The Prism Metanews Guide to January 6th - Part 3 Prism Audio

This segment is the third of four parts that comprise this voice essay. You can find this episode on Apple Podcasts here.
Chapter 9 - The Bat Signal
Ali Alexander stepped up to the microphone. It was the evening of January 5th, a cold night, on the streets of Washington, DC. Tens of thousands had come for the big day. Trump had called them there. Alexander had helped. Behind him on stage was a banner, upon which was emblazoned the words, in all caps, “MARTIAL LAW NOW.”
For a bit of context on what Alexander had been up to since we last checked in on him, I’m going to read a quotation from a deep dive that Right Wing Watch did on him this year. Begin quote:
“Alexander spent weeks in the lead up to the Capitol insurrection calling for ‘rebellion,’ starting chants of ‘victory or death,’ and using rhetoric of the American Revolution and spiritual warfare to call for action should Congress certify the election of President Joe Biden. He engaged in violent rhetoric, appearing to even advocate for physical attacks against members of Congress who he said stole the election. 
“The Jan. 5 rally served as the penultimate event of those calls. Speakers delivered Christian nationalist messages and veiled threats of violence if Congress failed to reject Biden electors. Bikers for Trump founder Chris Cox told rally-goers that the United States was on the brink of a revolution and that he would ‘take the first bullet.’” End quote.
So here was Ali Alexander, addressing the Stop the Steal mob, and he used the opportunity to once again encourage extralegal remedies to the imagined wrongs the country had been put through. With the events planned for the next day, the rhetoric could not have been intended to be metaphorical or theoretical. He wanted to see this crowd do some things. “Our government is only our government if it is legitimate,” said Alexander to the crowd. And, further: “1776 is always an option.” They were there to start “a rebellion against the Deep State,” referencing a conspiracy theory about anti-Trump forces in the federal bureaucracy and the national news media. The Trump followers in attendance joined him in chanting “Victory or death! Victory. Or death.”
In the final days before January 6th, the many machinations I talked about in parts 1 and 2 came together. We’re finally ready… for the final act.
We first rewind a bit, though, to December 19th. The primary call to action, the one that got people seriously making plans to come to the nation’s capital, was a tweet by President Donald Trump. The tweet was in two parts. First, a “boat parade logic” lie that it was “[s]tatistically impossible to have lost the 2020 Election.” Second, an invitation: “Big protest in DC on January 6th. Be there, will be wild!”
A lot of people saw Trump’s tweet. Some of them immediately started working to ensure the big protest, then three weeks away, would indeed be WILD. Ali Alexander went out and nabbed the website wildprotest.com, which urged visitors saying “TRUMP WANTS TO SEE YOU IN DC.” Dates paired with images signaled where the action would be and when: Jan. 5 near the White House, Jan. 6 at 9 am at the White House proper, and Jan. 6 at 1 pm at the Capitol dome.
Okay, it’s time we talk about Proud Boys, and Oath Keepers, and a smattering of lesser extremists, all bent on using force to keep Trump in power.
These militant groups saw Trump’s tweet and reacted quickly and in ways that clearly foreshadowed violence. They were going to war, and this tweet was the bugle. Some set up encrypted communications channels; many acquired protective gear. The Oath Keepers coordinated to have heavily armed “quick reaction forces” staged outside Washington, which they did in the days just before the 6th, stockpiling weapons in hotel rooms. Their communications channels got, in their words, “apocalyptic.” At the same time, Trump’s tweet kicked off a rash of right-wing threats