscent of the onset of the American Civil War. The daily news of families and long friendships falling apart over political differences, of shunning and censuring those few Republicans who stray from fealty to Trump is deeply alarming. Even more ominous is the strong majority of Republican legislators who, in the immediate aftermath of the insurrection, actually voted to ratify the goals of the mob by nullifying the election. The election of Joe Biden to the presidency, supported by a narrow and fragile majority in Congress seems to signal a return to normal after the madness of the Trump epoch and its final episodes of plague and insurrection. But “normal times” are a comforting delusion we will have to move beyond if the republic, not to mention the planet, is to survive. After all, the status quo is a state of emergency for millions around the world.
A state of emergency is the new normal.
[1] See defense attorney David Schoen‘s speech to the Senate, “WATCH: David Schoen Defends Trump in Senate Impeachment Trial,” Youtube, 12 Feb. 2021, www.youtube.com/watch?v=gKkHeLQXwBw
[2] The Oath Keepers used a military tactic known as the “stack,” where a line of soldiers with arms on the shoulder in front of them penetrated to the front of the guard and led the break-in (Alan Feuer, “Oath Keepers Plotting Before Capitol Riot Awaited ‘Direction’ From Trump, Prosecutors Say,” New York Times, 11 Feb. 2021, www.nytimes.com/2021/02/11/us/politics/oath-keepers-trump-investigation.html).
[3] The symbolism of Pierre L’Enfant’s “sacred design” for the layout of Washington D.C. has been documented exhaustively in Nicholas Mann’s The Sacred Geometry of Washington, D.C. (Somerset, 2006).
[4] See Siegfried Kracauer, The Mass Ornament: Weimar Essays (Cambridge, Mass., 1995).
[5] See Philip D. Plowright, “Extending Skin: Architecture Theory and Conceptual Metaphors,” ARCC Conference Repository (Sept. 2018): www.arcc-journal.org/index.php/repository/article/download/552/441/
[6] See Earl Baldwin Smith, The Dome: A Study in the History of Ideas (Princeton, N.J., 1950).
[7] The British actually set fire to the Capitol in 1814. A timely rainstorm prevented its from burning down. See The US Capitol Building website, www.nps.gov/nr/travel/wash/dc76.htm
[8] I want to acknowledge the timely advice of Omar Kholeif in thinking through the final drafts of this very provisional essay.
[9] Paul Irving, Sergeant of Arms of the House of Representatives said he wasn’t comfortable with the “optics” of treating this as an emergency (Laurel Wamsley, “What We Know So Far: A Timeline Of Security Response At The Capitol On Jan. 6,” NPR, 15 Jan. 2021, www.npr.org/2021/01/15/956842958/what-we-know-so-far-a-timeline-of-security-at-the-capitol-on-january-6
[10] For an account of the link between ancient ritual and revolutionary crowds, see William Mazarella, The Mana of Mass Society (Chicago, 2017).
[11] The QAnon Shaman was later accused of being an agent of antifa. The charge is false, and he has since expressed regret for being part of this.
[12] Trump defense lawyer Lin Wood appears to be the source of the “false flag” attribution of the insurrection to antifa moles. The lie has been repeated across the right-wing media, including Fox News. See Spencer Sunshine, “I’ve Been Tracking the Far Right for Years. Then Lin Wood ‘Exposed’ Me as the QAnon Shaman,” The Daily Beast, 3 Feb. 2021, www.thedailybeast.com/how-the-far-right-made-me-the-false-face-of-the-dc-insurrection. In the video documentation of the police being crushed by the mob in a tight corridor, the black clad Proud Boys (they dressed especially for the occasion) started chanting “we are antifa,” as they pressed against the police. For the video track, see twitter.com/exposingterror1
In the Moment 