New Year, Same Old, 6&7. Of Coup d'états.

Forty years ago next month, there was a session of the Congreso to choose the Prime Minister of Spain. The background was not boding well. Ever since Franco's death in 1975, the Spanish Armed Forces had not been content. Separatist ETA had been killing people. The unemployment statistics were high, and so was inflation. The legalization of the Communist Party was the ultimate straw for many of them, and they began plotting. At the afternoon vote on the 23^rd of February, Lieutenant-Colonel Tejero of the Guardia Civil led 200 Civil Guards into the chambers of the Congreso, crying out, “Quieto todo el mundo!” (Nobody move!). After a brief scuffle with an Army General who refused to comply, Tejero fired a shot into the air. That was followed by a machine gun burst, also into the air, by one of his followers.

For the following 18 hours, the Congreso was held hostage, all that was happening going on the air because the radio station, SER, kept its mics open up in the press gallery. In the rest of Spain, only a division of the Army joined the insurrection, in Valencia, where tanks hit the streets. The rest of the military did not join in, and King Juan Carlos called out Tejero and his followers, asking them to put down their arms because they would not succeed.

The rumors surrounding the coup included the belief that the King was in on it. In fact, his old tutor, General Armada, went round to the Palace, and offered the King the head of the government, suspending the democratically elected government for a short while, to avoid another dictatorship. Apparently, he refused, and Armada went to Tejero in the Congreso. Tejero, still firm in his belief that the King would come and take command, rejected the refusal. From this, rumors have sprung up, and they are not hard to believe. Perhaps the King really was involved, but upon seeing that the majority of the Army refused to second the uprising, pulled back. Perhaps he realized that if he pressed forward without the full support of the Army, he would be heading for exile, just like his grandfather Alfonso XIII had done, after the dictatorship he had supported fell apart into the Second Republic.

That was Spain in 1981, recently emerged from a dictatorship, with a long history of coup d'états in its past. Yesterday was 2021, in a country with a history of over two hundred years of peaceful transitions of elected power. What the hell happened?

What happened was what happens when a country becomes complacent, and elects someone to the highest office who calls out to the basest emotions. Donald Trump should have been removed by invoking the 25th Amendment as soon as he first started to go berserk, shortly after being elected. His enablers should also have been removed because it was highly obvious that their interest in being in the government was not looking out after their electorate, but looking out after their thirst for power, much like little Gauleiters. Yesterday should have been the fire in the bunker, and the conflagration of all that is tearing the United States apart. Unfortunately, even if Trump is taken out, kicking and screaming, it's four years too late. His hunger of power and his followers' poking of the fires of hatred and sedition will not end what they started four years ago by January 20th. This storming of the Capitol, and seditious gatherings in various states, is just the beginning. As long as Trump and his cronies are given a voice, their lackeys will listen and do their bidding. 

The press is at fault for this. From the first moment Trump began campaigning in 2016, he did not deserve air time. His views would not have gotten audience if he hadn't been allowed to spread them far and wide through news outlets and social media. His white supremacist followers would have remained scattered and unempowered if he had not had his words spread far and wide. But, he was a strange new thing on the campaign trail, a buffoon who spoke such drivel it made most educated people laugh. But his drivel found fertile soil, and it became the fertilizer that sustained this crop of pure and utter hatred.

Because this is hatred that is talking. It is hatred of all those different. It is hatred of all that is good and fair, and kind. It is hatred of what really is the basis for the foundation of the United States. Yesterday, before this even began, I was in a Facebook argument with someone who defended Trump. The last arguments were about sending money abroad for gender studies in Pakistan (I don't even know if money has ever been allocated for that or not, I simply followed the other person's argument.). I replied that it was all about geopolitics and education. An educated populace would eschew violence and terror, and actually be a good thing for the U.S. She replied by asking if I was on drugs. I answered that education was far more effective, even though a missile would be quicker. Charity, however, did begin at home, and a course or two of studying the writings of the Founding Fathers, and the philosophy that influenced them, would be a very good idea, because civics education was woefully lacking in the United States. She didn't get it, at least at first. 

These Trumpists do not understand why the United States was founded. They know nothing of the exercise in 18th century rationalism that begot this country. However badly it was interpreted in the early years, taking into account only the members of society with some standing, leaving others in the cold, that exercise has blossomed into a nation that attempts to take into account all of its members. That exercise is in dire risk of disappearing. 

Life continues. Let's hope the United States, does, too.