As a pundit-wannabe I know my assigned role: Decry the feckin' idjits who overwhelmed the Capitol a year ago today -- vandals and morons all, and stupid ones at that, since a great many of the arrests that have been made since have come from the authorities simply looking at the narcissistic social media posts the aforesaid feckin' idjits put on line (look at me! I'm Stopping the Steal!).
And I do, whole-heartedly and without reservation, denounce these lunatics.
But---though you might not know it in modern day, divided America---two things can be true at the same time. These were morons (not overexuberant tourists) but they were not insurrectionists.
Some Members of Congress might have been in mortal peril had they not taken shelter or had these these feckin' idjits not (finally) been turned back. But these people could not have taken over the government. That's the goal of an "insurrection." They had no real chance to take over the Capitol Building. Not completely. Not even for an hour. Good Lord, the genius portrayed in the photograph above---I could have looked up his name but it does not deserve to be remembered---couldn't even take over a shirt.
The danger to the Republic came not from these creatures. Rather, it came from those, inside and outside the Trump White House, who urged then-Vice President Mike Pence to fail in his constitutional duty, namely, to certify the election results.
The actual election results. Trump lost. Biden won. Boo hoo. Game over.
Oh, sure, there were irregularities.
There always are. Always.
But when the grown-ups counted up the votes as best they could, though only a few thousand votes in a few key states might have turned the election the other way, the result was clear. And, yet, some of the people in the Capitol on January 6, not the ones waving Confederate battle flags or carrying spears, but actual members of the Congress of the United States, were apparently tempted to tamper with that result.
That was the danger to the Republic. If Pence had done Trump's bidding last year would some of these Senators and Representatives actually gone along? How many would have betrayed their oaths?
Trump was an idiot. And he hasn't gotten any smarter in the past year, either. But I don't want to see him prosecuted for sending the feckin' idjits over to the Capitol to break furniture and/or heads. Because that would only set a dangerous precedent. Study Roman history sometime.
I don't expect it to happen -- sadly -- but I wish the January 6 Committee could rise above partisan politics, abjure the slogans, and simply lay the facts out before the American public. Not about the demented insurance salesmen or real estate brokers or computer analysts or (as in the picture above) kids who escaped their over-indulgent mothers' basements -- prosecute them, sure, for criminal trespass and anything else applicable -- but they presented no real danger to the survival of the Republic.
The real danger lies with politicians who would put party, faction, and personal ambition ahead of the good of the country. Last year it was the Republicans who were obviously dangerous. But there are politicians in both parties who meet this description. I know this has always been so (I'm looking at you, Aaron Burr), but I truly believe the number of these creatures has skyrocketed in recent years. And, next time, there may be no convenient blob of feckin' idjits to divert our attention -- or disrupt the plans of faithless politicians who would undermine our most sacred institutions. We have to call out anyone of any party who would hold an office of trust or honor who does not respect the Constitution or who places him or herself above the good of the country.
But jailing particular politicians will not salve the wound to the body politic. Even if we can legally argue they violated this criminal statute or that one.
Rather, such people must be exposed and shamed. Shamed thoroughly and publicly and completely, so that no one thinks about doing anything like this ever again. Even if the election results go the "wrong" way some other time.
I don't know if many politicians can still experience shame, or whether their partisans understand the concept. If not, we're truly lost, whoever we try to jail.
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