Tag: insurrection

Briefings

Background Briefing: December 26, 2021

On By gram

 

January 6, 2021’s Broadcast With a Reporter on the Ground Who Covered The Storming of the Capitol

In this last week of the year between Christmas and the New Year as the year comes to a close, we look back on Background Briefing’s coverage of the major stories of the year 2020 and start with the incident that dominated the year and continues to haunt us and that is the seditious coup attempt against the United States government instigated and urged on by none other than the President of the United States. Earlier Trump had called his supporters to the nation’s Capitol on the day of Congress’s certification of Joe Biden as the next president and then addressed them at a rally encouraging them to march on the Capitol. Our broadcast on that day began with an interview with Will Sommer, a reporter covering conservative media for The Daily Beast who covered the crowd as they marched on, then stormed the capitol, breaking windows, strewing garbage and even writing graffiti on Speaker Pelosi’s desk. We discussed the makeup and the mood of the pro-Trump supporters who showed up in the thousands and overwhelmed an unprepared Capitol Police, quickly breaking through the cordon surrounding the capitol then storming and entering the building itself.

 

The Congressman Who Led the Second Impeachment of Trump on Insurrectionists in Suits from the October 17 Broadcast

Then we go to Background Briefing’s broadcast on October 17 of 2021 with Congressman Adam Schiff, a member of the House Select Committee investigating the January 6 insurgency, and we discuss what he calls the insurrectionists in suits who continue to threaten our democracy. The Chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, Congressman Schiff led the first impeachment of Donald Trump and before that served in Congress, worked as an Assistant U.S. Attorney in Los Angeles and as a California State Senator. We discuss his new book, Midnight in Washington: How We Almost Lost Our Democracy and Still Could and the insurrectionist in suits and ties who now populate Trump’s Republican party which is whitewashing what happened on January 6 by trying to turn traitors intro martyrs while abandoning American democracy in the GOP’s determination to cheat rather than compete to hold onto power indefinitely.

 

How QAnon, Stop the Steal and White Supremacy Coalesced Around Trump From the November 9 Broadcast

Then finally we go to an interview from November 9th with Kathleen Belew, a Professor of History at the University of Chicago and a leading expert on the white power movement, vigilante violence, and political extremism. She is the author of Bring the War Home: The White Power Movement and Paramilitary America and her latest book, co-authored with Ramón Gutiérrez, is A Field Guide to White Supremacy. She joins us to discuss the three strands coalescing around Trump, the Q-Anon movement, the “stop the steal” movement and the white supremacy movement.