We all had such high hopes that 2021 would be a much better year! Unfortunately, this first week has been pretty discouraging, and watching the disturbing events unfold yesterday on Capitol Hill made me absolutely sick to my stomach.
Five people died in yesterday’s violent attack on our capitol building, including Ashli Babbitt, a beautiful young Air Force veteran and Q-Anon believer from San Diego who was shot by a Capitol Police officer while she tried to climb through a window into the Senate Chambers. Another rioter died when he accidently tased himself with his own taser gun. Today, a Capitol Police officer died from injuries received yesterday while doing his best to protect our sacred building. What a shame.
The photographs I saw of these devoted supporters of President Donald Trump inside the Capitol included a proud young man parading a Confederate flag through the rotunda, a shirtless man wearing a bull costume while proudly displaying the Ku Klux Klan tattoo on his abdomen, a young man sitting on the dais of the Senate taking a selfie, and another loser who propped his boots up on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s desk while his friend took his picture. I’m sure they will all be famous when they get back home.
After he incited these thugs, and hundreds of others like them, to riot and attack our most important bastion of democracy, President Trump told them he “loved them” and called them all his “special people”. All of this on a day when more than 4,000 Americans, a record number, died from the COVID-19 virus, and thousands of health care workers across America once again spent a long day doing all they could to save as many of their fellow Americans as possible.
I’ve always wondered how Hitler was able to convince millions of Germans that he was a leader worth following. We all know now, of course, that he was evil incarnate, but an entire nation followed him anyway. Now I believe I’ve watched a similar thing happen here in my own world. Evidently all it takes is a leader with a fair amount of charisma, the ability to stoke existing hatred and racist sympathies, a large dose of fearmongering, and an absolute disregard for the truth.
The fact of the matter is that Donald Trump was defeated in the election, and it was not even close – he lost the popular vote by more than 7 million votes, and lost in the Electoral College by a 306-232 margin. But in spite of dozens of failed challenges and exhaustive legal appeals, he continues to live in his alternative reality bubble where he “won by a landslide” and the entire election was a “fraud”. Unfortunately, millions of Americans have crawled inside this bubble with him, feeding his incredibly oversized ego, some driven to the point of violence and rage.
I realize many of my closest friends and some family members, all of whom I love dearly, will still support Donald Trump, even today. I treasure them, in spite of any political differences we may have. I think every American, however, will agree with me that his actions this week are indefensible. I believe that the few real achievements he has accomplished during his term as President are insignificant now, when compared to the damage he has done to our nation and our society. The truly sad thing is that, with his rare charisma and determination, this president had the potential to achieve so much more, if only he had been more focused on what was good for our nation, and less on what was good for himself.
I have never been more dismayed than I was yesterday as I watched those thugs break through the windows of the Capitol, attack policemen, and ransack the building. But I have never been more proud than I was when I learned this morning that shortly before 4:00 a.m., Congress completed its constitutional duties and certified the Electoral College vote, confirming that the voice of the American people is what matters in our democracy, nothing else. Perhaps this year 2021 is now back on track.
Personally, I look forward to the day when I never have to hear the name Donald Trump again. Perhaps after January 20th, Inauguration Day, this sick, little man will take a seat as a pundit on the Fox News couch and continue to entertain his followers. Then I can just change the channel.
Paul's Point of View 
Well said, my friend. It is hard to express your true feelings these days without risk of totally upsetting someone or even worse. The storming of the capitol is the result of years of rhetoric that has fueled the fire of division. It will take years to undo the harm that has been done. Hopefully this incident will make both sides see what they have created. Unfortunately, I fear this is only the beginning. We are imploding from within.
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