Webb: A virtual inauguration and silence

The inauguration of Joe Biden as the 46th President will be virtual due to the pandemic. There are some 1,000 invitations for Congress, past presidents and families. Washington, D.C., is in a bunker with thousands of troops and law enforcement because of the Jan. 6 riot.

Silence can be a loud voice for the loyal opposition and with the streets of Washington empty and heavily guarded an even greater optic for the nation.

After the riots at the Capitol, my advice to true Republicans and supporters of President Trump is to let the incoming president Joe Biden, D.C. elites — regardless of party — and the radicals who choose to enter the city have it to themselves. For those who respond immediately that protest is important, I am advising that for the moment you send a loud message with your absence, and if you choose, protest peacefully across the nation.

The president made it quite clear more than once that his supporters should be peaceful and lawful. Here were his exact words during the rally.

“Anyone you want, but I think right here, we’re going to walk down to the Capitol, and we’re going to cheer on our brave senators and congressmen and women and were probably not going to be cheering so much for some of them. Because you’ll never take back our country with weakness.

You have to show strength and you have to be strong. We have come to demand that Congress do the right thing and that only count the electors who have been lawfully slated, lawfully slated.

I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard.”

To the Democrats and the left this is “high Crimes and Misdemeanors by willfully inciting violence against the Government of the United States.” And they impeached President Trump for the second time. In the House of Representatives, this is a political decision not a legal charge. In doing so they have not only solidified more of the Trump base to the president but the additional 11 million+ voters that voted for President Trump and other Republicans in the 2020 election.

These 11 million+ voters are a significant increase to the Republican vote and a threat to the Democrats at the state level as well as in the House of Representatives where they hold a narrow margin.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) must separate Trump from his base in order to win elections and a fractured Republican base serves their purposes. Republicans in the House who chose to support impeachment aided the Democrats and as we’ve seen before will get nothing from it when Democrats are finished with their momentary support. Their constituents can make their choices in two years.

The left has weaponized effectively the optics of rioters regardless of their political or group affiliation and are attempting to use it to paint 75 million Americans as radicals. Intelligent people know this is incorrect but the pervasive and repeated language of insurrection, Trump cultists, right-wing extremists and deprogramming and other terms are being pinned unfairly on Americans of every background.

This combined with the now obvious suppression of the right on social media platforms like Twitter and YouTube, search engines and other big tech platforms is obvious for all to see. The hubris and effectiveness combined of the left is openly displayed by Katie Couric who states that 75 million Americans need to be deprogrammed and former Facebook chief security officer Alex Stamos who openly calls for de-platforming conservatives, One America News Network and Newsmax. So much for free speech. What was once derided as conspiracy by the left is now open warfare against conservatives and conservative thought leaders.

Even Martin Luther King Jr. in his “I Have a Dream” speech spoke of the totalitarianism of the Soviet Union and China contrasted with the freedom in America. I wonder what he would say today given the suppression of speech by big tech monopolies.

If any who reads this thinks that there will be some action in the coming Congress because of statements made by both parties in the past, you only have to follow the lobbying trail in Washington, D.C., to the House of Representatives, the Senate and the regulatory agencies.

Big tech is protecting big tech and their ideological preferences. Big tech gave millions overall to Joe Biden’s campaign and hundreds of thousands to Donald Trump. Competition by new social media platforms like CloutHub, Parler, and Gab are growing to existing social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. Millions have joined these platforms in the past week.

Americans need to see what we’re up against and those who would change the country from a constitutional republic to a socialist democracy with elitist control. The left has demonstrated that they will employ any method to achieve their goals. They are willing to accept support and contextualize Black Lives Matter, antifa and anarchist riots for months in conjunction with irresponsible political decisions during a pandemic to defeat an America first agenda. Now they see riots as bad because of the despicable actions of rioters in Washington on Jan. 6 which was contrary to four years of peaceful activities by tens of millions of Americans who support Donald Trump. As the president stated clearly, those that rioted on Capitol Hill are not truly supporters of the MAGA agenda.

We have a long and complex road ahead to put America back on track, an internal restructuring of the Republican Party as well as an outside effort. We need effective activism and in one word “effectivism.”

Webb is host of “The David Webb Show” on SiriusXM Patriot 125, a Fox Nation host, Fox News contributor and a frequent television commentator. His column appears twice a month in The Hill.