Today is January 6th....

-
Today is a remarkable day in US history because the man who incited violence at the Capitol on 1/6/21 specifically to stop the certification of the election he lost just has had his electoral victory certified in a "peaceful transition of power," as those over at the Washington Post called it. 


Four years ago today it was a completely different story. Weeks before the election certification day, Trump had invited his base to come to DC on 1/6/21 to "stop the steal." That there was no evidence of a steal was not relevant to Trump. He wanted to remain president and he wanted his supporters at the Capitol on January 6. 

On that day at noon, the day that the 2020 election was to be certified, Trump held a "Save America" rally in the Ellipse in DC. You can find the transcript of his speech here. Behind the scenes, his son and others in his team danced and partied, happy to be involved in an attempt to overturn the election Trump lost. In he speech to his base at the Ellipse on 1/6/21, Trump claimed without evidence that the election had been stolen:
"All of us here today do not want to see our election victory stolen by emboldened radical left Democrats, which is what they're doing and stolen by the fake news media. That's what they've done and what they're doing. We will never give up. We will never concede, it doesn't happen. You don't concede when there's theft involved."

And then he asked his base to walk down to the Capitol where it was time to show strength:

"After this, we're going to walk down and I'll be there with you. We're going to walk down. We're going to walk down any one you want, but I think right here. We're going walk down to the Capitol, and we're going to cheer on our brave senators, and congressmen and women. We're probably not going to be cheering so much for some of them because you'll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength, and you have to be strong. "

His base followed orders and engaged in a violent attack on the Capitol in an effort to stop the certification of the vote. Somebody built a gallows. 

There was absolutely no evidence that proved Trump had the election stolen from him, but that's what he claimed ever since he lost. In 2016, he made it clear that he would only support the outcome of an election if he won. And after he lost in 2020, he proved that to be true. He has never accepted the legal outcome of the 2020 election. 

On 1/6/21, I remember seeing noise on social media about a mob at the Capitol. I turned on the TV and was sickened by what I saw - Trump's base violently invading the Capitol, beating police officers that got in their way, breaking doors and windows. Even "brave" Josh Hawley was terrified enough to run from the people for whom he'd raised his fist in support just that morning. 


Trump did nothing to stop the violence. His press secretary tweeted out a lie that he'd called out the National Guard (hours after the violence had started) but investigations later proved her to be lying. 


Trump never called out the National Guard. Others did though. And though Trump kept blaming Pelosi for not calling the National Guard, the DC National Guard is the only unit in America that reports directly to POTUS. (Here is a timeline of the National Guard deployment to the Capitol on 1/6/21.) Though Capitol Police ordered the evacuation of the building at 1:26 p.m., the National Guard did not arrive at the Capitol until nearly 6 p.m. - hours after the violence erupted. 

Trump called the insurrectionists "patriots" - he still calls even those convicted of violence "patriots" and one of his campaign pledges has been to pardon the insurrectionists. 

The images of that day are unforgettable, even as the Republican Party would like for all of us to forget the crimes that happened that day. 

                                                An image taken from the video played by the Trump team at the rally.


                                                The Capitol under siege on 1/6/21.

                                                Someone assembled a gallows at the Capitol. 

    

                                            For the first time in US history, a Confederate flag entered the Capitol.                                                    

Today, 1/6/25, there was a peaceful certification of the election Trump won. It is a day that will live in infamy, the day Congress certified the election of a man who has no interest in upholding our laws, our Constitution or our democracy. 

John Eastman, one of the authors of the unconstitutional attempt to by Trump and his team to steal the 2020 election, has since been banned (at least for the time being) from practicing law in California. From the California Bar ruling:  

"The substantial evidence presented over 35 days of trial showed, and the court has now held, that Mr. Eastman abandoned his ethical and legal duties as an attorney to conspire with then-President Donald Trump to develop and implement a strategy to obstruct the counting of electoral votes on January 6, 2021, and illegally disrupt the peaceful transfer of power to President-elect Joseph Biden, knowing that there was no good faith theory or argument to lawfully reject the electoral votes of any state or delay the January 6 electoral count."

The president-elect is a man who refuses to uphold the constitution. We are in a very dark place right now. 

I grew up pledging allegiance to our flag in school every day; I stood for the National Anthem at every sporting event I attended; I consider myself a patriot and a believer in the American promise of "liberty and justice for all." I certainly recognize that we have a long way to go before the ideals of our Founding Fathers are reached, but I am the child of an immigrant (my mother) and the grandchild of a refugee from Tsarist pogroms (my paternal grandmother) and I've always believed in the promise that America held for the world. 

The events of January 6, 2021 and January 6, 2025 have changed all that. Please don't ever forget the violence of 1/6/21. And who caused it. 

Some more images from that terrible and dreadful day taken by Reuters: 




Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The October Rose

-
Image
‘Tis the season to bring love and joy into the world – and here’s one of the loveliest stories of the year… It’s a story that begins in October 2008, when the economy is in a state of collapse; the culture is in crisis, and faith in humanity – at least, my faith in humanity – is at an all-time low. It is precisely at this time that my next-door neighbor, Annie Jennings, comes home from high school bearing an orange rose. She presents this flower to her mother, Ellen, with the announcement that she is one of the “Sweet 16,” a member of Libertyville High School’s Homecoming Court. Annie is not quite 18 years old, a high school senior with stick-straight, sandy blond hair, glasses and a big smile. We hire her to feed our cat whenever we head out of town and we leave knowing our cat is in very good hands. So when I learn of her selection as a member of the homecoming court, I am intrigued. This is the girl who watches my cat, after all. Ellen is curious about what it means to...
Read more

"Good-bye to all that..."

-
Harry Patch died last week in England. It was the expected outcome for a man of 111. But it is a notable death because with Harry Patch goes the last living memory of trench warfare experienced nearly a century ago during The Great War - known now as World War 1. This story on CNN.com is a wonderful summary of Patch's life. He was a plumber before and after his stint in the trenches. He saw some of the worst warfare man has ever experienced: "He fought and was seriously wounded in Ypres, Belgium, in 1917 at the Battle of Passchendaele, in which 70,000 of his fellow soldiers died -- including three of his close friends." That's a placid little sentence to describe the slaughter of 70,000 men. A horror Patch refused to talk about until he turned 100 years old. Here's a YouTube video that shows some photos and film footage from the Battle of Passchendaele: You can hear the survivor's voice in this video shot at Passchendaele about two years ag...
Read more

On the failure of "the invisible hand" to influence our financial sector

-
In Alan Greenspan's book, The Age of Turbulence , one of the issues he explores is the failure of economic populism in Latin America. Here are his thoughts: " The dictionary defines 'populism' as a political philosophy that supports the rights and power of the people, usually in opposition to a privileged elite. I see economic populism as a response by an impoverished populace to a failing society, one characterized by an economic elite who are perceived as oppressors. Under economic populism, the government accedes to the demands of the people, with little regard for either individual rights or the economic realities of how the wealth of a nation is increased or even sustained." So in Greenspan's view as a self-described Libertarian Republican, economic populism comes to life in "failing societies" that have significant income inequality and are dominated by an economic elite. And in Greenspan's mind, it is not the government that can make t...
Read more