Yesterday, the Duck Dynasty succeeded in what General Lee could not -- storming the Capitol Building and flying the Confederate Battle Flag at the heart of our Republic.
Maybe I'm over-educated, but this image doesn't say Civil War to me, it says civil war. This is not an historian wandering the halls of the Capitol, but someone who wants to overturn the machinery of the Constitution in favor of his raw power.
That they were aided and abetted by both President Trump and the Capitol police is the real tragedy -- and one that must be confronted.
Has a second civil war already begun? One doesn't need the President to say "this is a civil war". Watch his hands, not his mouth. What is he doing, not necessarily saying?
Four years ago, I wrote a worried, political blog. I thought we were on a dangerous path, with heated words tending toward heated actions, and that we might want to reconsider.
Today, we're at those heated actions. With insurrectionists taking over the Capitol building yesterday, the first such breach of security since 1814. We have crossed a Rubicon.
The national fracture this represents will not be solved through talking. Donald Trump's selfish lies and manipulations have guaranteed that dialog goes nowhere, as it is not based on reality.
We have two routes, I believe.
The first is that our Republic aggressively preserves itself. We remove Trump immediately from office for failing to defend the Constitution and its institutions, and inciting insurrection. We do this through the machinery set in place by the Constitution, either the 25th amendment or impeachment. We arrest all of the insurrectionists and put them on trial, including Trump. We issue a stern warning to the entire nation to use the levers of power already in place to make a case, and protest peacefully when those levers seem inadequate. We aim to forestall a civil war.
The second is that we choose to muddle our way forward towards the Biden inauguration as a "solution", allowing Trump to finish his term, and we politely ask the insurrectionists to go home "with love."
The first will cause trouble, and maybe end some political careers, but will preserve the Republic. The second points towards civil war.
Allowing Trump to remain in office after a direct assault on its institutions will prove our Republic is weak at its center. The machinery of the Constitution may be difficult, but it is the proper solution. If we choose an "easier" path, we simply undermine the democracy we have, speaking to all that those who dare to break things win, and that there are no real consequences for insurrection. It will show that there is nothing to defend, that our democracy is already dying or already dead.
As a little people, what can I do? I choose all Constitutionally available means. I have written my Representative Schakowsky, and my Senators Durbin and Duckworth, asking them to remove Trump from office through any and all appropriate means. Being no organizer, I will also join any peaceful protest that demands our representatives defend the Republic. This can feel like weak tea, but I still have faith in our Republic to right itself by the means it put in place to do so.
If we fail in this regard, I point to January 20 as the next likely moment the insurrectionists will make another move. I pray that they fail so miserably that they give up hope, and really go home.
Yup.
Posted by: A | January 07, 2021 at 06:23 PM