Incoming! How Do We Heal?
“The violent, anti-democratic attack on the Capitol doesn’t fit the technical definition of a coup even though the president incited and encouraged it. That matters, experts say, because different actions are required to prevent this type of attack from harming democracy.”
I want to explore only one of the levels of action required to help pull our democracy out of the quicksand.
Asked if Wednesday’s events were as serious as a coup d’état, Erica de Bruin, a political scientist who has researched coups for more than a decade, said Yes. Absolutely.
So what was it? Armed insurrection? Crazed mob? Thugs? White nationalists? Likely all those and more — including off-duty military and police. What matters is that we understand the essence: This was an act of domestic terrorism carried out through a network of domestic terrorists encouraged over years by a sitting president.
To help bring about change, we need the truth. That means hunting down those involved, identifying the leaders and punishing the perpetrators to the maximum extent of the laws they violated. This is essential if we are to move forward on solid ground.
We watched what happened live. We know the the mob should never have gotten in. We also know institutional racism played a significant role not only for the terrorists but also in the response. The stunning differences between police responses Wednesday and to literally every Black Lives Matter protest throughout the country tell the story. The Atlantic had a good article today showing how the response was neither accidental nor isolated but by design and part of the status quo.
I believe there’s more. The officers facing the armed mob were victims of decisions that came from on high and were left in extreme danger. I believe there was — minimally — a conspiracy of whispers and silence begun by trump’s White House and handed to his lackeys in the DOJ, Homeland and the Pentagon.
It will not be difficult to prove that Miller, acting head of the Pentagon, recently installed by trump, refused to take calls to send in back-up. That the standard pre-event threat assessment was not carried out by DHS and the FBI. That the DOJ refused to create the requisite interagency task force despite calls for violence that had gone on openly for weeks, or that the Defense Department limited the National Guard to traffic duty. For starters.
In response to the DC police claiming they didn’t have intelligence about a possible incursion, a security specialist said: “You didn’t need intelligence. You just need to be able to read.”
This must all be investigated. We need to know who knew what, from whom and when — and we must bring to trial and punish those responsible.
I don’t believe the Capital police on the ground knew what hit them. With the entire Senate, House, and both outgoing and incoming Vice-Presidents in the buildings, they were unable to do exactly the job they were trained for and experienced in. We need to know why.
According to reporters , their forces were substantially fewer in number than for Amy Coney Barrett hearings! Vastly outnumbered, they were improperly equipped, dressed simply in regular uniforms. The barricades were insufficient and placed too close to the Capital — even for a normal demo. Those who tried to do their job paid dearly. Scores were wounded and Brian Sicknick murdered. This must be investigated with the same rigor as every other aspect of Wednesday’s failures.
We are entering the era of an administration that believes in diversity and democracy. We saw the stark contrast of what’s coming and what has been. Georgia turned Blue due to the activism and power of Black voters only days before we saw trump’s emboldened supremacists storm the Capital. This disparity cannot stand. It is the quicksand that will destroy democracy. We cannot build back better in a country at war with itself. Our best means of quelling the fever is truth. To do that we need evidence and open access to it. We need trials. We need convictions under the law. We need education campaigns.
South Africa needed its Truth and Reconciliation Commission; Germany the Nuremberg trials. This is the moment for the United States to publicly hangout our racist legacy and dirty laundry. The America the majority of us voted for will not see the light of day without truth shedding its light into every corner of this country. Lacking that, our damaged and fragile democracy may have nowhere to go but the dark quicksand of authoritarianism.
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“We Need a Second Great Migration” discusses a means to real political power for Black people.
“Republican AGs group sent robocalls urging march to the Capitol” so they could ‘stop the steal. The opposite direction.
Heather Cox Richardson’s January 8, 2021 Letters from an American details the most recent, horrifying, information.
The American Abyss Brilliant analysis by historian, author Timothy Snyder, lengthy and worth every word.
