Dark Acts on One of the Darkest Days
January 6th, 2021
My column description claims that I write about an assortment of topics but for the past year and a half I have been fixated on the events leading up to, during and after the storming of our nation’s capitol.
In my opinion, the nation should be just as fixated on January 6th — perhaps even more so — than September 11th.
Thousands of our fellow citizens felt strongly enough to take up arms, gather on a specific date and attack the halls of government with the express intent of fundamentally altering the outcome of a free and fair election.
I’ve periodically daydreamed of myself being swept up in such a cathartic expression of anger directed at politicians I abhor but — in every single one of my daydreams — I imagined my fantasy to end in a hail of gunfire.
On the lawn of whatever hallowed building I was attempting to storm. I never get near the building.
It didn’t happen that way on January 6th because very powerful — deranged — people allowed the chaos to unfold and aided and abetted the insurrectionists loosely coordinated attack.
They wanted it to look ‘organic’ but, as I’ve previously written, we’ve since learned from the January 6th Committee hearings that the lame-duck president was apoplectic some members of his mob were being denied entry because they were carrying firearms.
Since the buildings were guarded by a very thin blue line — due to one of the lame duck president’s lackeys refusing to call in reinforcements and due to a purposeful lack of preparedness — the insurrectionists had little difficulty breaching the Capitol’s defenses.
Arguably, the only thing that truly slowed them down was their incredulity at the ease of which they were able to advance. I would have been expecting a bullet to the forehead, or witnessing others getting a bullet to the forehead. Once they realized they were not at risk of being shot, it was only choke points and deceit, by officers like Eugene Goodman, to slow their advance.
“They” were the chaos agents in control of the United States during the time period between the election of 2020 and January 6th, 2021. “They” were the “acting” Cabinet members sprinkled throughout the Administration but — most importantly — in those positions charged with National Security.
These were the people fired AFTER the 2020 election. (Thank you, Public Citizen):
Chris Krebs, Director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency
Mark Esper, Secretary of Defense
James Anderson, the Pentagon’s acting policy chief
Joseph Kernan, the undersecretary for intelligence
Jennifer Stewart, Secretary of Defense chief of staff
Don’t forget the United States Attorney General at the time, Bill Barr (an asshole unto himself), resigned not long after the election because he was not on board with the obvious attempt to undermine the Constitution, voting rights and democracy. I trust Bill Barr as far as I can shotput him but — as the saying goes — even a broken clock is right twice a day.
“They” were the leaders of nefarious gangs made up of angry white men and angry males who identify as white. Ali Alexander, for example. You should know their names by now — Oath Keepers, 3 Per Centers, Proud Boys, any affiliate of the Ku Klux Klan, anyone in favor of Christian Nationalism.
The former President of the United States took his counsel from people like Ali Alexander!
I’ve been paralyzed over the last few months because I cannot imagine our democracy succumbing to people who want to install an autocracy. The last I wrote I was buoyed by the Kansas vote on abortion rights. As we all should have been.
In the interim I’ve been undergoing whiplash because the little bit of ‘real news’ that penetrates my daily life presents the upcoming elections as favoring — those — people I cited above who firmly believe:
Women should be forced into childbirth.
President Biden did not win the 2020 election
Antifa and leftists were responsible for storming the Capitol Building on January 6th
Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid and the ACA should be dismantled
Walls — like the Berlin Wall? — make good neighbors
Climate change isn’t real and, if it is, there’s not a thing that can be done about it
Racism no longer exists and, if it does, white people are victims of it as well
The previous president walks on water and Kanye West’s crap is not odiferous
And, if they don’t firmly believe those things, they’ll “believe” them long enough to get snugly ensconced in power like a bloated tick. Have you ever wondered why someone like Dr. Oz — the candidate who thinks abortion should be between a woman, her doctor and her local pol — who has already made his millions — would crawl over cut glass while spending millions of his own fortune to earn $170,000 a year as a U.S. Senator?
So, I’m worried about November 8th.
Historical precedents are not in our favor. The news media cannot shut up about the previous loser of the presidential election. They also cannot shut up about polls seemingly indicating inflation and the economy supersede all other concerns. News is no longer the news of my youth. Today’s bastardized version hews closer to supermarket tabloids than anything else.
Before the internet, I wondered who bought supermarket tabloids besides those of us looking for ‘groover’ reading material on 24 day river trips. (A groover being our military rocket box functioning as our portable toilet.) Now I know.
I fear for the election coming up. I fear for a true accounting for the events of January 6th. But I do take comfort in knowing that Watergate — which was a '“tempest in a teapot” compared to January 6th — unfolded over two full years. During that time period we re-elected the crook who set those criminal acts in motion.
I take comfort in knowing the abortion issue has been moved to the front burner of millions of Americans minds, and not just women.
I take comfort in how conservatives keep doubling down in not shying from their distaste toward America’s social safety net even though millions of their constituents depend on food stamps, Medicaid, the ACA and all of the benefits of Social Security and Medicare.
I started writing this several weeks ago and I’ve forgotten what I specifically wanted to reference with the title — dark acts on the one of the darkest days. There were so many that day. I probably just wanted to reiterate how close we were to losing the oldest democracy in the world.
The longest running democratic experiment.
I probably wanted to re-emphasize how ugly that day was and how the party of Liz Cheney — who is a champion for democracy but remains a standard-bearer for conservatism’s medieval outlook — has never apologized or acknowledged the role they played in egging on their constituents and followers to lay siege to the Capitol. (Other than IMMEDIATELY following January 6th when they could easily recall how close they had flirted with death.)
With all that has happened over the past couple of years, we’ve had enough dark days.
In the parlance of the latest generation, it’s time to manifest lightness.
How about some lightness of being?
Even though I am a non-believer, I’m enjoying Timothy Egan’s book about traveling on foot from Canterbury to Rome. He follows a centuries old “path” known as the Via Francigena — literally “the road that comes from France”. The book is titled A Pilgrimage to Eternity. As always, his writing style draws you in.
Also, the Email Lady (a reference ‘trademarked’ by Twitter user Jeff Tiedrich) and the Female Presidential candidate who was right about everything in 2016, has this to say about the 2022 elections.
Go to iVotefund. Also Onward Together.
I lied. My writing has gone fallow in the approach to the most important elections in over a hundred years. I’ll try to do better.
In the immortal words of Coach Taylor in Friday Night Lights:
“Clear eyes, full hearts, can’t lose.”
Manifest it. - JLM
Thank you for the strong statements about the scary situation today but also for the glimmers of hope. Go get 'em James.
I loved Pilgrimage to Eternity. About to read it again. If I remember correctly ( and I rarely do these days), Tim is a skeptic despite a devout background ( or at least a semi -skeptic - see, I need to reread.)🤦❤️