© Carter Chill 2023
“FREEDOM”
Say what you want about the Union Market Motel Six, the bathroom has great acoustics.
“FREEDOM”
Perfect. The cry resonated throughout the second floor. Housekeeping checked to see if everything was OK. The guy from Room 205 pounded on the wall.
Jacob Chansley was evolving. He meticulously applied his trademark red, white, and blue face paint. He slipped into a pair of leather fringed pants and matching beaded moccasins. The final touch was the buffalo horn headdress fit snugly onto the noggin once diagnosed with Schizotypical Personality Disorder. He was no longer Jacob Chansley, the Storekeeper Apprentice booted out of the Navy. He was no longer Jake Angeli, the failed actor, and Glendale Community College dropout living with his Nana. No longer was he a vaguely psychotic, socially incompetent, perpetual fuck-up. The transformation was complete.
He was Q-anon Shaman, the Yellowstone Wolf.
“FREEDOM”
Jan 6th was a day of promise. Chansley’s pilgrimage to the Capitol was a long trail of MAGA rallies, 4-Chan conspiracy porn, and mushrooms. For months, breathless Q-Anon influencers proclaimed that the “Reveal” was coming. Fox News sustained a nightly drumbeat of pundits raising manicured eyebrows over “this whole Dominion thing.” President Trump said it would be wild. Surely, the Storm had finally arrived. This would be the day that The Donald would lead them to the promised land. The stolen election would be overturned, Hilary Clinton arrested, and the Satanic Cabal revealed. With any luck, he might even get on TV.
“FREED…..HOLY SHIT”
It was 7 degrees at the Capitol on Jan 6, with a brisk North wind. It was bitchin’ cold in the Swamp. Whatever fur there was on that headdress wasn’t going to help his exposed nipples. Lesser men would have instantly recoiled, retreated , booked a late checkout, and ordered room service. Not Chansley. The Wolf pranced around outside half naked all day while the posers around him snuggled in their North Face survival gear. After all, George Washington didn’t have thermal gloves crossing the Delaware.
You want heroic? You want commitment? Now that’s a Shaman.
All the warmth Chansley needed that day was the glow from the two hundred thousand kindred spirits at the Capitol Mall. The MAGA show was in town. It was a glorious sight. Real Americans rallying to stop a stolen election. American Firsters. Americans against Commies. Godly Americans. White Americans. More White Americans. American Militias. Americans who couldn’t get dates for their high school prom. Proud Boys. Oath Keepers. You Tubers with their moms.
Trump had called, and verily they had come. The fire in their bellies had been stoked by decades of brimstone from Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Alex Jones, and Sean Hannity. But the wad in the flash pan was the ultimate bombast: Donald J, Trump.
One of the biggest mysteries in American political theater is how a formerly Democratic New York financial elite with a reputation for sleazy business dealings, and wanton womanizing became the darling of ultra conservative, evangelical, white republicans. At his core he was a condo salesman on steroids. He was rich, flew on a private jet and plastered his name on skyscrapers and golf resorts. His greatest con was to re-brand himself as a man of the people. A regular guy. Salt of the Earth. Someone you could grab a beer with, if you happened to be in the LaGuardia General Aviation lounge waiting for your Gulfstream to fuel.
Like Chansley, Trump had morphed into a heroic figure emblazoned on the silk screen banners and flags sold throughout the Capitol Mall on Jan 6. Trump caricatured as Rambo; Trump’s head on an American Eagle; Trump in shining armor; Trump on hats, shirts, flags, coffee mugs, and keychains. The Merch was everywhere. It was equal parts insurrection and Lollapalooza.
On the main stage the opening acts were in full voice. Giuliani, Mo Brooks, Don Jr, Eric and Lara revved up the crowd to fever pitch. It’s hard to determine just how many in the crowd were violent insurrectionists on Jan 5. But by Jan 6, it was obvious that a critical mass of the mob had embraced the flammable rhetoric in earnest. Giuliani suggested trial by combat. Trump said you have to fight. Then came the tweet revealing the appalling treason of Mike Pence. No one listening mistook that dog whistle for anything other than marching orders. Dutifully, the crowd headed to the Capitol building to make things right. Everyone slinging red meat at the wolves at that rally knew guys like Chansley weren’t parsing dialectic nuance. Chansley might have won best dressed lunatic at the affair, but he was no lone wolf. That crowd didn’t need encouragement. All they needed was Trump to jab a stubby finger towards the Hill.
Chansley was already there.
“FREEDOM”
Video footage shows the Shaman entering the Capitol Building through a broken window toting a six-foot spear with an American flag attached. Eventually,he made his way to the House of Representative’s Chambers. He moved deliberately, partly out of relief that he was inside where it was warm, and equally confused that he had been able to stumble into the inner sanctum of the most powerful government on the planet dressed for a Buffalo Bills tailgate. So who’s the Schizotypical now, bitches?
That august chamber was mostly abandoned by the time Chansley found it. Senators and Representatives had been herded out clutching gas masks. Reportedly, Mike Pence had stood his post gallantly right up to the point where the Secret Service showed him pictures of the gallows being constructed outside. Now, Chansley sauntered up to the deserted podium and addressed those cowering in the balcony gallery above, long since abandoned by their more senior colleagues.
“FREEDOM” The acoustics were even better than the Motel Six.
The lights were on, and the ride was open. He wrote a pithy note to Pence and basked briefly in the glow of that one shining moment. No one could ever take that away from him. Ever. Not even his defense attorney.
Despite his barbarian garb, he was nominally decorous A badly outnumbered and obviously distraught Capitol policeman politely suggested that he leave. Please. He paused for a brief minute and then complied peacefully. As he left, his gait was infused with a step heretofore unknown to him. Dignity.
He was last seen sauntering down the halls towards the exits backlit by the gathering sunset streaming through the jagged remnant of broken windows.
“FREEDOM”,,,,
”FREEDOM”,,,,,,
”FREEDOM”,,,
He disappeared into the familiar anonymity of the mob. But by the end of the day, he was the poster boy for the Jan 6 Insurrection.
In every riot, mob rule sweeps up innocents. There were no doubt folks that day wondering just how they ended up in the DC lockup looking at actual jailtime.
Chansley wasn’t one of them. You don’t gear up for the “Lord of the Flies” without at least owning your own existential pose. The Yellowstone Wolf wasn’t worried about getting back to third shift at Walmart. He spent the next three days posting selfies of himself crowing at Pence’s podium. He exalted in his newfound notoriety. He would grant interviews to anybody who asked.
When the FBI showed up with handcuffs, he didn’t waver. From the back seat of the black suburban came the muffled,
“FREEDOM”.
He was now a Martyr. Jail was not that bad. It was warm. He was famous. The Yellowstone Wolf was getting more than his fifteen minutes. Surely, Trump would save the day with a pardon. No patriot left behind.
Nathan Hale: “I regret that I have but one life to give for my country.”
Patrick Henry: “Give me Liberty or Give Me Death”
Thomas Jefferson: “We hold these truths to be self-evident.”
Donald Trump: “Antifa did it.”
In 1913 an angry mob in Tennessee hung Mary the Elephant for accidentally trampling its handler. They had to try a few times because the rope kept breaking. Someone finally hooked a chain to a nearby derrick. It was a shitty thing to do but at least no one in that crowd pretended that someone else had done it.
Before the broken glass had been swept up in the Rotunda, the denials began. Fox News hosts were again raising eyebrows, but this time about the “provocateurs in the crowd.” The Capitol police were blamed for escorting the mob into the building. Conspiratorial websites hummed with the whispers of “FBI false flag” operations and CGI fake imagery.
What a bunch of pussies.
Those arrested were taking pleas and expressing profound remorse. It turns out that no real Trump supporter would have ever dreamed of violently breaking into the building. Some thought it was a group tour. Everybody was mighty sorry if anything got broken. This was not a Beer Hall Putsch. It was more like a Waffle House Putsch. Two football stadiums worth of fat MAGA dickheads ran for the hills, leaving Joe Biden President, Pelosi free, and the gallows virgin.
It didn’t take long for the bus to trample Chansley. The whole sorry episode was left at his doorstep. He was accused of being a BLM/Antifa agitator, an FBI plant, and a Deep State operative. He clearly was not part of decent peace loving MAGA America.
Predictably, once the reality of hard time sunk in, it didn’t take Chansley long to cave either. An orange jumpsuit doesn’t scream freedom like face paint and horns. At his arraignment he had a new haircut and meds. He appealed to the mercy of the court. But it’s hard to hide all that Q Shaman charisma under a bushel basket, especially after being on every television in America for a week. He caught a three-year stretch in federal lockup.
It’s hard not to see Chansley as a sympathetic figure. His embrace of extreme ideology was theater at its core. It could have just as easily been Scientology or Amway. That’s not to say he wasn’t a true believer. But true believers require something to believe. As much as the Q lunatics fancy themselves critical thinkers and skeptics, they take their cues (sorry) from the anointed savior of mankind, the true President, and Commander in Chief or the entire Flat Earth: Donald J. Trump.
While Jacob Chansley rode the bus to prison in Arizona, Trump was on the back nine at Mar-A-Lago. Post Jan 6, he skated between law-and-order outrage at the violence, to describing those arrested as political prisoners. Whatever. He switched positions with the same nonchalance he showed adjusting to the helping breeze on the ninth tee. You can’t say Donald Trump doesn’t know how to read the room. He marched on the backs of the Republican fringe to defeat Hilary in 2016 and manipulated that same fawning demographic in a doomed Hail Mary coup devised by the mush of the Giuliani/Lindell/Powell brain trust. Lives were lost. The Capitol trashed. Loyal followers became convicted felons. The Nation traumatized and further entrenched in their division.
But what the Hell, it was worth a shot. Consequences are for losers..
As a fitting coda to the whole sleazy story, Chansley was released from the hoosegow in May of 2023, a year early. That day he appeared in full Shaman uniform to hawk his merch and private interviews going for $500 a pop. There are rumors that he is considering running for office in Arizona. With any luck, he might have his own podium someday.
Carter Chill 