On Wednesday, January 6th, 2021 there was an insurrection at the capitol building of the United States of America. An actual violent uprising against our government occurred on Wednesday, pretty much like so many experts had been saying in the weeks since the election. January 6th was the final, ceremonial step in certifying the election results. In the past few weeks, he has done everything in his power to amplify lies about fraudulent votes abetted by senators and representatives that latched on to the power of him and were calling for the rejection of election votes from certain states.
At lunch time, I scrolled through Twitter and read excerpts from his (I refuse to use our president's name anymore) speech at the "hate" rally he was headlining at the capital. Just as I was getting read to log back on to my class meeting, I saw a few pictures of angry people shouting and yelling as they headed towards the capitol. About thirty minutes later, JO texted me that they were assaulting the capitol building. I couldn't do much to catch up on what was happening because I was teaching, but the instant my kids signed off I turned on the news. I was appalled, again not surprised, at what I was watching unfold in the United States of America.
JO and I spent the rest of the night glued to the television. This day will be burned in my brain for the rest of my life. As more and more video has come out from the event, it is clear just how close we came to many people losing their lives. The picture above especially resonated with me. There's a barricade and some armed security agents holding democracy together.
In the hours that followed the attack, he did very little to fix the situation. He put out a little video where he said these people were very special and that he loved them. Reporting suggests that the National Guard may have been prevented from coming into DC to help. Reports said he was watching the events enthusiastically and that he was "out of his mind" as more and more people cut ties with him.
In a strong show that our democracy would not be broken, the House and Senate reconvened after it was safe to do so to continue certifying the results. These senate aides should be commended for their quick thinking and brave efforts to secure the documentation and keep them safe during the violence.
Even after all of this, some senators and representatives still pushed to reject election results from specific states. These people should be ashamed of themselves and should no longer serve in their roles. At 4:00am, the results were finally certified and read into record. Joe Biden was named the winner of the election.
Some say this happened because his supporters were upset he lost. Sure, you can be upset about that. But when a whole lot of us were upset in 2016 we crocheted pink pussy hats and held world wide, peaceful marches to show our feelings.
Look at this image, this happened in our capitol building and was caused by the actions of angry MAGA extremists. This is not normal and we cannot allow it to be normalized. History has shown us what happens with these things get normalized and it's not pretty.
There has to be accountability for this. He needs to be impeached for inciting violence. He needs to be investigated by the justice department and held accountable for his actions in a court of law. Several people have resigned from the administration. It's four years and an insurrection late. Anyone associated with this administration has a stain on their record. Just look at one night of realizing your career is over because you let your boss use you to spout lies upon lies did to the press secretary.
I've tried not to post anything funny about this situation because it is extremely not humorous but this tweet is pretty accurate.
On Friday night JO and I went out for dinner (in 36 degree weather) to turn the world off for a bit. As we were leaving, word broke that Twitter has banned him from the platform. Think about that, the president is acting in such a way that he lost his social media privileges but he still has the nuke codes.
Speaker Pelosi was assured by the Joint Chiefs of Staff that measures have been put in place to protect against him doing something with the military forces. While this is great, given the current conditions, that means the commander in chief isn't in a position to command anything. He isn't talking to Pence. Who the hell is leading our country right now? Who is in charge? We are in danger here!
The day after the election in 2015, I wrote this in my blog post. The problem with this man is that he says the quiet part out loud. As a result, many people don't take it for what it's worth. How could he mean what he says? That would be crazy. It's not crazy. He's doing it on purpose. To make it all seem normal. We must resist the urge to move on, to let it go because we need to heal. Healing comes from accountability, from nursing our fragile democracy back to health.
This election was different. We didn't just lose our candidate for president. Last night we lost some of our faith in humanity and that scares the crap out of us. Whether intended or not, a Trump victory sent the message that racism is ok, bigotry is ok, sexual harassment and body shaming is ok, making fun of disabled people is ok, making bold statements about excluding whole groups of people based on a religion is ok. Billy Bush was fired from a network tv show for his role in the Access Hollywood scandal, Trump was elected to the most powerful office in the world. Think about that for a minute.
As horrible as Wednesday was, the day actually got off to a great start when Georgia, or all states, elected two democratic senators. We won the majority! Mitch is no longer going to be the speaker of the house. I do believe things are changing, but Wednesday will unfortunately not be remembered for that. It will be remembered as one of the darkest days in our country's history. I hope it marks the end of one chapter, and the start of a new one, but accountability must be part of that.
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