Yesterday was pretty awful. I watched the whole Capital invasion unfold starting at about 2pm, and then I was pretty much stuck to the TV and social media for the rest of the day. My “Dry January” also got thrown out the window, as I watched the confirmation of the Electoral College late into the night. I called it at 1am, and tried to get some sleep.
I am horrified at what happened, but not surprised. It had been building for months, and Georgia’s voting systems manager Gabriel Sterling had called out Trump saying this is what will happen if President didn’t stop his lies.
But it didn’t stop with Trump. No, this is also Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley’s doing as well. Dan Patrick and his stupid lawsuit at the Supreme Court also had a hand in this. And I especially blame Mitch McConnell, who danced around saying Biden had won the election, which gave air to all of these lies. All of these actions led to this situation.
And then there were all the cowardly Trump supporters, who had been saying since 2015 that Trump is just kidding, only making jokes, he would never do anything the threaten the country. Just a month ago, I had a friend say online that Trump would never incite mob rule, that it was just liberal fear mongering.
And yet the President of the United States sent a mob to the Capital Building to stop the certification of a free, fair, and legal election.
I want to laugh this off, and say that in two weeks Biden/Harris will be sworn in and things will start getting better.
But, this is going to be a very scary two weeks. I don’t see Trump shutting up, and I don’t see that his supports were horrified at what happened yesterday. If anything, it seems to have energized them; That majority male and white mob that forced their way into the Well of the Senate and the House, went home yesterday with out any penalty. They looked like the Visigoths sacking Rome.
The easy lesson here is that this is why you don’t elect people like Trump. That if we want to protect and preserve our Nation, then we all have to demand that all of our elected leaders must meet a minimum of decency and decorum. That if you ignore these norms, you get chaos and bedlam.