It began as normal with coffee and reading the news. We had planned to golf. With the Georgia election the day before there was plenty to read. And then we decided to turn on the TV to see if the certification of the Presidential election had commenced. And then we watched the insurrection. All day.
It. Was. Truly. Unbelievable. In all my years, I never dreamed anything like this would or could happen.
Hour upon hour we watched the Capitol under siege. At one point, I unfurled myself from my leather chair to pace and scream at the TV. Was I the only one that imagined dead Senators and Congresspeople spewed around the Chambers?
Texts flew. FB posts proliferated. Telephone calls. All from my dear friends that share my view that Trump has brought out the worse in us. It all started with Trump and his racist accusations against President Obama, called birtherism. He let everyone know that he was a proud racist. Period. Full stop. And there you have it. From there he gathered up followers that are racists. Oh, there may be supporters that aren’t full-on racists, but it is my belief that the original sin of slavery was reawakened by this man and his Grand Old Party enablers.
The embarrassment was staggering. Our standing in the world has been damaged and I think China is the most powerful country in the world now.
But I digress.
An insurrection occurred and not in a vacuum. The Republicans own this. For four years they have let him run wild, violating norms, violating laws, lying daily…they looked the other way. How could that be a thing? Because of the racist base of supporters. It is not secret that the Republican Party is populated by bigots, racists, and evangelicals. It is an unholy alliance that has been cultivated by the GOP ever since Lee Atwood and the Southern strategy came to the fore. And white people organized within the Republican Party to thwart the rights of people of color along with ripping at the safety net that protects citizens from total ruin while letting corporations and tax dodgers pay zero taxes. McConnell and McCarthy allowed all this to happen. Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz aided and abetted this. They are disgraceful. When given the chance to hold Trump to account last year during the impeachment trial, the Republicans suppressed the evidence of wrongdoing. They gave this vile man a pass. Only Mitt stood up for the Constitution. The rest of them violated their oaths of office for their own selfish reason of job protection.
And they repeated the Trump lies about election fraud. Ironic since they are the frauds. And it led to what we saw…a Presidential insurrection that the GOP owns.
So, I blog about this to create a record of our experience on this very sad day, January 6, 2021.
One last thought. There was exposed yesterday in stark relief the fact that there are two systems of justice in this country. One for white people and one for people of color. If those insurrectionists had been Black, they would have been tear gassed, shot, arrested en masse. We witnessed that when in the Spring, BLM protesters were met with violence on the same streets of the Capitol. The government flew helicopters, they donned ominous looking riot gear. Against peaceful protesters. Yesterday the Capitol Police frolicked with the insurrectionists and arrested almost no one. The difference was not subtle. It was outrageous.
My cousin’s own daughter, mother of three, was shot point blank by a rubber bullet from a gun carried by a U.S. official. In Portland. Last year as she helped form a wall of Moms to protect the BLM protesters from U.S. officials. I know of what I speak.
Which again shows to the world and to our own citizenry that we are a sick country. I can only hope that the young people of this country watched this and were repelled by it and will do all they can to try to fix the problems of racism in the future.
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