Reflections the day after an insurrection

 

Today, a day after the US Capitol was stormed by seditious traitors, I am seeing posts from friends on the right saying there is no way these domestic terrorists were from the right in spite of the facts;  https://www.bbc.com/news/55572805

To paraphrase and satirize what I am seeing:

We all know this was antifa dressed up as MAGA and QAnon supporters. The fine upstanding citizens who support the president would never do anything like this. Look they’ve had millions of people attend rallies with no violence and after all rallies and boat parades which are the best way to determine support of a candidate so there is no way anyone voted for Biden as he had no rallies and no boat parades.

 

These are all lies!! And antifa and BLM have experience burning and looting putting small business out of business and getting in the way of wayward bullets shot by out of state 17 year olds who believes he was deputized. Let’s remember they acted very civilized once the capitol police removed those barriers and only took that letter from that wicked decrepit lady for SF CA. Also the president, his children, his advisors, and his enablers in Congress no way incited them to these actions. It’s Biden Pelosi and Schumer’s fault for getting 80+M votes and not condemning the riots last summer. 

 Here are some fact by Heather Cox Richardson

 “Trump had urged his supporters for weeks to descend on Washington, D.C., to stop what he insisted was the stealing of the election. They did so and, this morning, began to congregate near the Capitol, where the counting would take place. As he passed them on the east side of the Capitol, Hawley raised a power fist.

 

In the middle of the day, Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani spoke to the crowd, telling them: “Let’s have trial by combat.” Trump followed, lying that he had won the election and saying “we are going to have to fight much harder.” He warned that Pence had better “come through for us, and if he doesn’t, that will be a sad day for our country.” He warned that Chinese-driven socialists are taking over the country. And he told them to march on Congress to “save our democracy.”

 Although this group of terrorist, hooligans or seditious traitors did not cause much harm to the capitol, they did not burn or loot, they did seem prepared to take hostages and they did storm our seat of government in order to overthrow the duly elected government from completing their constitutional duty to certify the states electoral votes.

  Had the protested (violently or not) outside of the capitol, as a means to express their anger and frustration that would have been wholly acceptable and permissible under the 1^st amendment, but once you attempt to take over the building where the government is meeting, regardless if it is clueless followers stumbling along carrying confederate and nazi flags  or organized planners with zip ties, you have committed sedition and quite possibly treason.

Here is a quote from the woman who died after being shot by police in the Capitol.  Certainly sounds like a MAGA/QAnon supporter to me, but what do I know I’m just a lowly centrist trying to figure out how to hold this country together