A facebook friend posted an image of the million man march of 1995 which noted they did not storm the Capitol. This interested me on two levels: one, why not? and why January 6?
My first reaction was that 1995, despite being only 26 years ago ( I can say ‘only’ because I am 70 years old), was a different planet than our current habitation. This also lead me to think about how ‘progressives’ – the rather semantically clever label the Left now use – see Donald Trump and the January 6 riot as causes, not effects. No Trump, no storming of the Capitol.
In the 1990s, but with roots in the financial upsets of the 1980s (the savings and loan debacle, the 1987 stock market collapse), American (and therefore Canadian) manufacturers moved production out of the country to places such as Mexico, China, BanglaDesh, etc. These factories were the backbone of mid-western prosperity. They provided jobs from floor sweepers to executive offices. This hollowing out of the middle of the country was largely ignored by both Democrats and Republicans. The U.S. system runs on money donated to campaigns and the money came from those benefiting from globalization. The natural advocates of the losers, the unions, were of course also hollowed out by the closure of factories and the loss of union members and their union dues.
Donald Trump was a result of this destruction of the economy of a section of the country that used to provide much of national wealth. He was not a cause, I repeat, but a result. It puzzles me still that ‘progressives’ do not see this and continue to be in their turn, puzzled or angry. As a citizen of America’s colonial north in Canada, I see this weekly in my current home in Hamilton, Ontario a former manufacturing centre. Every garbage collection day I chat with those (mostly male, but a few women) out collecting bottles and cans to sell for scrap to supplement their welfare cheques. I live in the same house today I did in 1995. There were no people out scrounging through trash in 1995 in my neighbourhood. Gun violence and street gangs and the drug trade have grown alongside and and as a product of globalization, even here in kind and gentle Canada. There was nothing of this sort in 1995 here. At least our street gangs are multiracial and multicultural!
I would argue for the possibility (if not probability) that the assault on the Capitol that January day was a sign that those suffering from the new order understood who was to blame. I suppose they could have attempted to assault Google, Microsoft or Apple headquarters. A Congress of both Democrats and Republicans who care more for the source of donations to run election campaigns than they do about serious internal economic problems, brought a realization that only Congress could alleviate the destructive aspects of globalization. None of the rioters were armed, by the way and the one officer who died and received a politicized funeral, turned out to have died of natural causes. As for 1995? Well this was largely about black men, about race and at a time when the impact and effect of globalization was not yet obvious and it was not yet obvious that Congress did not care for voters, but only for campaign donations.
i will need now to do some research on when businesses began to globalize and move production out of the U.S. and therefore Canada, and which companies…. also some stats on how much money is donated by whom to whom…..how many no longer bother to vote (a sign of understanding that representatives now represent wealthy donors, not voters), etc. etc.
An Historian looks at the West 