A Tragic Day

The First of Two Posts on the Events of January 6 and the Future of our Politics

First, I must say that I write this with some lack of confidence about whether anything can be offered that meets the moment. What tools are available, what strategy can be devised, to address the disorder and chaos we saw play out in these last 24 hours.

On January 6, the day after elections which would decide the control of the Senate in the Democrats’ favor—elections in which the losing candidates argued that their loss would represent an existential threat to Georgians and the country, an argument which now basically the status quo in our politics—an assortment of white supremacist groups, conservative activists and their followers and other supporters of Donald Trump arrived at the nation’s Capitol for a planned rally which was called for, supported and attended by President Trump. The purpose of this rally was not merely to express disappointment about the outcome of the presidential election, but to treat the election itself as an act of injustice, an affront. To overturn it. It was an anti-democratic rally sanctioned by the leader of the free world.

Just days prior, it had been reported that President Trump had been using his office to attempt to bully fellow elected officials to bend to his will, and to manufacture an alternative outcome to the presidential election. Just the day before, the extent of the political comeuppance for Republicans/conservatives for their alliance with Trump was beginning to become clearer as Georgia elected not only to send two Democratic Senators to Washington, but to do so with the clear knowledge that it would give Democrats control of both the legislative and executive branches of government. Trump’s entire MO—creating a sense of desperation and embattlement among Americans, and offering himself as the only solution—had led to this moment. While the day’s events would get much worse, do consider the abhorrence of a sitting president, days before leaving office, supporting and speaking at a rally suggesting that the nation needed saving from a peaceful transition of power. This act alone was reckless. This act alone was a betrayal of America’s democracy.

Donald Trump would tell the crowd that they “would never give up, never concede” that he lost the election. He promised to “Stop the Steal.” For days his team played up the idea that Trump would set out new information proving there was mass fraud that cost Trump the election, and then send the crowd to the Capitol. He promised he would not let “them…silence your voices.” He told the crowd that “if Mike Pence does the right thing, we will win the election…he has the absolute right to do it.” He told the crowd that he told his Vice President that overturning the election results did not take courage, doing nothing took courage. He said that he hated that the press had the best seats for the rally. He claimed “they” were using the pandemic to “defraud the people in a proper election.” He said that if the elections were not overturned then “we would have somebody in there who should not be in there and our country would be destroyed, and we’re not going to have that.” He said that if “this” had happened to Democrats, there would “be hell all over the country,” but he told the crowd they were “stronger,” and unlike “them,” the people in the crowd were the kind of people who “built this nation” not destroyed it. He threatened primaries against Republicans who did not go with efforts to overturn the election results. The sitting president of the United States said that he was leading in battleground states by hundreds of thousands of votes, until late in the evening when there was an “explosion of bullshit,” which prompted the crowd to start chanting “bullshit.” He commented that he hoped Senator Romney enjoyed his flight the night before where he was harrassed by people who were coming to attend the rally.

I could go on…You can watch Trump speak at the rally here.

His remarks were deranged, full of lies and a psychotic disdain for reality.

Following the rally, there was a march to the Capitol, just as Congress was meeting to do what Trump warned would destroy the country.

Here is how The Washington Post described the rally and what would follow.

As President Trump told a sprawling crowd outside the White House that they should never accept defeat, hundreds of his supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol in what amounted to an attempted coup that they hoped would overturn the election he lost. In the chaos, law enforcement officials said, one woman was shot and killed by Capitol Police.

The violent scene — much of it incited by the president’s incendiary language — was like no other in modern American history, bringing to a sudden halt the congressional certification of Joe Biden’s electoral victory.

With poles bearing blue Trump flags, a mob that would eventually grow into the thousands bashed through Capitol doors and windows, forcing their way past police officers unprepared for the onslaught. Lawmakers were evacuated shortly before an armed standoff at the House chamber’s entrance. The woman who was shot was rushed to an ambulance, police said, and later died. Canisters of tear gas were fired across the Rotunda’s white marble floor, and on the steps outside the building, rioters flew Confederate flags.

“USA! USA!” chanted the would-be saboteurs of a 244-year-old democracy.

I typically would not advise watching video footage of something so graphic, but unfortunately there are people out there who are already trying to pretend like what happened did not happen, and so the only antidote is reality. In the words of Lauryn Hill, “fantasy is what people want, but reality is what they need.” We need to retire from the fantasy, and that means reckoning with what is real. With caution, watch this footage of these terrorists in the halls of our democracy.

Five people are now dead, including a police officer.

I know one image will stick in my mind forever. It’s this one:

The latin phrase that is blocked by the man is “annuit coeptis,” which means “God has favoured our undertakings.” It was inscribed there with the hope that those who served under it might hold themselves accountable to its promise, that they might aspire to live up to its lofty notion. That God might look on how we act in our political life, and find it pleasing.

Perhaps no more fundamental notion has been forsaken by so many of our elected officials, and so many Christian leaders, in our recent history. God’s favor has not been something to pursue in our political life, but instead, at best, something we might be able to turn to once we achieve our security and our “enemies” defeat. Then we can turn back to the Lord.

We have not made an idol of our politics, because we take it too seriously. We have treated politics as a game. As I’ve written before, the problem is not that we take politics too seriously, but that we have taken it seriously in all of the wrong ways. Watch Trump speak at the rally, and watch and listen for how the crowd reacts to him, and you will understand what I mean.

We have made an idol of our politics, because we have looked to politics to do what God has not, while neglecting the very reason for politics in the first place. We have not been seeking to advance the common good in our politics lately. We have not viewed politics as the means by which we make decisions about how we will live together as a people. Politics, like so much else of our lives, has become a forum for self-expression, a forum which gives our animosities access to tools of coercion and cultural power.

Congress reconvened after the Capitol was clear of the insurrectionists, and in the Senate at least, you saw faint glimmers of a politics that has some promise. You saw Senators speaking with great care, in the presence of their colleagues. Senators like Mitt Romney and Michael Bennet spoke with passion, and spoke to their colleagues as human beings. Instead of speaking only to a camera, a performance without a present audience, Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz had to speak in front of their colleagues, and they had to hear from the colleagues who disagreed with them. Persuasion took place, albeit, at the cost of the violence which had taken place hours earlier, as several Senators decided to cast their vote differently. Members of Congress prayed together. Senator Tim Scott and others prayed while sheltered. Rep. Lisa Blunt Rochester prayed from the balcony of the House chamber. I sought to hold onto these glimmers Wednesday night. We have no choice but to pursue the opportunity that lies ahead of us, even as it emerges from such disrepair. David Brooks argues that just that is possible, and I share in his hopes.

Yet, as I will write later this week, it will be very easy for us to slip back into modes of thinking about and acting in politics that we find all too comfortable, even as they destroy us.

Take care of yourselves, and be kind to those you come across. We can all use to be beneficiaries of such kindness, and we can all use the satisfaction of doing some good in such circumstances.

Michael

P.S. On Tuesday, for subscribers only, I shared my analysis ahead of the GA election returns. You can read that post, gain access to other subscriber-only posts, and support the work of this newsletter by becoming a subscriber by clicking below.