The GroundUp was once the alternative to the college newspaper at New Mexico State University (The RoundUp). The GroundUp always had a leftist take on politics and was connected with various student political organizations. The author of this piece, Leon Escobar, was an old school member of Aggie Solidarity. To the Aggies readers, always know that The GroundUp always respects its roots.
On Jan. 10, 2021, Professor David K. Clements decided to respond to an internal email from President John Floros regarding the riot that occurred at the capitol building on Jan. 6, 2021. Clements decided to speak to the university staff and Floros via YouTube and Rumble in order to, you know, maintain professionalism and decorum and really protect people’s voices.
It seems that Clements had some major gripes about the letter — that never explicitly mentioned president trump or republicans, but tonally condemned them — and how Floros characterized the right-wing mob as being a mob and being right-wing. Clements also didn’t like how the mob’s concerns weren’t addressed:
“How can they be right-wing when we don’t even know them? How can they be characterized as a mob when the Summer Riots of 2020 weren’t characterized by President Floros as such? How can we certify the election when there’s a legitimate set of electors defined by law, and self-appointed ones who don’t like them?”
He raised some other points in the video, which I will be unable to address for the sake of length, but these are the questions that so compelled him to “NOT. BE. SILENT. ANY. LONGER.”
What Were Their Political Leanings?
Professor Clements has some reservations on the political leanings of the crowd that appeared at the capitol. It’s hard to tell who these people actually are, and he shared some videos supporting this fact. Interestingly enough, his first video is of a self-proclaimed trump supporter. In the video, the trump supporter states, “We stormed the fucking capitol. And for all you bitches on Facebook going crazy right now, talking about it was antifa [doing the infiltrating] and that it wasn’t us. It was us. We proudly took back our capitol.” Clements watched the video twice and states, we “heard a man who is clearly not [a trump] supporter, who was there.” Tone is so important to Professor Clements from an e-mail, but not in a video where an admitted trump supporter scoffs in disgust at the idea of being associated with “antifa.”
He shared another video of a man from an unknown location describing antifa being brought in by the bus load, and then the man shared videos of shuttles. I find it particularly surprising that he is unable to find a single person wearing an antifascist logo (examples being the black circle with three downward slanting white arrows within or various colored flags in a white circle with a slimmer circle around the first circle with text reading on top “ANTIFASCIST” and text on the bottom reading “ACTION”) considering their monopoly on the usage of shuttle buses. But, I guess Clements will illuminate that mystery in a video down the road.
I guess, I’ll answer his question by considering the simplest explanation and using the circumstantial evidence at hand in order to satisfy Clements’s curious mind with my own questions: Were the insurrectionists carrying right-wing flags, or left-wing flags? Were the insurrectionists wearing right-wing hats, or left-wing hats? Were the insurrectionists trying to “Take back their country” from the right-wing, or left-wing? Was trump addressing the crowd of right-wing insurrectionists, or left-wing insurrectionists? Was the right-wing arguing that the election was a fraud, or was it the left-wing? In the aftermath of the capitol visit, is it right-wingers being investigated and arrested, or is it left-wingers? I think if we look deeply within ourselves and apply some critical thinking, the obvious answer to Clements is that “It just isn’t that obvious…”
Why Are The “Right-Wingers” A Mob?
This one had me stumped at first. When I typed in “mob definition” the first definition provided to me was “a large and disorderly crowd of people especially: one bent on riotous or destructive action.” Call me a “libtard,” but I think that a crowd that breaks windows, ransacks offices, kills a police officer and injures others, climbs over barriers and leaves pipe bombs meets the definition of a mob. I know that liberals are often prone to hysteria and emotion, but that definition befits the group of people at the capitol, to me.
I guess his larger point is actually why the demonstrators of the BLM protests aren’t referred to as a mob or riotous while the “trump supporters” are. Well, that’s an absurd comparison. The trump supporters rioted because they perceive that their country was taken from them based on an “illegitimate election.” They believe this lie because conservative media and conservative politicians fueled the lie. BLM demonstrated against the existence of rampant police brutality applied to people of color. There are many ways in which people of color are oppressed in the united states, and these demonstrations were ONLY in response to policing. And the hammer was brought down upon them at these demonstrations by the police.
BLM protestors were met with tear gas, and batons, and rubber bullets largely before any rioting actually took place. And we also know that many right-wingers tried to instigate the riots in order for more harm to be brought upon BLM. Ivan Harrison Hunter was arrested for shooting up a Minneapolis Precinct [during the protests] and the infamous “Umbrella Man” was outed by Minneapolis Police as being a white supremacist. Right-wing tactic are to infiltrate and blame the left-wing; we don’t have evidence of the opposite. Yet, even as we know this, we can see the juxtaposition of the two types of demonstrations: the largely white and/or Conservative group is met with open arms while the largely black and/or Liberal group is met with thuggery.
How Could The Electors Be Certified With Rivals Throwing Their Hats In The Ring?
This one is the easiest question to answer, but will largely be the most controversial. While it is true that different states have the right to set up their own electoral process per the u.s. constitution, members of the electoral college or electors only vote after the results of a state’s election have been submitted to congress via a Certificate of Ascertainment to congress and the National Archives. Now, it is theoretically possible in battleground states, for example, for the governor and legislature, each representing a different political party, to submit two different election results to congress who then certifies the results. So, the “rival” or “dueling” electors aren’t rivals in the sense that the state legislature or governor conclusively certifies the election results for the state, they are rivals in the sense that the legislature or governor would be vying to call “dibs” or call “shotgun” on the results that congress ultimately legitimizes. State electors may then vote, but state legislators or governors do not have the power to certify elector votes. And typically, state legislatures do not create a separate slate of election results because the tradition is that the governor is the person who sends the slate of election results to congress and in the case of the 2020 election, no state legislature created a separate slate. But if there were separate slates submitted to congress, the different slates would be evaluated and a determination process, potentially involving the supreme court would be made. It would not simply be a silent decision where the first result to be discussed in congressional chambers wins. So, beyond the fact that there were not actually dueling slates, a governor or state legislature would not be able to call “dibs” on their slate and concomitant elector votes if the importance of their slate lost to congressional or supreme court decision because the decision of elector certification is ultimately out of an individual state’s control because it is only congress that certifies electoral votes. This is how the electoral college operates and anyone who says otherwise really shouldn’t be taken seriously. Unfortunately, in this case, that means Professor Clements.
The rest of the video consists of Professor Clements griping about the same perceived victimhood that has launched other conservatives like Jordan Peterson. In fact, Clements is using the exact same model: Be Conservative, feign outrage, claim victimhood via censorship, go against the “establishment,” make a video addressing concerns and share it across multiple platforms and become lauded as an “intellectual.” It’s a tried and true method. If successful, Tucker Carlson invites you on his show and further evidence for how the university system is liberal and further, radicalizing, exists. If unsuccessful, you got fifteen minutes of fame: the united states’ ambrosia.
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