The Gates of Hell
Republicans opened the gates of hell with their election of Donald Trump in 2016. And those gates are still wide open, propped open by Trump’s right-wing extremists, his domestic terrorists, his own private army, incited by Trump into a coup attempt, and also by every Republican who has openly and baldly lied to the electorate about a rigged election. And, by any and every person who has stood by this insurrection and not called it out.
The coup attempt becomes more chilling as additional details emerge. Pipe bombs. Weapons. Zip ties, intended for no other purpose than to take hostages. Shouted calls to assassinate the vice president, who had drawn Trump’s anger for refusing to kowtow to Trump’s wishes. Calls to kill the Speaker of the House. Capitol Police officers were attacked with pipes and pepper spray. Fifty Capitol Police officers injured and one killed, by blunt force from a fire extinguisher. Human feces smeared along the halls of Congress. The Confederate battle flag, the symbol of white supremacy and black oppression, the symbol of slavery, of lynching, of Jim Crow, was carried into the U.S. Capitol building. That has never happened.
The insurrection of January 6th, a day that will indeed live in infamy, was also a massive law enforcement failure, one of the highest degree. There were moments of individual heroism, for sure. Officer Eugene Goodman singlehandedly faced a group of rioters and duped them into moving away from an entrance to the Senate chambers. But the Capitol Police were absolutely and abysmally inadequate in their “defense” of the Capitol. They were not prepared, nor did they successfully defend it, and as a result their chief tendered his resignation pretty much on the spot. Very few arrests made or rioters detained. Capitol police were easily overwhelmed by the rioters, and no backup came, for hours. What in the actual fuck? The Defense Department dithered and declined to send in the National Guard until three hours after the invasion. Was that decision made by Trump’s recently appointed defense secretary? That, and the ease in which rioters gained access to all parts of the Capitol building, begs a larger question: was law enforcement complicit in this? Some pundits say this looks like an inside job, and some of our international friends have said the same thing. Rioters quickly found Pelosi’s office, which is apparently pretty hard to find. Were they directed there? Third hallway on the right, just past the restrooms (which apparently some of them could not find). Pelosi’s staff hid under a table in an adjoining room while rioters sacked Pelosi’s office. Pelosi herself had to call Virginia’s governor to get that state’s National Guard deployed. A freshman Republican Representative, Lauren Bobert (who has threatened to bring a gun into the halls of Congress) was tweeting Pelosi’s whereabouts as Pelosi was being removed to a safe location. She was an “inside source” for the mob. Invoke the 14th Amendment? This goes further: aiding and abetting in the attempted murder of the House Speaker. The mob also had maps of the Capitol building to aid them in reaching their human targets. This was no protest.
There’s an unmistakable racial tinge to this. Just see the picture of National Guard troops lining the steps of the capitol during the Black Lives Matter march in June. Where were those troops on January 6th? Black American observers have rightly noted that if Black protesters had stormed the capitol, several hundred would have been killed. Why does law enforcement not take white supremacists seriously? Recent research shows that law enforcement personnel identify much more closely with white supremacists than with others; the systemic racism in American law enforcement is well-known, especially after the events of the last year. A number of off-duty law enforcement officers participated in the assault on the Capitol, and are now being investigated by their departments.
Trump, who incited the riot, watched it unfold on television, declining to call in the National Guard, and even phoning senators during the melee to exhort them to object to certification of Biden’s electoral college win. Trump finally emerged in a White House video, in which he, belatedly, and after staff begged him to do so, told the rioters to leave, and expressed his undying affection for them: “We love you, you’re very special.” This said to rioters who had just killed a Capitol policeman, and who called for the assassination of Trump’s own vice-president. Trump, for days, delayed flying the White House flag at half-staff in honor of Officer Brian Sicknick, who died defending the Capitol. Just despicable.
If I find any hope in this, it’s that democracy held, and the Congress was so intent on finishing the people’s business that they came back into their hastily-cleaned chambers that afternoon and worked until three in the morning to certify the results of the, as is their constitutional duty. Led by 80-year-old Nancy Pelosi. Mad respect for her! And I find a little bit of hope in the fact that some Republicans, such as Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, have had enough (finally?) and are calling for Trump’s immediate removal. Colin Powell, whom some consider the most respected Republican in the nation, now says he no longer considers himself a Republican.
Trump will be impeached for the second time, because Pence and the lackeys in the cabinet do not have the intestinal fortitude to remove him using the 25th Amendment. He will be impeached because there must be accountability for this, for a sitting president inciting an insurrection, a coup, that involved intended assassination of elected officials, and disruption of the democratic process. To take by force what he could not gain from the electorate. We cannot just brush this off, and establish a precedent of no accountability for any future president who attempts to use mob rule to establish or maintain power. Despicable. Easily the worst president in our 350-year history.
There are calls for Senators Cruz and Hawley to resign, from the major newspapers in their home states, and even former mentors. Their consistent lies about the election and unrepentant objection to the results fomented the Trumpism anger, and Hawley was even photographed giving a raised fist-pump to the mob before the riot, signaling his approval of their coup attempt. The cynical move by the two Senators to channel Trump’s backing toward their own political ambitions resulted in the tragedy of the day. Blood on their hands. Utah’s Senator Mitt Romney yelled “This is what you’ve gotten” at Cruz and Hawley while the mayhem ensued in the Capitol building. Cruz and Hawley remain unapologetic and self-righteous about their mendacity, and their refusal to accept the will of the people.
There obviously needs to be a thorough, minute-by-minute investigation and account of the riot, revealing who made what decision. That includes individual decisions by officers to surrender access to the building, and larger decisions by officials to not staff it adequately or provide reinforcement. For God’s sake, we failed to adequately defend our Congress, our seat of power. The last time that happened was during the War of 1812, when the Brits sacked Washington, DC. I’d much rather see the Brits in that building than our home-grown terrorists. We came dangerously close to losing all in the presidential line of succession: vice president, speaker of the House, president pro tempore of the Senate. Make no mistake; they were the intended targets of the rioters.
Are Republicans happy with Trump’s tenure, one that ended with a coup attempt? Apparently so. Over 74 million voters wanted more of the same. What did they get out of it? Some Supreme Court judges, and likely more importantly, they kept the Dems out of power. Party over country. But thank God Biden won – and it was not close – and Georgia turned blue (Stacy Abrams may have saved the country). We have a brief window of opportunity, maybe 2-4 years, in which we as a nation can shore up the guardrails of democracy and address the larger inequities, the structural deficiencies we face, systemic racism being one, and voter suppression another. I look forward to a return of decency, which Joe Biden represents. Let’s shut those gates.
