For my entire life, a part of a political party’s mantra has been that government is bad, that it deserved to be drowned in a bathtub, that nothing good could ever come from government, that fewer people should vote, that politicians should be able to pick their voters, that they were backed in their beliefs by their god, that only their rule was legitimate, and, yesterday, we saw the logical conclusion to that rhetoric and belief system with an attempted violent overthrow of our government.
We lucked out that the extremists only brought Confederate flags and neo- Nazi t-shirts and that they and their militia groups didn’t bring any bombs into the Capital, because it’s clear that our security mechanisms completely failed. Luckily, the security held long enough to protect our lawmakers. From the pictures that came out of the capital, you can see an extremist carrying the zip ties these groups use when taking hostages.
It’s absolutely reprehensible what happened. There is no excuse. There is only failure. That failure is every American’s to own.
It’s not so clear what is next. Another blow has been struck against our democracy. Our leaders and we need to fix it. Work has to start now by holding those who encouraged this and those who acted accountable. Of course, Congress just adjourned and went home – completely failing to lead us out of this crisis.
Seeing that leads me to fear that this is only the beginning. In the months and years to come, I fear that we will see more.
Now, I mourn. I’m sad for my country. We lost something.
Bryan Hansel,
Grand Marais
Leave a Reply