Where are we one year later?
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Where are we one year later?
January 6th was an assault on democracy. An open discussion on what it's done to the nation and our future.
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Where do you believe we are today, the one-year anniversary of the brutal January 6th domestic terrorist attack on the Capitol by Donald Trump loyalists, incited by him to stop the certification a Joe Biden’s as president?
I’ll tell you where I thought we’d be: Finally, Trump would be purged from the GOP and the media; the GOP would have a reckoning; there would be a very small band of nutbags still supporting the insurrectionists, laughed at and mocked; A new Democratic president would swiftly be bringing to justice all those among the leadership in the GOP who made this happen; A new Democratic Congress would immediately be investigating it, passing laws to stop this from ever happening again, and passing laws that bring us us back from the previous four years of authoritarianism, like voting rights legislation.
Yes, as I watched the events unfold on TV, as I was live on my SiriusXM program, I really believed that and more, even as we’ve seen Republicans time and again go back to Trump in the past. I thought that would be it. Call me naive, again, or hoping against all hope. By that night, however, as many Republicans still voted not to certify the election, I was jarred back to reality.
Even worse, I truly believed for a while that Democrats would move swiftly. Why should I have believed that as well, knowing the history of Democratic Party and how it’s too often rolled by the GOP?
So no, now here we are, and there will be many speeches and commemorations today of that the dark day. And yes, the January 6th Committee has been getting aggressive, even if it took too long to get underway. And Merrick Garland gave a speech yesterday, which, for him was encouraging. And maybe voting rights will happen. Maybe Democrats are finally seeing it’s do or die.
So I want to once again hope we’re going to do really something now — because it’s all we’ve got left — and that maybe this anniversary is the best thing, reminding everyone of the stakes. The more focus on it, the better.
What are you thinking about, reflecting on that day, and what are you thinking about where we are today? An open discussion for everyone as we look to a new year, and one in which we’ll see democracy either be saved or slide into authoritarianism by year’s end.
Where are we one year later?
Yes, it was an assault on a broken system of democracy. As aptly pointed out recently by Timothy Synder, the parallels to the rapid collapse of the USSR (5 years, 7 months, 29 days after Chernobyl) are all too evident. The inability of a government to project a better future for its citizens after a prolonged stagnation can prove fatal to the government and many of its citizens. The rage and anger that resulted in January 6th, 2021, were predicitably the matches that lit the fire. All that was needed was planning and focused cheerleading for the rage to ignite.
The "monetization" of the political system has so totally corrupted and corroded the imperfect system of American democracy that the future is clearly at risk. Being politically involved should not mean having six fundraising emails a day from whatever political candidate or cause. It should mean being engaged in dialogue with elected officials about how things get better and what they are doing for their constituents.
Perhaps a small addition to the BBB bill might help. Let's impose a 100% exise tax on any federal political contribution totaling over $200 from any individual or related entity. The money could then be used to fund a public trust for elections and election integrity. Based on limited FEC disclosures, that would net somewhere between $3 and $5 billion per cycle. And, guess what, taxes require reporting and disclosure!
I try to keep my spirits up, try to keep hoping this is somehow going to work out okay - but I am fearful that not going to happen, that it is already over. Trump keeps up with the blatant lies, and maybe forty percent of the population of the USA believes, and a huge portion of that group believe that violence in furtherance of their agenda is okay. Worse, here in Georgia where I live and in other GOP run states they have put people in place who will ensure that they decide election outcomes, not the voting public. I try to be hopeful for the future of American democracy, but in the face of present reality it certainly is not looking very likely.