06 January 2024 | The Other Day of Infamy

It’s still difficult to believe that three years ago, there was a serious attempt to overthrow a fair and free election in this country. That the nation’s Capitol was actually breached by a mob who tried to get in the chamber of the House of Representatives and stop the transfer of power because of a lie, told by the then president of the United States.

And we still are not taking it seriously enough.

The January 6 attack was just that: an attack. It was not a demonstration that got out of control organically. It was not a protest of any kind. It was an assault against American democracy. Except it’s not treated that way. In the three years since that infamous day, the entire Republican Party has diminished it by undermining the established facts of what happened into nothing more than “well, that’s just your opinion, man.” The assault on Capitol Police, guns drawn in the well of the House chamber and other destruction, recorded threats of hanging members of congress and the spectacle of someone carrying a confederate flag when such a thing had never happened during the Civil War has been transformed into a big shrug. All in the service of a lie, spearheaded by a despicable creature who is the frontrunner for the GOP nomination.

Those whom the gods wish to destroy, first drive them mad. How much more madness can you have than this?

As an American, I remain beyond disgusted and angered about what happened on Jan 6. And that disgust and anger is growing over how people are not taking it seriously. Maybe it’s because we Americans are not strong on abstract thought, so the enormity of what happened on that day is not registering because no planes crashed into buildings and no warships were sunk in a harbor. You know: nothing exploded. We talk highly of our democracy, but we clearly have no intense pride in it when there was a direct attack against it. In this lazy country, you get more people screaming about someone taking a knee on a football field than a domestic terrorist attack **against our very way of life.** How much more madness can you have than this?

The reason that I claim that we do not care is because if public sentiment was strongly repulsed by Jan 6, even the GOP would be in condemnation mode. The Republican Party can take the pulse of voters as well as anyone else, and when they see that the full extent of the evil of Jan 6 is not registering as such, they’re not going to go in that direction. There’s no return on investment, so why bother? And that’s also why GOP leadership on the Hill has downplayed Jan 6 and treats it like “just a protest.” That’s why GOP contenders for office have no problem openly committing themselves to pardoning all the little insurrectionist bastards who have been properly adjudicated. This is a goddamn outrage but they do it because there is no price to pay. There is no anger about it at large. And there’s nothing complicated about that because the GOP understands Jan 6 is a big, collective “whatever” from the American public. To wit: even the increasingly execrable New York Times has downplayed Jan 6 as whataboutism based on which political party is doing the talking.

Three years later, and there is no real justice, no concern, no understanding of the full scope of what happened. No one is taking it seriously and we are going to pay for it.