It’s the Police, Stupid.

First of all, let’s get the terrible takes out the way.

What unfolded on Capitol Hill yesterday was not an attempted coup by Trump supporters. Look at them. Do these people look like they can take over a government?

This was not an instance of white privilege. Of cops unintentionally revealing their bias to white protesters. Check out, for example, how they responded to a peaceful protest by white disabled activists. White privilege is not the same thing as white supremacy.

This wasn’t, as a reporter on CBS suggested, a consequence of police exhaustion after the the BLM protests in the summer.

Now that the worst takes are out the way let’s just recall some basic facts.

The US police are the most militarised in the world. More than most countries’ armies in fact. Literally. They get their gear from the US war machine. The following images are tanks used by police in *small towns*.

This is obviously nothing compared to what the police bring to the table in major cities *especially in the nation’s capital*. This, for example, was what met the BLM protests over the summer. Our own SAS could not have breached this line. Let alone a couple of hundred mulletted flagwaving 50 somethings with Type 2 diabetes.

What happened of course is obvious. And if it wasn’t obvious, it’s on tape anyway. The police opened the gates and marched the protesters into Congress themselves.

And if there was any lingering doubt about the fact the police are on the same side of the protesters, here they are taking selfies with them inside the House.

We shouldn’t be surprised by this. We know that the police is a haven for far right extremists. We also know that the police are fanatically pro-Trump.

I also don’t think it takes much of a sleuth to work out what is going on here.

Cast your mind back to New York a few years ago. Bill de Blasio was elected Mayor of the city on a manifesto for police reform. It was off the back of a number of high profile murders of black people by the police. The public was behind him. Needless to say, it didn’t go well.

Much is made of this scene when hundreds of police turned their back on de Blasio in a coordinated protest.

Much is also made of the police doxing and smearing and lying about de Blasio’s daughter.

But the main response from the police to de Blasio’s efforts was to simply stop doing their job. While de Blasio still entertained the idea of police reform the NYPD officers made two-thirds fewer arrests and wrote 94% fewer tickets.

The tactic known as the “Blue Flu” has actually been used all over America. If politicians even so much as hint towards mild police reform then the police stop doing their job. The results are obviously catastrophic for the politician concerned. For the record, de Blasio has been grovelling for forgiveness ever since.

Is it too much of a leap to suggest this is what happened here yesterday?

Cast your mind back to the summer’s protests. More to the point, cast your mind back to the response of the liberal wing of the political class. Democrats began talking about radical police reform. Some even began talking about “defunding the police”. Centrist Democrats kneeled in Kente cloth. Corporations lined up to embrace “black lives matter”.

Yes it wasn’t serious. Yet it was hypocritical. Yes it was narcissistic. Put the emptiness of the solidarity to one side for a moment. Is this something the police would simply accept? Is this something they would take lying down?

This is how they responded to liberal journalists for just reporting what was happening over the summer.

We need to stop thinking of the police as servants of the state. They are a multi-billion dollar industry with the lobbying power of a multinational corporation in Washington and uncontested command of every street in America.

The US is not descending into a police state. Not yet. The ruling class in this country are divided — and as the last election revealed, predominantly lining up against Trump with Wall Street, Silicon Valley and the CIA siding with Biden’s Democrats.

But what happened yesterday was not subtle. It was a political stunt to counter the BLM and defund movements. It said “We are beleagured, understaffed and under resourced. We need more funding not less”. Above all though it was a brutal message to the Democrats that betrayed them over the summer. It said “We do not serve you. You serve us.”

This is the real story from yesterday. Biden’s instinct is always to conciliate and compromise to his right, but even he — very uncharacteristically — was forced to criticise the police.

The GOP meanwhile are predictably closing ranks with the police.

Time will tell how this all plays out. I suspect it will be in the police’s favour though. It almost always does.