Y’all didn’t think I was going to let the anniversary of the MAGA attack on our nation’s duly-elected government go by without comment, did you?
The gall of those people!
They thought they had the freedom and the right to rebel and change the course of history. Keep in power someone of their choosing. Someone whose name rhymes with chump.
And they did.
Peacefully.
By peaceful means they had the right.
What pissed me off the most about the January 6th attack and attempt to block the peaceful transition of power was the gall that was on display. The January 6th insurrectionists thought they had the right — the freedom — to attack all of our legislators and everyone in the immediate line of succession without getting killed, or dodging gunfire, while trying to do so.
As far as I am concerned, deadly force was to be expected. The woman shot while trying to break into one of the Senate Chamber windows was not a victim, and certainly not a hero, but a casualty. A casualty in the only terror Americans should be concerned about — domestic terror. All the trespassers, attackers and rioters that day were domestic terrorists. Armed or unarmed.
Have you ever daydreamed about storming the U.S. Capitol? Or the White House?
I have. Quite a bit while Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld were in control. I always envisioned it being the equivalent of running out on a battlefield like Bull Run or Gettysburg and getting mowed down in a hail of gunfire, or a lone sniper’s bullet. I figured if I ever decided in a fit of passion to run at a government building in anger, with malice in my heart, that even if I were not armed I would be cut down before I ever reached the doors.
Death by Secret Service, or Capitol Hill police, or Navy SEALS, whoever was hired that day to protect what Americans consider to be democracy.
It’d be a righteous death if I was trying to remove a tyrant.
Hundreds, maybe thousands, of our fellow citizens broke into our nation’s domicile of democracy while a majority of the members of our government were gathered there and I’d guess the vast majority of them held malice in their hearts. (Malice aforethought — the premeditated and deliberate commission of a criminal act with knowledge of its harmfulness, or reckless indifference to its harmfulness and without justification or excuse.) 99.9% of those rebels dodged a bullet that day, as they ran through the Capitol shouting “Hang Mike Pence!” — and so did America.
None of the insurrectionists came face-to-face with those we elected to carry out the business of what is, in essence, our infantile democracy. A representative democracy not even 300 years old.
It’s quite astounding there wasn’t a bloodbath.
It’s also a little unnerving how easily those seditious rioters with malice gained entry to — what they and their lawyers having been calling during their trials for sedition — “The People’s House”. That would be ALL the People dipshits not just white nationalist incels waving Confederate battle flags.
I remember talking with my neighbor about it as it was unfolding. I was walking my dog down to the end of my street as I do most every day. We exchanged pleasantries as he scratched my dog, Sally, behind her ears and we pretended it was just another day in America. I didn’t see any of the live footage because I presumed the proceedings happening at the U.S. Capitol would be defended — how should I put it? — vigorously. I falsely assumed it would conclude as quickly as it began.
That didn’t happen.
Hundreds of officers tried to fend off thousands of malicious “tourists”. Those defenders were armed with nothing other than riot shields and batons. If they had been armed, their weapons might have been used against them. The seditious “tourists” were armed with bats, batons, flag poles, bear spray and makeshift shields. If our malignant ex-president had it his way, they would have been heavily armed.
You’ve heard all of this but I’m going to get you to envision it again:
The traitorous rioters roaming the halls of Congress were hailing their jackass Dear Leader, flying American flags that had been desecrated with his name, screaming for the heads of our Congressional leaders, waving Confederate battle flags, occupying offices and the inner chambers of both the Senate and House, scrawling graffiti on the walls, vandalizing public property and shitting and pissing in places other than the public toilets. In other words, they were textbook barbarians.
The “WalMart patriot-seditionists” got lucky. Their orange despot-in-training made sure the military and the National Guard were unavailable. The Capitol Hill police — on the whole — kept their weapons holstered. Under normal circumstances, these deluded faux-revolutionaries could have lost their lives for a man who was embarrassed at how shoddily dressed his ragtag army turned out to be.
January 6th was not like the Boston Tea Party. It was not an “action”. It was a skirmish that morphed into a battle that could have been significantly uglier. It could have been significantly uglier if the confederates were carrying long guns and/or if the Capitol’s defenders had liberally used theirs.
Now hundreds of them sit in jail. I can’t decide if they should have to wear a “T” for traitor, or a gray “C” for confederate, for the remainder of their sorry existences. I hope the felony charges some of them received stick to them like a bad odor.
What I do know is — they are not hostages. Or political prisoners. As professional gas lighters, like New York Representative Elise Stefanik, in the party of MAGA want you to believe.
They should be joined in prison by every member of Congress who asked for a pre-emptive pardon — who, but someone who’s a criminal, does that? — along with the former toddler-in-chief.
January 6, 2021 was a wake-up call.
I love being hyperbolic, but this is no hyperbole.
The party that is not the Democrats favors Russia to Ukraine. Or strong man rule to a parliamentary system.
The party that is not the Democrats travels to Hungary to observe how another strong man has bent a country to his will.
The party that is not the Democrats will mandate forced birth. They already have in red states.
The party that is not the Democrats have no interest in maintaining America’s paper thin social safety net.
The party that is not the Democrats will roll back aspects of the Affordable Care Act like the portion that states you cannot be penalized for a pre-existing condition.
The party that is not the Democrats are terrible at fixing the economy. They are amazing at feathering the nests of the morbidly rich.
The party that is not the Democrats have tendencies so similar to Nazis because their party welcomes literal Nazis. It doesn’t matter what they are labeled — white nationalists, white supremacists. They are people who embrace the idea of a ‘final solution’ while denying the previous Holocaust ever happened.
January 6, 2021 was a dress rehearsal.
Wake. Up.
This will not be news to my politically savvy readers but I thought I should point y’all to Project 2025. It kind of underscores everything I mentioned above. This is not a simulation. This is not an overreaction. At least, not an overreaction by common sense Americans who have not been dumbed down by a steady dose of fear and loathing.
Here is PBS’s point-of-view in regards to Project 2025.
Some of you might say, “it’s just a road map to govern”. Have you seen what’s happening governing-wise in states like Texas and Florida?
The name echoes the Project 1619. Also, the former, twice-impeached president whose name rhymes with clump’s 1776 Commission.
Also…to end on a higher note.
Have you heard about the book Not the End of the World?
Dr. Hannah Ritchie of Our World Data uses — you guessed it! — data to show the world is moving inexorably in the right direction. I’d tell you more but I’ve only read the article in The Guardian.
Someone needs to be a sunny optimist these days.