When we warned people who we cared about back in 2016 that trump was corrupt, a liar, that he was an authoritarian sociopath, that he was a horrible person, that he was a racist, that he was deplorable—we were accused of hyperbole. We were “snowflakes.” Oh, and “libtards.” (Actually, more disrespectful of developmentally disabled people than those of us who could clearly see what was coming).
I’ve been dreading this day for weeks. It was the day that Congress was to conduct the ceremonial formality of accepting the state-certified electoral presidential votes (for Biden), something they do every four years, and it typically takes about 20 mundane minutes and is never really newsworthy. But a bunch of republicans claimed they were going to OBJECT to the “swing” states’ certified electoral votes. Just a few days ago I said in a letter to my friend regarding this day: “It could either end up being godawfully nasty, or else a last hurrah nothing-burger. I’m hoping for the latter.” Well, guess what? It was godawfully nasty. (An understatement to top all understatements).
Trump had called for supporters to come to Washington, D.C. on this day, to protest the formal counting of the electoral votes by Congress, claiming that his V.P. (Pence) would most certainly reverse the votes to trump’s favor (uhm, no…) He started the morning with a rally with these supporters and incited them to march to the Capitol building, saying this:
"And after this, we're going to walk down there, and I'll be there with you [he ditched them], we're going to walk down … to the Capitol and we are going to cheer on our brave senators and congressmen and women," Trump told the crowd. "And we're probably not going to be cheering so much for some of them. Because you'll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength and you have to be strong. We will never give up. We will never concede. It doesn't happen. You don't concede when there's theft involved," Trump said. "Our country has had enough. We're not going to take it anymore."
And then Rudy Giuliani said: “This is trial by combat.”
And so a mob stormed the capitol building, breaking windows, entering the rotunda, laying siege while lawmakers at first huddled in place with furniture blocking doors (some terrifying stories about that), then were whisked away to safe places in the labyrinth of the capitol building. The mob stormed the chambers and lawmakers’ offices, vandalizing and looting paperwork and even podiums. Four people died—one was a trumper shot by a policeman, and the other three apparently suffered medical emergencies. (No lawmakers were injured).
It lasted about six hours, and what was especially horrifying was how easily they were able to breach the grounds and enter the building. There are videos of Capitol police moving barriers out of the way and allowing the rioters to enter those grounds, and taking selfies with them. Were they complicit? There was certainly a lot more police action (brutality) during the “Black Lives Matter” protests. (Can you even imagine if this had been a mob of black people? Or Muslims?)
This was insurrection. This was sedition. This was an attempted coup. This was a dark, dark day. I’ve never agreed with anything that republicans stand for, but they are now the anti-American party. They have become a scourge.
The one high note of the day was learning this morning that we won BOTH Senate seats in Georgia from yesterday’s runoff election. I have to say that I am gobsmacked. I certainly hoped for it, even ached for it (because it means that democrats will control the Senate!) and by God we did it! Georgia is BLUE! Who would ever have thunk it? Man, what a huge difference that will make for President Biden.
