Why We Must Never Forget January 6th

I honestly don't know what to say about Wednesday.  January 6, 2021, is a day that like December 7, 1941 and September 11, 2001, will forever remain a dark, tragic day for America.  It's hard, in the days that have followed to think about what it portends, and what it could've been.  Dozens, if not hundreds, of members of Congress were in the Capitol building when a mob of terrorists, supporting Donald Trump, stormed the building, throwing it into chaos while the Capitol Police fell back like pawns on a chess board.  It has to be noted that not only were much of Congress in the Senate & House chambers, but so were Vice President Mike Pence, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and President Pro Tempore Chuck Grassley, Numbers 2, 3, & 4 in the presidential line of succession.  As we've seen in the days since, at least five people have died as a result of this act of terrorism, including a Capitol Police officer, and the country has reeled in shock in looking at the Capitol being attacked for the first time since the War of 1812.

It is apparent at this point that Donald Trump encouraged this action through his social media posts and his inability to accept that he lost the presidential election on November 3rd.  Trump's behavior since the election, and indeed throughout the entirety of his tenure as president & as a presidential candidate, has been an appalling pit of ash for the country, stoking racism, xenophobia, and hatred to anyone that stands in the way of his lust for power.  He should be removed from office, either through impeachment or through the 25th Amendment.  The resignations of cabinet secretaries Elaine Chao & Betsy DeVos, seen as two of the more likely votes to oust Trump, indicate the latter is unlikely to happen, though it is probable that an impeachment vote will happen, though a removal of Trump from office through the Senate is unlikely to pass before January 20th, the date when he will no longer be president and that position will pass to Joe Biden.

It is hard to underscore how horrible the past few days have been for the country, possibly the worst moments for the country since the Civil War.  Unlike September 11th or the Pearl Harbor bombings or the Bay of Pigs before it, these were attacks by American citizens, on American soil.  It is clear that while no elected officials were harmed during the attack, there was obviously an intention to harm public officials.  Particularly in the case of Vice President Pence, videos circulated of the crowd chanting "Hang Mike Pence!" and a gallows was erected near the Capitol.  Pence as I mentioned above, was inside, as was his wife, brother, and daughter, at the time of the attack.  Intruders ransacked the office of the Speaker, as well as that of dozens of members, stealing laptops from both Pelosi and Sen. Jeff Merkley.  Men were inside with flex-cuffs, potentially indicating that they were intending to take members of Congress or the Second Family hostage.  They did all this flagrantly, in one of the most under surveillance buildings on the planet, few wearing masks & many publicly talking to reporters or posting on their social media what they were doing.  And while the Capitol has been the focus, it should not be forgotten that explosives were found near the Republican and Democratic National Headquarters, and had to be disarmed by bomb squads, and could have done serious damage to both buildings and the people in them based on reports in the days since.  If any other country on the planet had done what Republicans did on Wednesday, we'd have been at war with them by Wednesday night.

As I mentioned above, it is clear that Trump needs to be removed from office, and brought to justice.  His behavior has always been egregious, but his encouragement of mob behavior, combined with his harassment of public elections officials, particularly the Secretary of State of Georgia, have crossed the line into criminal.  It is also clear that Sens. Ted Cruz & Josh Hawley should resign from their positions.  Their public grandstanding, without any evidence of wrongdoing or elections fraud from the court system, led to this just as much as Trump's actions did.  I support Sen. Sherrod Brown's move to expel both of them from the Senate, and I hope that Republicans consider it.  Both men are from states that have a Republican governor-there will be no change in power in the Senate by replacing both men, and this needs to be done immediately.

I also think it is appropriate for Democrats to make an example of several of the people who voted for this measure in the 2022 midterms.  We have seen in the past four years that it is difficult to beat Republicans in deep-red territory, and most of the senators come from states that Trump won handily in 2020 (though Cruz and Florida Senator Rick Scott did not, and Democrats should not forget about what happened this week when they run again next).  

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO)

There were considerably more House Republicans that ran, and it will be difficult to go after many of them, and many of them will be in districts that will be difficult to go after...but Democrats must make a point of going after those that they can, as the basic bedrock of democracy was threatened not just by these attacks, but by the Republicans who (tacitly or implicitly) encouraged these attacks by denying the legitimate victory of Joe Biden & Kamala Harris.  Rep. Mike Garcia is the first name that comes to mind, since he resides in a district that Joe Biden won, but I also think we need to go a step further.  Kevin Robillard of the Huffington Post said on Thursday that there was talk among Maryland Democrats to gerrymander the state so that Rep. Andy Harris, who did not vote to certify, would lose his seat.  I'm not normally a fan of gerrymandering (I support legislation to make it illegal on a national level), but these are not normal times, and I think this would be appropriate not just against Harris, but Republican representatives in Illinois, New Mexico, & Virginia who voted against democracy this week.  We need to send a message that this isn't right, and we need to do so through every legal mechanism at our tools. We cannot sit back & pretend that this was normal, or an isolated incident.  For four years our hope was that Trump would just go away, like a zit that we hoped would just disappear, but that analogy is wrong.  Trump is a cancer, one that has now rotted out chunks of the American populace, and while it's not pretty to treat & fix a cancer, it is the only way; ignoring it solves nothing & allows it to spread.

In 11 days we will have a new president, and a Congress led by Democrats.  They will be tasked with a pandemic, a rough economy, and hundreds of ignored problems from the past four years.  They will be given a nation that has been bloodied & bruised on the world stage, a shining beacon for the world that has dimmed to allies the globe over.  But we can never forget what happened on Wednesday, and we can never forget the leaders who caused it.  It is important to ensure that they never hold power again, and that those that do are beaten in elections & through repeated public humiliation for their actions.  It is impossible to understate how much we clearly needed to win our elections this year, and thank god people across the country (but especially those in Georgia & Arizona), came through for the rest of the nation.  But the work begins now, and we must not pretend that the election of Joe Biden is the end of this fight, or that Donald Trump will magically go away when he no longer is the president.  The fight to preserve democracy is all of ours for the next few years, and we must carry that with us.