January 6, 2021
As a native Washingtonian, I\’ve seen all kinds of protests over the years. None more violent and contentious than the protests against the War in VietNam, arcane protests around the IMF, and more recently Black Lives Matter. We are used to seeing these protests met with superior force to quell any threat of violence. Particularly any encroachments on the National Mall and Capitol Hill. The outrage of watching a group of white supremacists, black idiotic trash, and a host of clowns and stupes taking over the Capitol is beyond anything I have ever seen.
After an hour of listening to President Trump spew lies and conspiracy rhetoric, thousands of protesters were given license, that\’s right given license, to march to the Capitol to try to prevent the electoral certification of President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris. Anybody that says they didn\’t see this coming is frankly full of it. Trump and his supporters announced this weeks ago.
They took over the Michigan State House and threatened the life of the Governor of that state and nothing happened. Kyle Rittenhouse strolled down the streets of Kenosha Wisconsin after shooting protesters and nothing happened. They came to D.C. a week ago and defaced Black churches and burned Black Lives Matter signs and everybody looked away.
So, to watch the Capitol overtaken like this brings a lot of questions to mind. There are over a dozen different law enforcement agencies in this city with a number of them federal. How a breach of this level can happen without a drastic show of force is hard to believe. There was even commentary on Fox News that one of the protestors claimed that this protest was different from the Black Lives Matter movement because there was no vandalism. That\’s a bunch of bull. People scaled the capitol, broke windows, rummaged offices, and tried to forcefully gain entry into the halls of congress. Four people are dead as a result.
It\’s not lost on this writer that federal forces were deployed during the summer, to inner cities by this president, to protect federal property were absent. It\’s also not lost on mainstream media. The irony of it all is that we all know if the crowds taking over the Capitol were people of color the response would have been drastically different. There would not have been a standdown order in effect. There would have been bodies carried away, clouds of tear gas, and the full force of the police state unleashed on the city. Anarchists were allowed to seize the Capitol and there will be all kinds of spin that deflects the reality of letting them get away with it.
There have been a number of comparisons to the current state of things to the rise of Nazi Germany. Yesterday, the chickens came home to roost at the U.S. Capitol. Politicians have fermented this anarchy. They created this monster and now they can\’t control it. A poem written about the rise of Nazi Germany was re-written to account for the Trump presidency. It was re-written by Gideon Lichfield in 2016 before the Trump madness had really taken hold.
First Trump came for the women
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a woman.
Then Trump came for the people with disabilities
And I did not speak out
Because I did not have a disability.
Then Trump came for the African Americans
And I did not speak out
Because I was not African American.
Then Trump came for the Mexicans
And I did not speak out
Because I was not Mexican.
Then Trump came for the Muslims
And I did not speak out
Because I was not Muslim.
Then Trump came for the gay, bi, and trans people
And I did not speak out
Because I was not gay, bi or trans.*
Then Trump came for the Jews
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Jew.**
Then Trump came for the journalists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a journalist.***
Then Trump came for the judges
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a judge.
And now Trump is coming for the Constitution of the United States
And if I do not speak out, what am I?