I was napping when they broke into the Capitol. My wife, Martha, woke me to tell me the news. At that point, the riot (or “insurrection,” if you prefer, although I wasn’t thinking of it in those terms at the time) was a couple hours old; it appeared that Congress was safe, our representatives tweeting and cuddling each other in their undisclosed safety bunkers. Ok, I don’t remember any reports of “cuddling,” but I like to think of Susan Collins and Chuck Schumer holding each other tight.
Martha said she thought we were watching an important moment in American history. I said I didn’t think so; there’d already been so much insanity during Trump’s four years in office that the scene struck me as just another example–though a particularly dramatic one–of MAGA’s criminal exuberance. It was, I thought, Trump’s political death knell.
Five years after the fact, with our criminal president reinstated for a second term, I understand that day—and especially its aftermath—differently. January 6, 2021 was the day America broke.
Archive: http://archive.today/L3hAL
At some point the US needs to just accept that it’s always been broken. Every time something happens media comes out acting like everything was perfectly fine until this very recent thing happened.
That shithole country is a never-ending slog of pain and suffering.
And it is all perfectly fine again as soon as it doesn’t generate enough engagement for them any more.