I watched the events of Wednesday’s attack on the Capitol unfold in real time. I had tuned in to listen to the proceedings in Congress, disgusted as senators and representatives voted to object to the results of our free and fair election. (Voted to disenfranchise EVERYONE, by the way—not just those of us who voted for Joe Biden.) I was horrified as I watched the rioters breach the building, but I felt (what I now know to be) a false sense of safety for people inside. The news correspondent I watched calmly reported as she was shepherded with lawmakers to the undisclosed safe location. Now, as I watch the horrific videos of the mob menacing and beating police officers, smashing glass, chanting “Hang Mike Pence”, I realize just how close incredible danger came to the people working inside the Capitol Building. It was a lynch mob deprived of its intended victims. As I try to internalize the reality that the President of the United States set this violent mob on its march to the Capitol and then refused to provide emergency protection when things got out of control, I am horrified to realize just how dangerous this moment is for our country and all of us.
There is no equivalence between this mob and the Black Lives Matter protests and riots of the summer, as some on the right have suggested. The BLM protests were borne of the grief and frustration and helplessness that resulted from watching another innocent black man get murdered by police. Did those protests at times turn violent and destructive? Yes. But they were not egged on by the leaders of “the left”. Joe Biden did not condone the violence.
This mob is a class unto itself in American history. At the behest of the president and loser of the 2020 election, this mob intended to disrupt the proceedings of government at the precise moment it was to certify Joe Biden as president-elect of the United States. They came prepared with guns, bombs, and zip-ties. They built a gallows and hung a noose. They killed a police officer and drove another to suicide. The twin goals of this mob and its enablers: sedition and terror.
And yet, they practically waltzed into the Capitol. As many have already commented and as all but the most deluded know, had such a mob been planned and formed by black and brown men, that day would have had a very different outcome. Riot police would have been prepared and deployed as they were during the BLM protests over the summer. Countless members of the mob undoubtedly would have been shot. But the benefit of the doubt is always and only afforded to white men. We watched the most rotten advantage of white privilege on full display: the permission to invade and destroy.
It seems almost a poetic summation of all Trump hypocrisy. Was this the “law and order” they cite? Do patriots (as Ivanka called them) show love of country by smearing feces in the halls of Congress? Love is patient, love is kind, it is never rude. Can we honor “blue lives” and the stars and stripes as they did, by beating police officers with the American flag? Or is the real way to thank a cop to bludgeon him to death with a fire extinguisher? We watched the literal manifestation of the ways white resentment has hollowed out our ideals and rendered words meaningless.
The mob is just one piece of the existential danger America faces at this moment. Another, perhaps more enraging component is the mob’s enablers: all those who spread lies about the security of the election, who raised hopes it could be overturned, those who have actively done Donald Trump’s bidding for the last five years and those who passively ignored the warnings of his unfitness, all who carelessly sacrifice norms and traditions of American democracy in pursuit of power. The Republican Party is irredeemable by its support of President Trump and its complicity in the subversion of American democracy.
How do they not understand the glaringly obvious: that Donald Trump is only loyal to himself? He will feed any of his followers to the wolves as soon as it benefits him to do so. Mike Pence—the most loyal servant—literally faced a lynch mob sent by his boss because he refused to abuse his ceremonial role of certifying the results of the election. Gallows built, noose hung, crowd chanting “hang Mike Pence”. The crowd egged on by the president, told “we love you” by the president. And still Mike Pence won’t say the president is unfit to hold the office. And still Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley and countless others voted to object to the results of a free and fair election. As Clare Malone (one of my favorite political observers) often says, partisanship is a hell of a drug.
There is a straight line from the “Unite the Right” march of neo-Nazis in Charlottesville to this mob’s attack on the Capitol, and there is no guarantee the line ends here. I fear the likelihood of its escalation. That likelihood is why Trump must be removed from power immediately and all his enablers held to account. His patterns are known and reliable—every norm he breaks is a crack he eventually tears wide open. This latest broken norm is the most significant: America’s tradition of the peaceful transfer of power is over. We are nearing collapse. If history is any guide, these events can get much uglier. We must act now if we do not want political violence to become our new normal.
The number one priority of Joe Biden’s presidency must be to shore up democracy. He must boldly and swiftly face the emergency of this moment. Thankfully he will have the power. He must use it.
A few ideas how:
- Combat the trend of minority rule by abolishing the electoral college and directly electing the president
- Reform nepotism laws
- Require all candidates to disclose tax returns
- Reform the presidential pardon power
- Grant DC and Puerto Rico statehood
- Statehood would provide insulation from the whims of a vindictive president—the ability to call in its own National Guard, etc. Events of January 6 and (reaching further back) the aftermath of Hurricane Maria show us that the power to protect Washington and Puerto Rico must not be in the hands of the president.
- Prosecute all those responsible for the attack on the Capitol to the fullest extent of the law.
There can be no unity with traitors. There can be no forgiveness when there is no sorrow. We must understand the immediate danger of this moment and hold to account all those responsible for how we got here.
The President will travel tomorrow to Alamo, Texas to tout the “success” of his border wall. Do not mistake the significance of the name of that town. He is emboldened and he will further agitate his dangerous followers.
Hitler’s first attempt to overthrow the German government—the “Beer Hall Putsch”—was in 1924. The Nazis failed that time, but they were never stamped out and successfully completed their “revolution” nearly a decade later. The Holocaust swiftly followed. It can happen here. We are watching it happen here. We must stamp out this evil before it is too late.
