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The Democratic Party’s Praetorian Guard isn’t leaving any time soon. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin (the guy Joe Biden can’t remember the name of) announced Tuesday that 2,300 National Guard troops will stay deployed around the U.S. Capitol until at least May 28. For a minimum of four and a half months, the nerve center of America’s “civilian” government will be under occupation, with four soldiers on hand for every elected lawmaker. Leaked emails indicate there are already plans for keeping soldiers around into the fall.

Don’t be surprised if they stay even longer. It is now overwhelmingly clear that the only thing the Capitol troops are “protecting” is a Democratic political offensive against supporters of President Trump.

After the Capitol riot on January 6, the U.S. government initially deployed a ludicrous 25,000 Guardsmen around Washington D.C. In 1877, America had a mere 24,000 soldiers for a country of 45 million, 12 years removed from a civil war and still battling Indians on the frontier. Now, an army of that size is deployed just to protect the government against its own voters.

The truth, though, is that not a single Guardsman was ever needed in Washington. There was no coordinated plan to “attack” the Capitol en masse, before or after poor police crowd control allowed the incident on January 6. During her testimony before Congress on March 3, FBI assistant director for counterterrorism Jill Sanborn admitted that, to her knowledge, not a single firearm was confiscated at the scene of the Capitol riot, and the only shot fired was by police, not one of the protesters:

“How many firearms were confiscated in the Capitol or on Capitol grounds during that day?” Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson asked Jill Sanborn, the FBI official, during a Senate Homeland Security hearing.

“To my knowledge, we have not recovered any on that day from any other arrests at the scene at this point,” replied Sanborn, who serves as FBI assistant director for counterterrorism.

“I don’t want to speak on behalf of Metro and Capitol police, but, to my knowledge, none,” she added.

Sanborn also said that no shots were fired at the Capitol, save for the one fired by a police officer that killed Ashli Babbit, an Air Force veteran from California.

“I believe that the only shots that were fired were the ones that resulted in the death of the lady,” Sanborn testified, referring to Babbit. [Daily Caller]

Even now, exactly one person has been charged with illegally bringing a gun onto Capitol grounds. That charge, and all other gun charges against Capitol riot participants, have all been for illegally possessing weapons or accessories, not for using them in any manner to attack others.

So, the “threat” to the Capitol was a flimsy one from the beginning. Nothing since has changed that reality. Last week, the House canceled its Thursday work session. The justification was Capitol Police “intelligence” of a planned militia breach of the Capitol. Of course, the cancellation was a stunt; the Senate continued its work as normal and absolutely no threat materialized. Nobody genuinely expected one. Even the January 6 riot was the product of poor police crowd control, not any kind of organized “plan.”

Every remotely-plausible “threat” to the Capitol is something that can be handled just fine by the Capitol Police, provided they decide to do their jobs instead of be recklessly incompetent. Said police force has 2,300 personnel and an annual budget of $460 million, larger than the Atlanta police department. The idea that thousands of soldiers are needed to “secure” the Capitol for months on end is ludicrous.

But of course, that reveals the truth: The soldiers aren’t there to secure the Capitol at all. Their purpose is not military defense, but instead ideological offense. They are there to humiliate and intimidate Republicans and their supporters.

Free countries do not turn their legislatures into armed camps. The United States made it more than two centuries without permanent fencing around the Capitol, but now the Capitol Police are demanding exactly that. The fortification and military occupation of the U.S. Capitol is a fitting symbol of what America has become: A decaying and increasingly unfree empire, managed by a corrupt, dysfunctional, clownish and illegitimate ruling class that despises the people it governs.

For as long as the National Guard stays deployed around the Capitol, they are a political weapon in the hands of Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, and the collection of Democratic White House known by the synecdoche “President Biden.” The message they send, amplified by a compliant press, is “Republicans and their voters have put the republic in danger. We need a huge military force to protect us from the massive threat of right-wing violence.”

The omnipresent National Guard is a justification for a political state of emergency, an excuse to roll back constitutional rights and reduce conservatives and nationalists to a subservient role. And because Republicans have been trained to reflexively “support the troops” regardless of context, many elected Republicans have eagerly played along.

House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy took the pathetic position of trying to love the troops more, by complaining about their uncomfortable sleeping accommodations during the occupation:

Every time a Republican thanks the Guard for “protecting” the Capitol, they are handing a massive rhetorical victory to Democrats. They are conceding that the Capitol needs protecting, and specifically, they are conceding that the Capitol needs to be protected from their own supporters. They are indulging an authoritarian power grab, where ideologically-motivated tech companies crush speech everywhere that is goes uncensored. They are endorsing the hysterical claim that America is in the grips of a “domestic insurgency” requiring military-style force to stop. They are accepting the fake reality where Antifa is “just an idea” and last summer’s murderous riots were “mostly peaceful,” but the Capitol intrusion requires an “unprecedented” national manhunt that has already brought charges against more than 315 people, with hundreds more still under investigation.

The Globalist American Empire has declared war on the American people, and is using all of its resources, including our men and women (and transgenders) in uniform, to assist in its intimidation efforts. This is not theoretical, and it is not a game. The entire media ran with a blood libel narrative accusing Trump supporters of murdering a Capitol Police Officer named Brian Sicknick, “bludgeoning” him to death with a fire hydrant. Revolver News exposed this false narrative in an explosive and viral piece, forcing the New York Times to issue a retraction. But it was never about the truth— the damage is done and the table is set, and normal healthy Americans who object to the power grab of the Globalist American Empire are what’s for dinner. Merrick Garland, who was recently confirmed as our next Attorney General, has made it clear that his top priority is prosecuting this domestic war against MAGA.

Republicans must stop going along with this assault on their voters. The Democratic Praetorian Guard must be removed. The party should be using every obstructionist tactic available to demand the immediate removal of all troops from the U.S. Capitol, and the resumption of normal civilian government. Yet only a handful of Republicans are loudly saying what is obviously the case. One of them is Congressman Matt Gaetz of Florida. who recently pointed out the truth of what the Capitol occupation has become.

“Americans are going to hear about reviews and commissions regarding Jan. 6 and I’m here to tell you they’re about one of two things. One: hunting and destroying MAGA. And two: justifying the continued occupation of Washington D.C.,” Gaetz said on Fox’s Tucker Carlson Tonight. Another dissenter is Congresswoman Lauren Boebert, who General Russel Honoré recently advocated putting on the no-fly list for her views. Boebert wasn’t cowed, and just days ago released an ad demanding that Congress stop being treated like Helm’s Deep.

The rest of the Republican Party must join with Gaetz and Boebert in demanding an end to the phony war around the U.S. Capitol. If they must, they should consider going further. Republicans should refuse to meet in a Congress that is occupied by a military force meant to terrorize their own supporters. A political party is only worthy of support when it looks out for the interests of its voters and of the country. And right now, by accepting the gross military occupation of the Capitol, most Republicans are doing neither.

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