Three days later and what seemed unbelievable then, we now (or we should) realize, was worse than we thought. In fact, as awful and ongoing as this nightmare is, and was, but for accidents of timing and circumstance, we could be living in a very different world right now. What if Trump had been even more overt? What if he had marched to the capitol with the crowd? What if the crowd had gotten into the Senate chamber, even sooner? What if they had quickly gotten into the House chamber? What if those House security personnel had been overwhelmed? What if they had gone over to the other side, as some of their brethren, outside the building, and downstairs, had done?
As someone who watched the Capitol overrun, live on TV, I was most stunned by how quickly it occurred. We now know that was due to police negligence and complicity at the lower levels, and maybe by design at command levels. Either way, the seat of government of the most powerful country in human history, a building closed to the public due to COVID for months, suddenly had swarms of people roaming its halls, offices and legislative chambers. These enemy combatants forced their way past metal detectors and any Capitol Police that were inclined to do their jobs.
And what was their goal? For most, they probably didn't know. Many had no idea where the chambers were or what to do next. They had overrun the citadel of the politicians they hated and of the government they've been taught to hate. Vaguely, they wanted to stop the certification of the election. But, some of them had an idea. Trump had given it to them: hang Mike Pence.
I want to point out not only the horror of that, but that that would have been the beginning, not the end of the blood letting. If the crowd had breached the Senate chamber before the Secret Service could get him out, and the crowd laid hands on him, one of two things could have happened. One, the Vice President of the United States gets held hostage. Anyone doing that would probably grab the Senate President Pro Tempore Chuck Grassley, as well. Or, the crowd that was chanting, "where's Pence? Hang Mike Pence?", might have used some of that gear they brought and hung him from the Senate gallery. Or taken him outside to the gallows they'd built.
And, if they did that, the blood lust would take hold. If they are going to hang Christian Mike Pence, who thinks they wouldn't murder Bernie Sanders and Chuck Shumer, two Jews that they hate? Think I'm being hyperbolic? On Trump's stage, Congresswoman Mary Miller quoted Hitler. Hitler. And her audience? The crowd that stormed the capitol, a crowd with people wearing t-shirts that read "6MWNE" (six million wasn't nearly enough) and Camp Auschwitz.
Now let's remember the scene in the House of Representatives. The one with security aiming drawn guns at a door that the crowd was busting through. What if security lost the gun battle? What if the crowd decided 'they can't kill us all'? If the Secret Service couldn't get Pelosi out, the Speaker of the House, second in line of succession could have been kidnapped, or murdered.
Does anyone believe she would have been spared if some in that crowd could have gotten her? Now imagine they get their hands on Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Or, Ilhan Omar.
In addition to the atrocities and violations they would have had to endure, their fellow members would have been hostages. Maybe in both chambers. How would that end? Simply certify Trump the winner, under duress? A hostage negotiation? By whom? Storm the building with commandos?
While the end of the story is unpredictable, we all understand what one immediate result would have been, last Wednesday. With the capitol building in control of terrorists, and hundreds of elected officials hostage or dead, the line of succession broken or uncertain, Trump would declare martial law. Uncooperative generals would be dismissed and, realistically what could they do? Who could a conscientious general turn to? Congress is held captive, Pence, Pelosi and Grassley are out of action. There would be nothing much else they could do, but obey Trump. And he would likely play the tough law and order president, ordering Congress be retaken by force. We've seen such scenarios play out other places. The hostages die.
We're not out of the woods. Trump is still president. A weak willed "opposition" party has dithered, rather than immediately impeach him (they adjourned!). And, his followers are still out there, radicalized.
There are good people out there, who have been slowly converted to this cult of personality. They've been told for 40 years, by politicians, pundits and preachers that they belong to the party of God. They are against abortion. They are intolerant of any form of sexuality that they believe deviates from the Old Testament. They are told they are the patriots because they adore all things martial: guns, police, the military. Then they were told that science was iffy. The preachers taught that evolution was false and the politicians said they didn't know; they weren't scientists. In the meantime, radio, FOX News and the internet propagandized millions, on a daily basis. For the last year, good, intelligent people have aped Trump's denials of the extent, contagiousness and morbidity of the coronavirus. This weekend, even after all that we witnessed on Wednesday, January 6, they believe Trump was cheated out of the election and that he is some kind of victim because a social media site has banned him after years of his violating their terms of service. There is a word for mindless, militaristic, authoritarian, violent anti-intellectualism: fascism.
It's not coming. It's here.
Wednesday was, as Nancy Pelosi pointed out in her speech that night, the Feast of the Epiphany. There are no wise men coming to save us. Millions of Germans had scales on their eyes for nearly 15 years. They were deprogrammed through a denazification program that included trials and reeducation. That education regarding a failed fascist past, the necessity for democracy and racial tolerance continues, 75 years later. We need to get started. The stormtroopers are among us.
