The Attack on the Capitol and the Question of Complicity

Statement by the Party for Socialism and Liberation The paralysis that gripped the U.S. capitalist establishment in the aftermath of the Jan. 6 Trump-instigated, fascist-led assault on the U.S. Congress and the continuing threats from armed fascist organizations came to an abrupt halt on Jan. 12 with the public letter sent to all members of the U.S. military signed by the eight generals who comprise the Pentagon’s Joint Chiefs of Staff. The statement read: “The violent riot in Washington, D.C. on January 6, 2021 was a direct assault on the U.S. Congress, the Capitol Building and our constitutional process … [and was the result of] sedition and insurrection.” The letter sent to more than 1.3 million members of the armed forces by the Pentagon top brass is a clear sign that they are worried that military forces were being drawn into or participated in the seditious conspiracy. This letter comes after the extraordinary Jan. 3 statement from all ten living Secretaries of Defense warning the officials in the Pentagon to not allow the military to be used to alter the 2020 election outcome. Also on Jan. 12, leaders of the Republican Party began to defect from Trump. Rep. Liz Cheney, the 3rd ranking House Republican, announced that she would vote for impeachment and Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell let it be known to the media that he thought Trump had committed impeachable offenses. This constitutes the first real break within the Republican leadership against Trump. Cheney said, “The President of the United States summoned the mob and lit the flame of this attack,” adding, “There has never been a greater betrayal by a president of his oath of office and to the Constitution.” House Republican Rep. John Katko, the top Republican on the Homeland Security Committee, said, “To allow the president of the United States to incite this attack without consequences is a direct threat to the future of our democracy.” Also on Jan. 12, the FBI organized the first press conference where Acting United States Attorney for the District of Columbia Michael Sherwin declared they had initiated “a significant international counterintelligence or counterterrorism operation” whose “only marching orders from me are to build seditious and conspiracy charges”. Sherwin announced that 70 had already been charged, charges against 100 more people were being prepared, and noted “That number, I suspect, is going to grow into the hundreds”. Steven D’Antuono, assistant director in charge of the FBI’s Washington field office, stated, “The brutality the American people watched with shock and disbelief on the 6th will not be tolerated by the FBI,” adding that “The FBI has a long memory and a broad reach”. Powerful tech companies have also come together to ban Trump from using social media platforms on the basis that he used these same networks to incite a violent assault against the seat of government. Trump is banned from Twitter, Facebook and now YouTube as well as many others. On the same day, a large number of capitalist corporations, banks and other institutions took action to break from any association with Trump or his family-owned company. Deutsche Bank, which has been Trump’s primary lender for decades, announced their decision not to do business with Trump or his company in the future. The Trump Organization owes Deutsche Bank more than $400 million. The PGA said it would no longer hold the PGA Championship at Trump National Golf Club in New Jersey which had been set for May 2022. Universities stripped Trump of honorary degrees. Shopify, the company that serves e-commerce sites, closed to online stores tied to Trump. The online payment platform Stripe will no longer process payments for Trump’s campaign website. Read the full statement here: https://www.liberationnews.org/the-paralysis-ends-trump-fascism-and-the-capitalist-state/