Within virtually any group there will always be leaders and follower. However, even among these divisions there are those who remain faithful to the core values of the group, and those looking to exploit the group for their own agenda or pleasure. Yes, even among the followers.
This is universal and there are never exceptions.
So, among Conservatives there are leaders and followers. Among the followers are those who understand the core beliefs of Conservatism, and those who have simply latched onto a group to belong to. Leaders are expected to have a deeper understanding of the core principles and philosophies of any group and followers, not as much. It would be nice if the followers took more time to comprehend those values, but that would be one of the reasons they are followers and not leaders.
It’s anyone’s guess, given any random gathering of Conservatives, how many are “principled” followers and how many are non-committal “hangers-on”. My guess is that it could be as much as 50% and as little as 80/20%. That being said, absent any leaders, it becomes easy to convince a group of followers to do almost anything as long as the reason given is consistent with the understood goals of the group. Followers will be followers.
That brings us to January 6th, 2021.
It was well understood that the election had been stolen by mid-November and people were expecting their leaders to do something about it. However, it has been an unspoken rule among leaders to not question election results unless you are desperate. (Yes, Democrats are often desperate) So we had Fox News and the majority of Establishment Republicans frowning on the idea that the 2020 election results were invalid, in spite of the abundant evidence that they were.
In spite of the rhetoric, the FBI has concluded that the protest on Jan 6th had not been organized. It was an organic event, spurred by the callous theft of an election and the apathetic response by those in charge. However, that doesn’t mean that as word spread, others weren’t making plans to exploit the leaderless gathering.
Antifa came in droves as did the FBI (existing now as an arm of the DNC).
Given the lack of leadership the efforts by Antifa as well as the FBI to convince members to act violently created confusion. Some recognized both and avoided them. Others thought they were being given instruction by leaders. In the midst of the confusion the percentage of followers that were there for no other reason than to shout and protest, and had no real philosophical attachment to Conservatism other than as a random group to belong to, saw the encouragement by Antifa and the FBI as yet another fun way to cause trouble.
The event has been called “deadly” by the Liberal Media, in spite of the fact that the only people who died were murdered by capitol police. For a group known for gun-ownership as well as avid support for the second amendment, there were few guns present (as opposed to virtually any Antifa protest)
Many of the principled Conservatizes, caught up in the group-think of the crowd, egged on by Antifa and their partners in the FBI, foolishly participated in what they believed to be a legitimate protest. Of course the unprincipled hangers-on simply did what they always do, and followed the crowd.
We learned from all this that there is indeed two Americas and Conservatives are held to a standard that doesn’t exist at all for Liberals. Antifa can burn buildings and even murder people and be called “peaceful protestor” while a Conservative entering the Capital at the invitation of Capitol police are called rioters, criminals, terrorist and treasonous. Liberal can commit the exact same acts a year later and have all charges drop and Conservatives remain imprisoned for a year and a half with no charges being brought.
The travesty of January 6th is how cruel, unfair and dishonest Democrats can be and suffer no consequences at all (Yes, I’m referring to the Jan 6 Commission and the Justice Department) .
