I was napping when they broke into the Capitol. My wife, Martha, woke me to tell me the news. At that point, the riot (or “insurrection,” if you prefer, although I wasn’t thinking of it in those terms at the time) was a couple hours old; it appeared that Congress was safe, our representatives tweeting and cuddling each other in their undisclosed safety bunkers. Ok, I don’t remember any reports of “cuddling,” but I like to think of Susan Collins and Chuck Schumer holding each other tight.
Martha said she thought we were watching an important moment in American history. I said I didn’t think so; there’d already been so much insanity during Trump’s four years in office that the scene struck me as just another example–though a particularly dramatic one–of MAGA’s criminal exuberance. It was, I thought, Trump’s political death knell.
Five years after the fact, with our criminal president reinstated for a second term, I understand that day—and especially its aftermath—differently. January 6, 2021 was the day America broke.
Archive: http://archive.today/L3hAL
I called it our beer hall putsch at the time and was unfortunately correct
that’s… surprisingly accurate.
Thanks I’d already followed the fascist vs antifascist street fighting of the years prior and made a point to educate myself on the rise of the nazis. There lied a major decision point for America: crack down hard on the fascists or they will use whatever was done as part of a persecution narrative.
Btw this makes Mitch McConnell Paul von Hindenburg… the senile kingmaker (or Fuhrermaker in this case)