Invasion at the Capitol

                                    

Like most thinking people in these United States, I was appalled by what took place in our nation’s Capitol yesterday at the hands of rabid Trump supporters inspired by their “heroic” leader, Donald Trump. With four people dead, and many Capitol offices and hallowed halls in shambles, the depradations of these thousands of invaders will surely leave a permanent scar on this nation, and a lingering suspicion that this nation is headed in the fatal direction—down—of most democracies before it. Rather than accept and take part in the peaceful transition of power that George Washington made the hallmark of American democracy, Trump fed his gullible minions a constant diet of lies, conspiracy theories, and incendiary rhetoric about how he actually won the 2020 election in a landslide, but had been robbed of his victory by some vague cabal of the deep state in collusion with every major media outlet and state government (most of them controlled by Republicans). Therefore, his supporters should invade the capitol and put a stop to the validation of the electoral college vote taking place there. And they all believed, and did exactly that. 

The other major event that took place yesterday was the amazing victory of Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff in the Georgia Senate runoff elections. Democrats were hoping and praying that this would be the case, but such an outcome was anything but a sure thing. The President made more than one trip to Georgia to try to build enthusiasm among his base of supporters for a large Republican turnout. He knew the stakes couldn’t be higher: if even one of the Republican candidates won, the Republicans would retain their majority in the Senate, and be able thereby to thwart most of President-elect Biden’s legislative initiatives. If, on the other hand, the Democrats won, Biden would have the luxury of being able to work with majorities in both houses of Congress. With the win by both Democrats, therefore, a sweet double victory was achieved. 

However, that victory hardly had a chance to sink in (it did in my little town, where someone was playing on a car radio, at full volume, “Georgia,” by Ray Charles), before the riot began at the Capitol. I watched most of it on CBS News’ Special Report, and it left a knot in my stomach that has still not entirely dissolved. To see these mostly white guys (and some women, including the Air Force veteran and rabid Trump supporter who was shot dead) pushing back the barriers outside the Capitol, and then overwhelming the unexpectedly-flimsy Capitol police presence to race and climb and otherwise penetrate a building that is normally well-guarded and -protected, many of them armed, most of them carrying flags on poles (often used to punch through windows), was sickening. Then to see them violating offices like that of Speaker Nancy Pelosi, (at least one had his boots up on her desk) and ripping pictures and documents from her office, added insult to injury; which was itself ratcheted up to worse horror as they burst into the House chambers from which most Congressmen and women had to flee to an undisclosed bunker for safety. And the question that kept flashing into my consciousness was: Where is the National Guard? How are these yahoos getting away with this? Where is the 82nd Airborne? If this were a BLM protest (which we saw this summer), or any protest by people of color, how many of these assholes would already have been shot? 

My rage over the kid-glove treatment accorded this horde kept increasing as reporters interviewed many of them, to record them gloating about their victory (it’s a revolution we’ve started), their sense of entitlement (we’re just protesting, which is our right), and their glee at having followed the wishes of their adored commander in chief, Donald Trump. Even when a 6pm to 6am curfew was declared by the DC mayor, they continued to mill around, shouting slogans, and waving their Trump flags, one of which they managed to hang on the Capitol to replace the American flag, even as they shouted, USA! USA! True patriots, all. And the appellation that kept coming to mind was the one Hillary Clinton was excoriated for using in the 2016 election campaign: “deplorables.” Yes; that’s what they were, most of them: losers and abysmally ignorant believers in the bullshit peddled by perhaps the biggest bullshit artist of all time.

But most of that is probably already known to many. What I want to emphasize is that, despite the violation—to the nation, to its institutions, to democratic traditions most of us hold dear, to the sacrosanctity of the Capitol which has never been similarly violated—something great happened yesterday. Donald Trump made the most catastrophic blunder of a presidency that has specialized in blunders. He publicly urged his followers, in a recorded speech at the rally preceding the riot, to “walk to the Capitol (“I’ll walk with you” he promised—which he, characteristically, did not, choosing to be whisked away in his limo to the safety of the White House where he watched it all on TV) and “cheer on our brave senators and congressmen and women (the Republican zealots contesting the electors on his behalf), and we are probably not going to be cheering so much for some of them — because you will never take back our country with weakness.” In other words, ‘you will have to be strong, you will have to be determined to bull your way in to stop the validation, you will have to be pushy and threatening and violent.’ And that is exactly what they did. And it’s all on the record. And that record, those words of a President inciting a mob to sedition, finally turned the craven Republicans who had supported this wannabe fascist’s every other disgusting action, every other piece of his inflammatory rhetoric, to turn away. To withdraw their support. To condemn this action and this President’s clear incitement to riot, to, in effect, destroy democracy. As the craven Lindsay Graham said on the Senate floor, “Enough is enough. I’m done.” And the chorus of those who have also had enough continues to grow, several White House officials and Cabinet members already having resigned, and more contemplating an abrupt departure with less than two weeks left to go in Trump’s term of office. In addition, several officials are openly considering invoking the 25^th Amendment to force Trump to leave office over the fear that the most powerful man in the world could do untold damage in his few remaining days, considering his deranged mental state. Whether the heretofore toadying Vice President, Mike Pence, can be persuaded to take or initiate this step remains to be seen. But at least one Republican, Representative Kinzinger, of Illinois, has already called for the enactment of that Amendment. And Trump himself, hearing the revulsion throughout the government and the nation, has just today said publicly that he will oversee a peaceful transition to the new Biden government. It is the first time he has acknowledged that Biden has won, which means acknowledging that he lost. 

What we have, in short, is a kind of revolution, but not the kind that one female supporter (identified as Elizabeth from Knoxville) went on record to proclaim, when asked why she had taken part in the invasion. “This is a revolution,” she said gleefully, as if she had been part of the storming of the Bastille. She was right that it was indeed a revolution—but she seemed not to know that this revolution involved the final downfall and humiliation of both her hero Trump, and Trumpism. He is finished, like most dictators, because of his inability to refrain from embarking on self-destructive, even suicidal missions (like Hitler invading Russia; and it is always puzzling why; and one thought that occurs to me is that these ‘strong men’ never quite believe that they’ve actually pulled off their usurpation, and need to keep pushing to convince themselves that they really have, against all odds, made it to the top.). And having done so, he will never again be able to disturb the body politic and the world. And his banishment from the world stage may, if we are lucky, be cemented by his arrest and trial for countless crimes committed both before and during his presidency (the state of New York is preparing its case against him, which cannot be set aside by presidential pardon), not least of which was the public urging of his minions to sedition on January 6, 2021. 

So my take on yesterday is both dismay at what happened to this nation, and grim satisfaction at what it has relieved us from: the twin plagues of Mitch McConnell as Senate Majority Leader, and Donald Trump as the most unfit, the most ignorant, the most disgraceful President in the history of this republic. And while it is true that we may not be free from the idiots who still make up his army of millions, without their idiot leader to egg them on, the fake courage they’ve displayed to publicly try to take down our institutions may well fade away like fog on a sunny day. All we can do is be vigilant and urge the Biden administration to not, under any circumstances, coddle these white supremacist thugs any longer. 

 

Lawrence DiStasi