It is astonishing to me that there are people who are surprised by the Capitol attack. It was more than four years in the making, as we repeatedly watched Trump pander to the lowest common denominator from the earliest days of his candidacy, inciting against Mexicans and other minorities, mocking a disabled journalist, bullying, disrespecting members of the military and their families, proudly flaunting his misogyny and scattering racist dog whistles. He has continued to do so throughout his presidency, reveling in the adoration of his beguiled followers and enabled by spineless, self-serving Republican politicians who believed that currying favor with the president was more important than calling him out when he crossed and obliterated lines of legality, ethics, and integrity.
I keep reading comments from Republicans and Trump supporters who try to assign moral equivalency between what happened yesterday and the 2020 protests that periodically spiraled out of control (I notice that no one has even mentioned the unruly, often violent, Trump-encouraged demonstrations against COVID-19 directives and guidelines), as though protesting police brutality against minorities is somehow on the same level as a sitting president whipping his followers into a frenzy with unfounded lies about fraudulent voting and calling on them to rise up and take back what was “stolen” from them — something he has done every day since the election. And instead of condemning their violent physical assault on the symbolic heart of American democracy, he continued to lie and incite, and told them he loved them and understood them.
And for those of you who believe that Trump supporters wouldn’t storm the Capitol, that these were paid actors, Antifa, BLM (which is ironic, given how white they are), or other radical leftists, I feel sorry for you, as I feel sorry for anyone who cannot examine their own group in a critical manner and admit their faults. You cannot excise a malignant tumor if you refuse to even acknowledge that it exists.
Hardly a day has gone by during the past four years when he has not shown the world who—and what—he is. If you rationalized it, if you excused it, if you willfully turned a blind eye to it, you share the burden of responsibility for this attack. You do not deserve the luxury of feigning ignorance, of expressing surprise. You, who voted for him and enabled him. You, who could look at a man so utterly devoid of respect for the office he holds, so completely lacking in compassion, ethics, morals, and so much more, and decide that these were not problematic enough to sway you. Twice. This is not about politics – it’s about decency. It’s about values. If you choose to support the man who has neither, especially after what happened yesterday, then we are truly on the precipice of a potentially insurmountable chasm.
