By: Chuck Miller
Writing

January 6, 2021. A date which will live in infamy.

For some reason, that morning I watched a video-feed from C-SPAN’s website of the mass gathering of Trump supporters at the Ellipse. I watched as several of the group’s main speakers – Rudy Giuliani, Kimberly Guilfoyle, Eric Trump, Don Trump Jr. – all demanded their “Stop the Steal” crapola over and over. Giuliani boasted that there should be “Trial by Combat” in the Capitol between Trump supporters and those who do not support Trump.

And then, at noon, the visitors were greeted by a visit from Donald Trump himself. And make no mistake, Trump aired his grievances like it was the morning of Festivus. And he stoked that crowd like someone pouring gasoline on a campfire.

Meanwhile, over at the Capitol, what is normally a procedural step – the ratifying of the votes from the Electoral College – was interrupted, as objections were made to the acceptance of the votes from Arizona.

Meanwhile, much of the crowd – who chose instead to not wait for Trump’s final words – moved towards the Capitol. They breached the barricade. They entered the building. They broke windows and entered offices and posed for pictures and took trophies. One woman was killed. Three others died from injuries at the scene.

And the terrorists arrived with zip ties and shackles They set up a scaffold on the Capitol grounds, with a hangman’s noose at the ready. Make no mistake. In the words of Walt Kelly, we have met the enemy, and it is us.

I cannot imagine how frightening this is. Domestic terrorists breaching the Capitol security.

I also see a local connection here.

Ugh. This is what happens when people get consumed by Trumpism. I don’t do well with Trumpies. In fact, I’ve actually cut off family members because of their fealty to that Orange Goblin.

Then came the reports that the Department of Defense was told to NOT send the National Guard in, so it was up to the neighboring states of Virginia and Maryland and Delaware to send their own Guard troops to the Capitol. Chaos ensued. Terror. And clowns like Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz and Matt Gaetz and Elise Stefanik and Rudy Giuliani all stoked the fires.

Heck, even after the terrorists were expelled from the Capitol, and the business of ratifying the 2020 Presidential election resumed, Matt Gaetz couldn’t resist blaming the insurgence on the far right’s favorite straw man, Antifa.

And yep … the person who wanted to represent my Congressional district jumped on that grenade, actually claiming that the violence was caused by disguised Antifa members. Including some QAnon goon who looks like he stumbled out of a Minnesota Vikings tailgate party.

Screw all this. Our government was breached. The last time anyone breached our public building with that much effectiveness, we were still at war with the British, and Francis Scott Key hadn’t written The Star Spangled Banner yet.

Make no mistake. Wednesday”s insurrection by domestic terrorists was stoked by Trump and his enablers. What we saw yesterday was the culmination of sedition and treason and demagoguery.

Today, our allies are weaker because of this. Our enemies are emboldened because of this. We let a bunch of Y’all Queda march into the Capitol and do whatever they chose.

I could say that January 20th can’t come fast enough … but this problem goes deeper than a new inauguration of a new President.

We need to learn from yesterday and we need to heal. And we need to reflect and we need to understand.

And we need to be better than this.