Both Sides

January 24, 2021

In nearly eighty pages of essays over the last four years, you have read my repeated warnings about the politics of demonization and fear, my predictions of violence, and of the inevitable wreckage ahead. You have read that when leaders of a political party can no longer resist the siren song of fealty which accompanies fear – they are carried along by it and ultimately dashed upon the rocks. Or in the prescient words of John F. Kennedy, they ride the tiger and wind up inside. Whichever metaphor, it ends poorly.

There can be no more false moral equivalence after the events of January 6th, 2021, no more decrying of the language of “both sides”. It is shockingly clear: one party embraces the Constitution and rule of law, and the other, authoritarianism. Period.

The deadly insurrection at the U.S. Capitol pulled back the curtain on the malign and undemocratic intent of those who waved their pocket Constitutions, shook their Bibles, and flew their Gadsden flags in our faces for so long. This is OUR country, they shouted. And we will take it from you by force.

We are left with the irony of witnessing a policeman nearly beaten to death by someone carrying a “Thin Blue Line” flag. We’re left with images of a gallows erected in front of our Capitol, and of armed men with zip ties charging into the Senate chamber. We’re left with the chilling chant of, “Kill Mike Pence” ringing in our ears. With photographs seared on our retinas of enraged and costumed partisans roaming the halls of Congress, their shirts and banners emblazoned with Nazi imagery, Confederate flags, and wild conspiracy theories. With the realization that so many of those who call themselves patriots and real Americans marched beneath distinctly un-American symbols, attempted to assassinate the Speaker of the House, and tried to sell information they stole from her office to Russian intelligence.

Wednesday, January 6th is a day we’ll not soon forget. It is the day when, for most of us, the inevitable path of the Republican party became unmistakably clear. Those who still deny their complicity in the deadly insurrection fool no one. Those who still support this unthinkable attempted coup on American soil should be labeled for what they truly are: domestic terrorists bent on installing a largely white, theocratic, and authoritarian government.

And so we find ourselves in yet another crisis handed off by a Republican administration, left to Democrats to fix; yet this time it isn’t one, but three: a pandemic out of control, an economy on the rocks, and a violent minority within, bent on inciting civil war. Unrepentant, unreconcilable, unreconstructable.

As Juliette Kayyem writes in The Atlantic, “For the past four years, Donald Trump has been playing two roles: one as president, and the other as the rallying point for a coalition of theocrats, internet fantasists, white supremacists, and various other authoritarians who are in no way committed to peaceful transitions of power. Wednesday’s insurrection at the United States Capitol made Trump’s latter role all too clear.”

Today’s crisis of national disunity, however, did not start with Mr. Trump, nor are there any near-term solutions for it in the wake of his departure. Much of our population has voted directly against its own interests for years, vilified the cities and states which funded its roads, bridges, schools, military, and social security checks. Pledged blind loyalty to the very businessmen who closed their factories and shipped their jobs overseas. Fantasized about a Christian rapture and civil war.  And the answer they would give to people who only wished to be treated like human beings? Who only asked not to be killed?  Their answer was to become a seething horde of gun-toting cosplay militiamen, menacing, intimidating, and attacking their fellow citizens.

That some might wave the American flag and profess to love Jesus while threatening others makes them no less a danger. While we have long ignored the openly vocal threat from a white supremacist subset of our population (itself responsible for most domestic terror attacks since 1994), we can neither excuse it nor look past it anymore. And we can no longer tolerate the hate speech by which politicians and pundits fan the flames of hatred… a hatred so brazen, so normalized today in GOP politics, that the Capitol rioters actually recorded themselves carrying out a deadly insurrection and attempted coup against the United States. Consider that for a moment. They really did believe in what they were doing.

There are signs however that the chronic instigation of hatred and anger, or at least the enabling of it by some Republicans, is abating. On Tuesday January 19th, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said on the Senate floor that, "The last time the Senate convened, we had just reclaimed the Capitol from violent criminals who tried to stop Congress from doing our duty. The mob was fed lies… they were provoked by the president and other powerful people, and they tried to use fear and violence to stop a specific proceeding of the first branch of the federal government." That McConnell would make such a statement after years of tolerating the chaotic destruction of our democratic norms and institutions is remarkable.

This madness must end. The election that returned even more Republicans to Congress than before is the same one that selected a Democratic Executive.  So, again, which election was rigged? Many GOP stalwarts who were widely admired just weeks before – judges, justices, secretaries, representatives, executives, attorneys general – embraced their sacred Constitutional oaths, carried out their duties as honest public servants, and are now shunned by their party. That they have done so is to their credit; they deserve our thanks and respect, not threats to their lives and families, not a noose.

Finally, we must recognize the fearmongering for what it is. President Joseph R. Biden has been a devoted public servant for nearly a half century; were he a communist, it would be pretty obvious by now. If Democrats craved the penury and depravation of Soviet-style Marxism, they’ve had plenty of opportunity over the years to impose it. Instead, they’ve presided over falling unemployment, waning deficits, and rising equity valuations. Nothing ever came of those endless Benghazi investigations. Obama never came for our guns, never invaded Texas, nor did he round us up in FEMA concentration camps atop Wal Mart stores. There was no basement full of enslaved children waiting to be eaten by Democrats in a DC pizza joint. In fact, there wasn’t even a basement.

As it turns out, the Covid-19 pandemic was not a hoax, there was never any real plan to deal with it, and now nearly half a million of our friends, neighbors, and family are dead.  After all the t-shirts were printed, there was in fact no “Great Awakening” as predicted by the QAnon conspiracy theorists, and President Trump did not declare martial law, nor did he put to death all the Democrats or install himself permanently in office.

And there are no alternative facts.

No politician has taken away your freedom, your liberty, nor your franchise. But they have offered you healthcare, education, and a living wage – things most every other developed country has, but we don’t. And you know which side they’re on.

It’s yours. So don’t hate them for it.