That Day of Shame Reviewed
The Battle of the Capitol is almost two weeks past, Trump has been impeached a second time, and for tomorrow’s inauguration of Joe Biden D. C. looks like Corregidor preparing for the Japanese assault of May 1942. Only now are we identifying the forces that attacked our legislative branch of government, and we are only now learning who many of the individual participants were.
But what was their real cause…their real beef? Stopping the ritual formality of counting President-Elect Biden’s victory of last November 3 wouldn’t change anything. Anyone who hadn’t dropped out of grammar school could count to 306 (Biden’s number of electoral votes) and Trump’s 232. It could even be called a “landslide” spread, and was so by Donald Trump when he won the presidency by the same electoral vote totals in 2016.
Watching the violent insurrection unfold on the telly, I tried to find its root causes by checking the flags and signs the fattened white herd brandished as they stampeded toward their trashing of our hallowed Capitol.
Most numerous were American flags. No surprise there. Many of them were defaced by a superimposed likeness of President Trump; others were stained with merely his name. MAGA hats were everywhere.
Second most flags in number were the yellow Gadsden “Don’t Tread on Me” rattlesnake flags that date from Revolutionary War days; more recently it has become treasured by right-wing malcontents obsessed with imagined freedoms—including freedom from citizen responsibility. To date, no one has called their bluff, and no jackboot has comes crashing down to defang them. The bearers of these banners seemed to me to be perpetually angry white loners who find comfort in some murky form of nihilism.
Then came the most disgraceful display—the Confederate flag paraded across a deserted legislative chamber. That gave us all the prime cause behind the insurrection: the racism that still hounds our dissolving nation. Doubters need only check out the appearance of the pale, well-fed angry mob bent on hanging Vice President Mike Pence and kidnapping House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. All this in the “People’s House”?
Menace was on full display. Many men (and a few women) were dressed in combat camouflage gear, members of many militias spoiling for a fight; some seemed to be vets of our armed services, others were probably weekend warriors bored with their “Call of Duty” video games. In any case, the lot of them were well-armed—with pipe bombs (one planted near the RNC, one for the DNC offices), caches of Molotov cocktails, automatic rifles, handguns, hockey sticks, nooses and gallows. You name it, they had it…everything, except it would seem, leadership.
I confess there were many signs and standards I couldn’t identify. But I did see the flag of Texas waving proudly in the mix. Oh those Texans…they’re such fun at a riot! And I spotted a dude in a Harley Davidson jacket, evidence apparently that Trump’s biker gang backers had his back.
If hate is in the air, you can be sure the Proud Boys will be there. And they were, flaunting their presence in black stocking caps.
So were the Oath Keepers, the Three Percenters, the boogaloo movement, and a rogues’ gallery of militias and white supremacy warriors looking for a fight. Capping it all off were the Q-Anon loonies, probably the energy if not the brains behind the quixotic attack, waving their own flag with an outsized letter Q on it, their apparent leader a body-painted, self-styled shaman with horns growing out of his head, carrying a long spear to demand…er, attention?
Any Nazis, you might ask? Were they present? Oh yes…our own homegrown variety. If there is a Reichstag to be burned down, Nazis will show up to add their virulent anti-Semitism to the white power crusade. The signs they wore were the most scurrilous of all. “Camp Auschwitz” adorned one guy’s sweatshirt, reminding us that over a million Jews were in incinerated in the most notorious of Hitler’s death camps. Other Nazi slogans could be seen but are too offensive to be reprinted here.
Christians among you might be offended by my use of “crusade” in conjunction with Nazism, since the word refers to a Christian-sanctioned war.” Yet, surprisingly perhaps, the insurrection also had a religious component. One sign read “Pelosi is Satan.” Pelosi? That diminutive, devout Catholic nonna? Besides, I thought Satan was a guy. Was she the one wearing a satin gown when the House members fled for their lives into the escape tunnel?
Another baffler was just the words “Holy Bible” emblazoned on a breastplate worn by one protester. Meaning? I don’t know. Were you supposed to read the Good Book? Upside down? That sign was followed by another puzzler: “Jesus Saves.” Saves what? Is that all there is? Another “Jesus Saves” sign, flown on the same staff beneath an Israeli flag, mystified me further. Then one intruder penetrated the legislative chambers bearing a flag I later learned was the Christian flag, which I admit I never knew existed.
Who knew? Christians have a flag of their own.
Putting it all together, I tentatively concluded that the Born Again crowd had joined the coup in progress. (I guess the Prince of Peace approved the breaking of the peace.)
One reporter aptly called the January 6 uprising a “Bonfire of the Insanities.” I must agree. Yes, my friends, fascist mayhem can happen here. Yes, it did happen here. And, yes, Trump’s gullible goons promise it will happen here again.
Are we witnessing end times for our country?
Benjamin Franklin, upon leaving 1787 Constitutional Convention held in the Pennsylvania State House, was asked what kind of government the delegates had come up with. “A republic,” he responded, “if you can keep it.”
I, for one, am having doubts we can.