Last night I watched the January 6th Commission Hearings. It was amazing. I watched congressional leaders acting professional and mature and it was like getting oxygen after being deprived for too long. I understand that many Americans believe that we’re ‘losing our country’. It’s what everyone’s saying - right and left. For me, I want to see professionalism and maturity. That’s what I’m sad about losing. I want to see leaders who can manage their emotions, handle paradox, and juggle the conflicting needs of the people. I’m ok sharing space. Liz Cheney does not stand for the policies that I would like to see enacted, but based on her behavior over the past few years I would actually consider voting for her. She has not been willing to act like a child and right now that’s pretty much all I could ask for in a leader.
I was really struck by both Rep Bennie Thomson and Rep Liz Chaney. Bennie Thomson’s opening remarks were sobering and eloquent. It really didn’t leave much question - Donald Trump put together a coup called a ‘7 Point Plan to reinstate him’. It’s hard to believe as a country there is disagreement about this. We have already lost something here. Donald Trump is a criminal and many people just don’t care. People are asking, how is it that Trump gets away with this? But I think that’s is. People just don’t care. They care about themselves. They feel so deprived, so powerless, that they no longer care about what was established to help us live together peacefully. They want out of the American experiment.
Both the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers were essentially asked by Trump to start a riot, and they did. After he mentioned them in his debate, and said ‘Stand by and stand down’, Proud Boys membership tripled. There was a documentary filmmaker following the Proud Boys during the months of December and January and he filmed the two leaders together the night of January 5 in a parking garage. During Trump’s speech, both groups (who didn’t wear their signature colors), walked down to the capital. They weren’t interested in the speech. They were there to control congress as they tallied the votes. They had a mission.
I was struck by how angry and hostile the crowd was. Angry and hostile feel like understatements. These were/are people who want war. They are that disgruntled, that bitter. An officer who was at the capital that day explained that she’s trained to detain people but that she’s not ‘combat trained’. She said they were engaged in hand-to-hand combat for hours. She slipped in one of her fellow officers blood. She was tear-gassed. She was pushed so hard that she was knocked unconscious. But she still got up and did her job. For several hours. She said the scene was ‘chaos and carnage’. People were calling for Pence and Nancy Pelosi. To do what? Shake their hands? The crowd was absolutely enraged. I can only imagine what they would have done if they’d found Pence or Pelosi. There was a huge noose outside. It’s hard to imagine these people were just letting off steam or having fun. They looked crazed.
After it was over I felt sad. I was angry because the riot footage got me defensive, but mostly I was sad. I was sad because for most of my life we have been a country full of people who could argue and debate but then come together in times like this. I know it’s a cliche, but we were united. But that’s not happening now. Many people watched the hearing last night, and I’m sure many more will watch in the weeks to come, but there is so much resistance, so much dismissing and lying. I would like to think that Republicans who left the Republican party over Trump watched last night. I would like to think that if Liz Cheney decides to run for President they would back her. I may even back her. I would like to think that more Americans are thinking about what happened, thinking about how important it is to work things out and cooperate, even with those we disagree with.
It seems as if for several decades political activists have talked of revolution and resistance. People who are angry want vengeance. They want to overpower their oppressors. I’ve never been a fan of that. I’ve never believed in fighting power with power, mainly because I’m physically small and fighting power with power has never seemed like a winnable solution. Sometimes people are so angry and righteous that they are incapable of working things out, incapable of soothing themselves and using their heads. If we are going to live with each other we need to stop being so hot-headed and instead learn to manage our emotions. As a product of the self-help generation, I know many of us have been doing just that, have been learning to use ‘I’ statements when we argue with a loved one. When are we going to start doing that politically? When are we going to decide that a) there’s so much for us to be grateful for, b) It’s not a sign of weakness to concede, and c) being right is not all it’s cracked up to be.