Yesterday’s inauguration was by all appropriate measure the most secure inauguration in the history of the United States. The U.S. Secret Service and the other protective partners deserve all due credit for a job well done in their implementation of a highly effective mixture of both due diligence and vigilance.
A Blessing In Disguise?
Timing is everything. Horrible as the attack on the Capitol Building was, as grossly negligent and criminally complacent as the Capitol Police had been in allowing that insurrection to happen, perhaps that attack did serve as a blessing in disguise. That attack ultimately served as the shot-across-the-bow to bring clarity to security shortcomings and brought a cultural clarity to the forefront of all our minds as to what was most important -- the inauguration. Without that act, the inauguration would most likely have been secure, but would it have been positioned to be as vigilantly protected as possible?
America has always done two things very well: complacency and hyper-vigilance. We are either living our lives under the false sense of security that nothing is going to happen, or -- in the aftermath of getting slapped across the face -- we go so up-and-right in our hyper-vigilance that we are patting down grandma and then force-fitting her wheel chair through an X-ray machine before she’s even allowed into a ballpark.
If the most unsafe day to fly in America was September 11th, 2001, then the safest day to fly was most certainly the very next day. And if the most complacent the security on Capitol Hill had ever been was January 6th ... then the most secure time on Capitol Hill was yesterday: January 20th.
All I’m saying is that everything happens for a reason. And timing, is very often, everything.
But in all seriousness, job well done by the Secret Service. Job well done indeed.
Unforced Errors
As the ramp-up to the inauguration took center stage, some politicians could not seem to get out of their own way. I found it quite hypocritical to hear so many political leaders commenting on how much of a priority it was to secure the inauguration for the preservation of democracy but then in the very next breath admonishing the protection process to the nearest journalist with a camera. One popular opinion of the politicos was just how insulting it was to them for the FBI to conduct background checks on the National Guard members who had been sent to D.C. to help. It shocked me how many of them thought it was absolutely appalling to call into question the loyalty of a soldier.
Photo Credit: Military Times
I don’t know if they thought that courting support for the armed forces would curry them some favor, but as a veteran myself, I certainly took no offense to the background screening process -- soldiers are routinely vetted all the time. This is precisely why I could not believe how many politicians were fumbling their own credibility by denouncing such a standard operating procedure.
Any junior staffer should have been able to inform their boss that if you want to take part in a National Special Security Event -- and you don’t already hold a top-secret clearance -- then yes, the FBI is going to vet you. It is literally a legally required mandate.
Loyalty As Currency
There is a very big difference between questioning someone’s loyalty and questioning where that loyalty lies. Every single one of those insurrectionists who stormed the Capitol Building two weeks ago believed themselves to be loyal Americans. The underlying issue was that their loyalty was more aligned with Donald Trump than to Joseph Biden.
Again, this is why the FBI ran the background checks. And then -- low and behold -- what did they find? Twelve National Guard members did have something in their background to be cause enough to remove them from inaugural duty: two for outright having been either sympathetic too or directly affiliated with support groups involved in the Jan. 6th attack, and 10 others for having what the FBI cited as “a number of different reasons.”
What did all of those politicians have to say about that?
You guessed it: not a thing.
On High Alert
With so many eyes on the security apparatus taking shape, last week did see a lot of security-related developments. These were not just in terms of arrests being made by the Justice Department as they tracked down those involved in the attack on Capitol Hill, but we also saw the resignation of the Chief of the Capitol Police; the resignation of the Sergeant-at-Arms of the Capitol Building; and perhaps most worrisome, there was “the” FBI memo.
The memo, which was shared internally throughout the law enforcement and intelligence community, put something of an exclamation point on just how rife with dissent some 300,00 people on message-sharing communities and online message boards like GAB and TELEGRAM really were. The memo’s rather dire wording warned of a “high likelihood of armed protests in all 50 states in the days leading up to and after the inauguration.”
Videos and posts on Facebook, Telegram and YouTube -- all stemming from alt-right, QAnon, and militia-centric corners of the political spectrum -- predicted Trump would take over the emergency broadcast system to declare martial law and arrest prominent Democrats.
And so, around the country in Capitol cities, in all 50 states: the warnings went out; the alarm bells rang; the barricades went up; the police stood prepared; and then....
Nothing.
...nothing of note anyway.
On Friday, a Virginia man was arrested after trying to drive through a check point with fake credentials. He was armed with an unlicensed handgun and more than 500 rounds of ammo and was immediately taken into custody by Capitol Police.
On Monday, a fire at a homeless encampment led to a brief lockdown of the Capitol complex and upended an inauguration rehearsal. The rehearsal was suspended out of an abundance of caution more than due to any clear or present danger.
And on Wednesday morning, a bomb threat was called in targeting the Supreme Court -- which sits just across the street from the Capitol Building. The building itself and the surrounding grounds were checked, but nothing was found, and the building was not ordered to be evacuated. (The Supreme Court Building has also been closed to the public for the past several months due to the pandemic.)
Game Day
By the time the cameras turned on and America tuned-in, everything appeared to be in place to ensure a safe and successful inauguration. And despite Jack Tapper tweeting out the worrisome concern that was at least on my mind, everything went as planned.
Lady Gaga sang the national anthem. J-Lo performed “This Land is Your Land.” Kamala Harris took her oath of Office. Joseph Biden was sworn in as the 46th President of the United States. President Biden gave what I thought was a very good speech, and then Garth Brooks sang “Amazing Grace.”
Photo Credit: AP
And it all took place without incident. A peaceful transition of power once more setting the democratic standard for the world to follow.
And even throughout the rest of the country, there seemed to be peace in the land.
Here in Austin, there were more Biden supporters at the State Capitol Building than there were supporters of former President Trump.
And from what I have been able to ascertain from the rest of the country’s media, it appears Capitol Cities in the other states were reporting pretty much the exact same situation.
Mark Leggiero is the one lone Trump supporter out in front of the NYS Capitol. He says he expected a few thousand ppl here and is disappointed. He said he drove 45 minutes for a peaceful protest pic.twitter.com/hDtCLYFpLq
— Morgan Mckay (@morganfmckay) January 20, 2021
By late Wednesday afternoon, America seemed to have returned to normalcy, and by this weekend most roads will be re-opened, National Guard members will return to their homes, police officers will report back to their duty stations, and barricades and bike racks will go back to wherever they get stored until the next time they are needed.
Tomorrow’s Concern
But my biggest fear in nothing having broken bad is that people will think that nothing bad today will mean nothing bad tomorrow. Or the next day. Or the day after that. After all, that is the very essence of The Safety Trap: just because fears have been abated does NOT mean that risk no longer remains. Because it does. Perhaps more so now than ever before.
Just because there was a strong protective presence around the country today which served as a direct deterrent to attack, does not mean that same protective presence is going to be there tomorrow.
Just as a house that has all of the lights on, the smell of a grill in the air, and the sound of kids playing in the backyard pool is a deterrent against someone breaking into your home -- because their likelihood of success is low -- does not mean your home offers that same level of deterrence when your family is away on vacation.
Same goes for all of the soft targets that were originally intended for attack. Just because the bad guys tipped their hand and let us in on what they were planning to do, does not mean they won’t learn from their mistakes and implement those factors into the next phase of their attack plan.
Another concern lies with all of those disillusioned QAnon and alt-right believers; they will now be ripe for recruitment by militias, white supremacy groups, other far-right neofascist movements like the Proud Boys, and so on. So many “Stop the Steal” supporters have attached their identity and have invested themselves in like-minded community that many will seek comfort in any organization willing to embrace them as one of their own.
The Militia Movement
Let me be very clear: far-right militias pose the greatest current domestic threat to the national security of the United States.
Now, this is not to say that America does not have foreign concerns, or that the far-left does not have their own foothold in domestic disruption, but the truth is: the overwhelming majority of militias in the United States cling to a right-wing ideology, their activity is widespread, their sphere of influence is growing, and their numbers are growing.
Photo Cred: WSJ
Even though there are those who will say there is nothing here to fear because militia membership numbers took a downward turn for two years between 2017 and 2019 -- which coincided with a higher-than-normal approval rating of then President Trump, a robust economy, and a low rate of unemployment -- the troubling facts are that militia enrollment numbers have been on the rise since the outbreak of the pandemic. And as of this month’s reports, many protective intelligence forecasts have militia enrollment numbers trending upward to an all-time high over these next few months.
Which means that everyone from the Justice Department at the national level to the police departments at the local level will need to be aware of the very real risk that these groups represent and should be prepared and ready to respond should their efforts to do harm escalate from mountain-side training camp antics to downtown armed insurrection.
The Trump Factor
And perhaps the most consequential variable in how all of this plays out is how these fringe groups believe Donald Trump is being treated during the impeachment trials these upcoming weeks. If Trump is somehow able to create, or take hold, or establish some kind of an auxiliary bully-pulpit from which he can communicate directly with all of his disenfranchised followers, then ... well ... we may really have a tough time on our hands.
So...fair warning.
Striking a Balance Between Awareness and Preparation
Now, I’m not saying this to scare you.
I’m not positioning myself to monger fear.
But I am here to tell you that the threat of domestic terrorism exists, that we should be cautious about that reality, and that we should not so much live in fear of this concern -- but rather -- strike a balance between being aware and being prepared.
And that begins with a willingness to participate in your own protection.
If you know how to look both ways before you cross the street, then you can teach yourself to think twice before allowing yourself to be compromised by an overly emotional decision.
The three biggest safety traps to which most people fall victim are: complacency; over confidence; and being too polite. All three of these are easily correctable. If we are just willing to participate in our own protection, we can teach ourselves to prepare today for a safer tomorrow.
Because at the end of the day, everyday safety really does require the participation of everyone. And a healthy sense of skepticism coupled with a moderate dose of vigilance are a small price to pay for the liberties and the freedoms which flow so freely from peace.
Onward. Upward.
Work. Sweat. Win.
—Spencer Coursen
