Just finished this live stream with Jeremy Johnson and Ryan Nakade. We discussed what to call the events earlier this week (“sedition,” “domestic terrorism”?), and the ways that eco-social reality has now merged with the electronic media environment.
"The safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato." —Alfred North Whitehead
Footnotes2Plato 
I would imagine that one might speculate that this occurred because of “fantasy” or “Q-Anon”, if you are coming from a “detached” point of view of the narratives of some participants. I hardly think that “detached” point of view is as detached as it might be believed to be. There are no conspiracies, just as there are no coincidences. There is much more going on beneath the surface of a few random interviews of the 1%, or so, who were storming the Capitol. This sort of superficial understanding of what really happened will be the undoing of the integral point of view if we don’t do a deeper dive into the populist movement which, by the by, is occurring in every first world country as we speak.
What I’m afraid of in the discussion is that some of our brightest academes and philosophers will totally miss the real forces at work today that will continue to drive conspiracy theories like Q-Anon and anti-vax, etc. The first clue in understand the world is how to follow the money, one thing that liberal minded, like myself, often fail to do. What we have here is not merely a question of delusional fears based in fantasy narratives. We have a battle for the soul of liberal democracy itself.
The populist movement, world wide, is a reaction to the GLOBALIST economy and the CCP who control most of the wealth and therefore power to manipulate the global population. While I can imagine my erstwhile friend in liberal academia thinking that globalization is good, that we should become one world; what they don’t seem to understand is that control of that one world has fallen steadily into the hands of a very small minority at the expense of their individual rights and freedom. Billionaire owned multinational corporations, interested only in the bottom line per their share holders, are inclined to collectivize per the CCP model of totalitarian capitalism.
The typical liberal minded, which includes myself, is thoroughly persuaded that such altruistic one world policies as open borders, free medical, free tuition, basic income, pandemic lock-downs, control of small business, restrictions on movement, etc., are keys to safety. However, these are also keys to totalitarian capitalism, for these are precisely how the CCP indentures its own massive labor force to produce literal everything we in first world countries are addicted to consuming.
In fact, most of mainstream media which, by the way, is owned by these same globalist billionaires and influenced by CCP money, are happy to augment the cry for these alleged keys to safety. Standing in opposition to world-wide dominion by the power wielding Billionaires and CCP are the populists, who have seen their small businesses destroyed and jobs removed by the globalist multinationals and their compromised influence peddling politicians who run DC and government institutions. It’s an employer’s job market when borders are flooded with untolded millions of unskilled labor seeking the free medical promised by Democrat leaders.
Last month, sources in China leaked the names of 2 million CCP operatives embedded in Western institutions who answer directly to Xi Jinping. I assume that some in China are unhappy with their longs hours and very low pays to make our all-important consumer goods made cheaply for the globalist billionaires who control the flow of wealth. The media was strangely silent about it. So was the Democrat party. President Trump and his admin were very clear that China, not Russia, was our number one threat. That too fell on deaf ears in the Biden camp. There was also the strange silence about the election fraud. Apparently, there was no fraud at all, according to them.
So, it’s a bit peculiar when all we hear about incident at the Capitol is that it was the result of a delusional conspiracy theory, or that election fraud is delusional. We don’t think it isn’t because half the population of the country believes they aren’t being heard because their liberal democracy is being stolen from them before their very eyes. They are told, no election fraud occurred, yet they have been watching and this is what they know:
https://thomisticthinker.com/skeptical-of-voter-fraud-in-2020-heres-your-evidence/?fbclid=IwAR0VpBJMIwugcY3RnHO_DRpgxfq8AqS7KLswE3gUvt8DQnpWvOXsbMO7SsA
Neoliberal globalism bad. China as new world power, also bad. But I cannot follow you into the “Stop the Steal” narrative about the election. There was legal review of all Trump’s claims in multiple states. Many Republican judges, including judges Trump appointed, shot it all down as baseless. Large numbers of Republican’s believe something was fishy because Trump and his GOP sycophants have been legitimizing that narrative for months now. The people who believe in Q-nonsense are suffering from a political class on both sides of the aisle that doesn’t give a shit about them. I have compassion for them on this basis. But to protect the constitutional order it is absolutely necessary to prosecute traitors to the full extend of the law. Sacking the Capitol during the certification of a presidential election on the orders of the losing president is not a joke or photo op for right wing LARPers to get more followers. It is treason.
You have to be kidding. What a laugh!