Fedsurrection

Fedsurrection (pronounced fed-suh-rek-shuhn)

An ostensibly spontaneous, public event (protest, demonstration or rally) (1) actually arranged or organized by organs of a government or (2) such an event when government agents (posing as participants) infiltrate said event, inciting (or inducing others to incite) unrest and violence, either as a form of entrapment or to create a public perception of crisis, enabling repressive measures to be imposed.  The companion term is “fauxsurrection”, used in a similar vein.

1922: A portmanteau word, the construct being (fed)eral agent (or (fed)eral government) +‎ (in)surrection.  In federations, federal (pertaining to or of the nature of a union of states under a central government where sovereignty resides (a federation) as distinct from a looser constitutional arrangement in which sovereignty is shared between the constituent states and the central government (a confederation), as an adjective (often capitalized), is used to distinguish between the central and the state or provincial governments.  Federal dates from 1625–1630 and was from the French fédéral, replacing the earlier foederal, from the Classical Latin foeder- (stem of foedus) (formal agreement, treaty, league, covenant, alliance).  Insurrection was from the late Middle English insurreccion (uprising against a government, rebellion, revolt; civil disorder, riot; illegal armed assault”), from the Middle French insurrection, from the Old French insurreccïon (which persists in modern French as insurrection) and from their etymon the Latin īnsurrēctiōnem, the accusative singular of īnsurrēctiō (rising up, insurrection, rebellion), from īnsurgō (to rise up), the construct being in- (the prefix used in the sense of “in, inside, within”) + surgō (to arise, get up; to rise), the construct being su(b)- (the prefix used in the sense of (from) beneath, under)) + regō (to direct, govern, rule; to guide, steer; to manage, oversee) (ultimately from the primitive Indo-European hereǵ- (to right oneself, straighten; just; right)).  The Late Latin insurrēctiōn- was the stem of insurrēctiō, from insurrēct(us) (risen up, rebelled), the construct being the past participle of insurgere (to get up, ascend, rebel”; insurgent) + -iō (-ion); the –ion suffix was from the Middle English -ioun, from the Old French -ion, from the Latin -iō (genitive -iōnis).  It was appended to a perfect passive participle to form a noun of action or process, or the result of an action or process.  Fedsurrection, fedsurrectionism, fedsurrectionary & fedsurrectionist are nouns, fedsurrected & fedsurrectioning are verbs, fedsurrectious, fedsurrectional, fedsurrectory & fedsurrectionesque are adjectives and fedinsurrectionally is an adverb; the noun plural is fedsurrections.

The multi-media US personality Ye (the artist formerly known as Kanye West (b 1977)) in MAGA hat.

It’s not clear just who coined or first used fedsurrection but it spiked rapidly in use in January 2022 when, during a press conference marking the one-year anniversary of the 6 January Capitol attack, it was used by MAGA intellectuals Marjorie Taylor Greene (b 1974; US representative (Republican, Georgia) since 2021) & Matt Gaetz (b 1982; US representative (Republican-Florida) since 2017).  MAGA is the acronym for “Make America Great Again”.  Donald Trump (b 1946; US president 2017-2021) first (publicly) used the phrase in November 2012, the day after the 2012 presidential election in which Democrat Barack Obama (b 1961; US president 2009-2017) defeated Republican Mitt Romney (b 1947; governor of Massachusetts 2003-2007, US senator (Republican-Utah) since 2019) when he tweeted on X (then known as Twitter): “We will Make America Great Again!”  The initialism “WWMAGA” obviously wasn’t going to work as an acronym so it was truncated to MAGA which quickly Mr Trump registered as a trademark.  In political history, there have been a number of variations of the phrase, most famously: “Let's Make America Great Again”, used by Republican Ronald Reagan (1911-2004; US president 1981-1989) during his successful 1980 presidential campaign.  Since creating the MAGA trademark, Mr Trump used it as what he called “my theme” and in the modern parlance it became “his brand”, applied to the usual merchandise (T-shirts, USB sticks, baseball caps etc), all presumably manufactured somewhere in the Far East.

The event which inspired “fedsurrection” was of course the 6 January 2021 “Capitol attack” in Washington DC, the dramatic day which gained a new audience for the post Civil War (1861-1865) Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution (Section 3, 1866):

No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.

Fox News staples (for different reasons): Lindsay Lohan (left), Ted Cruz (centre) and Marjorie Taylor Greene (right).  The sublime to the ridiculous.

Fedsurrection describes what sounds a classic conspiracy theory: the assertion federal agents or informants orchestrated or incited the events of that day and while most were at least sceptical, the theory gained traction as it was discussed and promoted on a variety of conservative platforms, notably Tucker Carlson (b 1969), then hosting a nightly talk-show on Rupert Murdoch’s (b 1931) Fox News.  Although most analysts conclude Fox News “preaches to the converted”, the more controversial (some prefer “wacky”) content does get disseminated, its influence on political discourse thus extending well beyond the committed Fox audience.  Those who have chosen to promote (or at least less than critically discuss) fedsurrection, include two of the usual suspects, X owner Elon Musk (b 1971) and Ted Cruz (b 1970; US senator (Republican-Texas) since 2013); whether either believe the “theory” or its implications isn’t known but both will have their own reasons for finding it a helpful device.

Support for the theory is not restricted to a right-wing fringe in the US.  In July 2016, what came to be described as “a faction within armed forces”, staged a coup, attempting to overthrow the government of Turkey (now officially the Republic of Türkiye).  In the turbulent business of post-Ottoman Turkish politics, military coups are not unusual (some half-dozen of them since 1960) but the 2016 coup was as ineptly executed as the Wehrmacht’s failed attempt to overthrow the Nazi state in July 1944, both quickly suppressed.  However, so efficiently crushed were the Turkish plotters that almost immediately suggestions arose that it may have been something “staged” by the state to justify a long planned crackdown on dissent, a view given some credence by Recep Tayyip Erdoğan (b 1954; prime-minister or president of the Republic of Türkiye since 2003) doing exactly that.  In one of the more unnecessary statements of political intent, in the coup’s aftermath, Mr Erdoğan warned those responsible they would “…pay a heavy price for this.” and he was a good as his word, his “counter-coup” notably more successful than that of the generals & admirals: within months, the purge claimed some 68,000 military & police officers, academics, judges, regional politicians and civil servants, variously arrested, suspended or jailed, some receiving life sentences.  The Turkish people understood Mr Erdoğan’s language and there has been no repetition of the misbehaviour though there’s little to suggest what happened in 2016 was a fedsurrection but that’s not to imply governments don’t use the tactic, “public” demonstrations known to have been encouraged (ie ordered or paid for) by administrations in the PRC (People’s Republic of China), The Islamic Republic of Iran and any number of regimes in the Middle East, the journalist Robert Fisk (1946–2020) noting in The Great War for Civilisation: The Conquest of the Middle East (2005) that while it wasn’t unusual for crowds to turn up for “spontaneous demonstrations”, they were viewed in the Arab world as a threat only “when they are real and not the government sponsored variety.”