Anti-Vietnam war demonstrations fought for mercy, an end of violence. Civil rights demos fought for addressing injustices. Storming the Capitol was neither.
The line between violating the law and the protestation of a law or condition are miles apart. Becoming violent for a cause like the American Revolution was formative in our collective goal of becoming a republic independent from Britain, freedom from tyranny. Yet it took into the mid-’60s to finally overturn the Jim Crow system with the Civil Rights Act. It was protection long delayed, but absent in the out of control mob on Jan. 6 out to lynch Democracy.
The Right is adhering to the idea that might makes right and whatever consequences ensue are all in the great joy of creating chaos and an response to the egregious injustices suffered at the hands of the electorate. To imagine the demonstrators didn’t understand the consequences of their actions is naïve at best. Tag-along demonstrators should also be held responsible for participating in demonstrations that become unlawful whether they’re conscious of the implications or not. Innocence is no excuse. They had drunk the Kool-Aid of resentment and without stopping to think at all, joined the cortege headed to the Capitol.
The privilege the demonstrators assumed by desecrating the Capitol reveals their fear that our rapidly changing world is leaving them behind. They are dinosaurs draped in flags that bray and crow, smash and destroy at random, cry into the winds that the apostasy of progress, generational change, and invasion of “foreign cultures” has left them in the dust. Why don’t they just tell it the way they feel. “Yes, we’re racist, yes the government is against us, yes we’re the progenitors of a civilization that has brought about the things we all enjoy and cherish and we should be lionized. This land is our! Not necessarily yours.
Scene change. With Biden/Harris in the saddle, we’re witnessing the battle scene play out in the duel of procedural tactics between Mitch and Chuck. The Right counts the Capitol fury as a big success. They made their point. The election was stolen, and now comprises the Cris de Coeur of the angry population, willfully resistant to the facts. Mitch ditched the rebellion before it overly tarnished his ability to remain credible to any degree and returned to his role as obstructionist. Now he has capitulated and the rules governing “reconciliation,” allowing a simple majority vote in the Senate and avoid using the filibuster further seems to be the strategy. The impeachment trial in the Senate will proceed. It was all a charade and delaying tactic.
But the fight over the filibuster is far from over. Quaint relic, never envisioned by the Founders who knew it would gum up the ability of the Senate to address needed immediate issues facing the Republic. You’ve probably read how Democratic Senators Joe Manchin and Krysten Sinema along with Diane Feinstein threaten resistance to jettisoning it. Watch closely in the next days as the situation may compel them to vote with the majority on the filibuster issue.
Meanwhile insurrectionists Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz walk the Senate floor as usual after fomenting the insurrectionists actions along with 12 others. Trying to steal an election should have consequences, and not voting to convict Trump for his multiple felonies will be tragic for the rule of law going forward. But we see the Senate Republicans seem to be backing off in cowardly fashion thus irreparably harming constitutional law which protects us going forward from future presidential malfeasance. All this while the pandemic rages and efforts to get the vaccine distributed meet with supply problems to be resolved. Will our three Senate holdouts bail on final impeachment? This story just keeps unfolding.
John and Mary Farquar watched the pillaging of the Capitol with disbelief. An event unequaled in Capitol history caught them off-guard. They had friends who participated in the fray. How were they to approach this situation?
They watched the inauguration and discussed the hope that Biden and Harris might bring sanity back. A certain weight had been lifted and Trump was finally out of mainstream news constantly. Or was he? What was the real picture they were witnessing? The Party of Trump hadn’t vanished but revealed its true intent. Would we remain a democracy at all? Could we stop people from dying? Would the economy return to pre-COVID levels? Was this the beginning of the end? Or can the American Story be rebuilt?
Allan Harris is surviving the virus with wife Jane, recording an audio book of his novel and lots of swim and gym time. Stay safe.