We Uphold Our Ancient Heroes

 

Avitos Juvamus Honores The 182nd Infantry Regiment is the oldest regiment in the United States Army. The regiment traces its history more than 230 years, when it was a colonial regiment of foot of the British Crown in Massachusetts. It is one of several National Guard units with colonial roots and campaign credit for the War of 1812. 

For someone about to metaphorically hanged for treasonous wrongness, Wictor is upbeat on the underground forum. The fact that Pence has called to congratulate Harris, and that Trump has spoken of the "Biden Administration" is treated by him as surface deception by Trump. Leftists only care about what you say, he says. It makes it easy to deceive them. Trump has to deceive even his own followers.

Biden is, he reminds us, the legal President-Elect, given the counting on January 6 in the Capitol. Trump is following the rule of law and the Constitution. But all of that can be turned around in a day, he says. Congress could meet to re-certify the Electoral College on Tuesday, declare Trump the winner based on the alternate slate of electors, or invoke the 12th Amendment, which would also lead to the House electing Trump just in time to be inaugurated for his second term.

D.C. is armed camp swarming with troops, all of them called in by Trump. The oldest unit in the Army, the 182nd, has announced it is coming. Wictor has noticed Marines arriving in helicopters in the posted videos. He scolds those who want him to say they are there to arrest the Democrats. No evidence for that. All we can say is that they are there, but we know not for what purpose.

Trump does, however. He personal command of them via his direct control over the District of Columbia National Guard (as the District has no Governor, and the Mayor of Washington has no power to call them in).

What on earth is Trump up to? Just making a big show of force, locking down the District like a military complex with razor tape fences around the Capitol? All of this to slink off to Mar-a--Lago and leave Biden in command of this giant deployment of over 25,000 men? Why would he do that?  It seems like way too many for any legitimate threat from either his own supporters or the other side? Even the Mayor of D.C., a Democrat, has said as much.

Perhaps it is just to have a beautiful ego-driven military send-off as he flies away in Marine One, to go to Air Force One for one last trip, to drop him off in Florida. It will be a big version of the halftime show at the Army-Navy game last month, which was played in West Point for the first time since World War II (it is usually played in Philadelphia). 

The crowd that day gave Trump a massive cheer as he came onto the field before the game. The enlisted military and the junior officer corps is one of the few quarters of American society where one can be openly pro-Trump without fear of reprisal. The senior officer corps is different. My impression is that higher up you go, the more likely you find anti-Trump swamp creatures in uniform.

Trump has spent much of his first term re-organizing the military for this moment. He created new branches that effectively bypass the entire previous swamp-creature chain of command, including the civilian Secretaries. He gave control over one of them to Mike Pence and another to Christopher Miller, both of them seemingly the perfect men for the job at this moment.  

At the way to that Army-Navy game, Trump met with the Director of National Intelligence, who probably told him about the foreign involvement in the election. Later the DNI gave him an official report. On January 7,  the DNI signed a letter confirming his belief in foreign interference in the election, specifically by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The DNI specifically mentions that previous statements from the intelligence community (IC) that The CCP party was not involved were made at the suggestion of Chinese analysts.