JANUARY 14 • 2021 | 15

MICHIGAN 
FORESHADOWING
The U.S. Capitol siege took 
place nine months after armed 
anti-lockdown protesters gained 
entry into the Michigan State 
Capitol in Lansing in April.
“There were lessons to be 
learned that weren’t,
” state Sen. 
Jeremy Moss (D-Southfield), 
who is Jewish, told Slate after 
the Capitol riots. “This hap-
pened in Michigan on April 
30, Washington in January, and 
unless there’s a serious discus-
sion about how American gov-
ernance can be safe and secure, 
nothing will change. 
“The good news is that the 
chief enabler will be gone. The 
bad news is that no one will be 
able to control them.
”
The Michigan State Capitol 
in Lansing was closed the day 
after the U.S. Capitol riot due 
to a reported bomb threat. On 
Monday, Jan. 11, state legisla-
tors met in Lansing to discuss 

banning open-carry firearms in 
the Capitol building.
NBC’s Andrea Mitchell also 
reported that law enforcement 
in the area said there was a 
“strong Michigan contingent” 
to the rioters at the capitol. At 
least six people with Michigan 
ties were arrested in connec-
tion with the U.S. Capitol riot, 
according to the D.C. police.
At least one of them was 
arrested on weapons charges, 
another was arrested for unlaw-
ful entry and violating the 6 
p.m. curfew put in place, and 
four others were arrested for 
violating the curfew as well.
In addition, several rioters 
inside the capitol were also 
identified as having ties to 
neo-Nazi and extreme right-
wing groups.
Photos of rioters at the U.S. 
Capitol show some wearing 
antisemitic clothing, including 
one wearing a sweatshirt read-
ing “Camp Auschwitz.
”

One rioter clad in all-black 
directed antisemitic language at 
an Israeli TV journalist cover-
ing the scene, JTA reported.
But at least one rioter was 
Jewish: Aaron Mostofsky, the 
son of a prominent New York 
judge and former president 
of the National Council of 
Young Israel, wore a distinctive 
large fur suit as he roamed the 
Capitol, JTA reported.
Some commentators com-
pared the events at the Capitol 
to the Beer Hall Putsch, a failed 
1923 German coup attempt 
by the Nazis that took place 
a decade before Adolf Hitler 
came to power.
Actor and former California 
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, 
a Republican who was born in 
Austria in 1947, went a step fur-
ther in an online video by com-
paring the riots to Krystallnacht, 
the “night of broken glass” in 
1938 that precipitated the Nazis’ 
mass round-up of Jews in con-

centration camps.
“The broken glass was in the 
windows of the United States 
Capitol,
” Schwarzenegger said. 
“But the mob did not just shat-
ter the windows of the Capitol. 
It has shattered the ideals we 
took for granted.
”
Schwarzenegger also drew a 
parallel to his own childhood 
growing up in the shadow of 
the Nazis: “I was surrounded 
by broken men drinking away 
their guilt with their participa-
tion in the most evil regime in 
history,
” he said in the video. 
“Not all of them were rabid 
antisemites or Nazis. Many just 
went along step by step down 
the road. They were the people 
next door.
” 
President-elect Biden told 
reporters the rioters “should 
be treated as a bunch of thugs, 
insurrectionists, [and] antisem-
ites,
” vowing that his Justice 
Department would prosecute 
those responsible. 

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