Preserving American Values

For weeks, Trump has been absorbed in his own reality – that he won by a landslide but that it was stolen from him by fraud; that the election was rigged.   And his allies have mostly stood behind him and either supported his efforts to overturn the results of the election or actively encouraged him. 

But last Wednesday, January 6, something else happened.   Saying that he will never concede, he encouraged his supporters to go to the capitol and “not be weak.”  He told them to “fight like hell or you’re not going to have a country anymore.”   If this is not classified as “inciting a mob to violence,” I don’t know what words would.

After his speech to the gathered mob-to-be, a crowd estimated at several thousand, including members of Oath Keepers and Proud Boys, surged to the Capitol armed with molotov cocktails, pitchforks, and other implements. In the process of violently breaching the barricades and entering the Capitol, more than 140 law enforcement officers were injured, and a number died in defending the building.

Of course, what Trump and the crowd were hoping was to stop the certification of Joe Biden as the winner of the election which was to occur at the very time that they stormed the Capitol.  But during the invasion, as the rioters roamed through the Capitol, the Senator and Representatives were herded into a protected area. Roughly 600 rioters were arrested.  

After it was over, the joint session of Congress was reconvened at 9 pm and the certification proceeded. Vice President Pence, to his credit, held firm and did his duty, despite many in the crowd yelling for his murder.  

This was a dark day for America and for the Republican Party.  That such events could occur in our democracy, egged on by the President himself, is beyond belief.  One can only hope that after January 20, Donald Trump will be gone—disgraced— from our political landscape and that the country, the people, will slowly return to the divided but civil normalcy that has defined most of this country’s history.