Over the past couple of weeks, rumors circulated that a big pro-Trump rally would be held in Washington, D.C. on September 18. Dubbed “Justice for J6,” the event was organized to support political prisoners who have been detained indefinitely for their participation in the January 6 protest of what most Trump supporters continue to believe was a rigged 2020 presidential election.
Former President Donald Trump himself, doing his patriotic duty, warned the FBI that the Sept. 18 event was “a setup” but, apparently, the agency did not listen. Then again, perhaps it eagerly anticipated another opportunity to stage a bogus “far-right” act of “domestic terrorism” to make up for its recent embarrassing failure to pull off the kidnapping of Michigan's governor, Gretchen Whitmer.
Whatever the case, the Bureau, with the help of Capitol Police, managed to stage an enormously entertaining piece of public theater that set social media ablaze with ridicule. As a few hundred Trump supporters and what appeared to be thousands of reporters looked on, police officers waddled around Capitol Hill, looking like black versions of the Michelin Man in their laughably impractical riot gear. Had any of them needed to pursue someone more than a hundred yards, they would no doubt have collapsed in exhaustion.
Uniformed U.S. Capitol Police wasn't the main attraction, though. A group of men unwittingly became a viral sensation as they attempted, presumably, to portray themselves as “right-wing extremists.” These men, who looked distinctly like plainclothes federal agents or police officers, have now been immortalized in meme form. Clean-cut, with their high and tight hairstyles, dark glasses, and tactical watches, they presented a clownish spectacle. If there was any real justice in America, they would have been detained by the Fashion Police for their hideous t-shirts, shorts with rolled-up cuffs, and long, dark socks.
It might be time for a serious congressional inquiry into what FBI instructors are teaching at Quantico, these days, if indeed these men were from the Bureau, as most suspect. How could anyone – let alone supposedly top-tier law enforcement investigators – think this is what Trump supporters look like? Do they imagine Oathkeepers or Three Percenters or Proud Boys dress up like a group of fathers attending a birthday party for one of their eight-year-old daughters? How do these people successfully conduct any undercover operations? Do their agents infiltrate Mexican drug cartels wearing sombreros and ponchos and sporting huge, fake mustaches?
Of course, it's possible they weren't really undercover agents. They may have been off-duty Antifa activists on their way back from a shopping spree at the Gap and gearing up for a sleepover. Or, they could have been just a regular bunch of guys on their way to a Village People concert. But whoever they were, they will now live forever in the minds of highly amused Trump supporters.
In another incident filmed by onlookers and quickly spread far and wide across the interwebs, police detained an armed and masked man who had obviously decided to make a more sincere effort to blend in by wearing white-framed sunglasses. Clearly, he hadn't fooled law enforcement officers, who must have thought they hit the jackpot; discovering a violent pro-Trump “extremist” who had come to commit murder and mayhem. When they searched the man, however, the first thing police found was his law enforcement badge (oops!). Instead of being thrown to the floor, cuffed, and dragged away – as he would have been if he was an actual Trump supporter, armed or not – the undercover agent or officer was politely escorted away from the crowds by a large number of clearly embarrassed police offices.
After being overhyped by Democrat politicians and their approved media outlets, this Washington rally was a theater of the absurd. Mr. Trump's foes had clearly hoped for violence and unrest on a scale that would legitimize the nutty claims they continue to make about the 45th president’s followers in general and the “far-right” in particular. As it turned out, the federal government's apparent efforts to manufacture another “attempted insurrection” were exposed as a farce.
As opposed to the hype and advance preparations that proceeded the Jan. 6 demonstration, this event enjoyed little publicity ahead of time; it seems evident most Trump supporters didn't even know it was going to happen until they read about it in the papers. So, the heavy presence of undercover law enforcement offices – whether police or federal agents or both – leaves one with no choice but to wonder how many of the troublemakers on Jan. 6 were, in fact, government infiltrators.
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Read more from Graham J. Noble.
