‘Despicable attack’
Columnist Chris Churchill weighs in on Wednesday’s violence at U.S. Capitol.
I’msitting here, on Wednesday evening, watching scenes that, at a more innocent time, I wouldn’t have thought possible. A person has been killed during what seems to have been a shootout at the U.S. Capitol. Terrorists — I won’t call them protesters — have broken windows to force their way in. They have stormed into the Senate chamber, marauders in the people’s building.
It is my country, our country, on the television screen, but it looks like a scene from a banana republic.
I don’t know where this is going and what will happen in the hours to come. But already it is clear this is an ugly, disgusting, despicable attack on democracy and the ideals that undergird it. This isn’t American. Or, at least, it didn’t used to be.
The context for what’s hap
pening, of course, is the presidential election and President Donald Trump’s insistence that it was stolen from him.
The president and his supporters have had their days in courts across the country and lost. Despite the vast resources at their disposal, they have been unable to prove their claims. In many cases, they haven’t even bothered to try.
There is simply no evidence of material fraud. There is nothing that suggests the president was cheated. He did not win in a landslide. He did not win at all, but no matter. Trump insists it was so.
Worse, he has convinced a sizable number of Americans that his baseless claims are true, and that some sort of treason has been committed by a broad swath of thieves, Republicans and Democrats alike. Everywhere, the convinced see shadows and darkness. They no longer trust ... anything.
Given the rhetoric and the loss of faith, the scene at the Capitol feels inevitable. It seems like a culmination of all the lies and distortions of recent weeks and the realization of our worst fears.
Trump didn’t get us here alone, of course. Too many Republicans — not all, but too many — not only refused to condemn his nonsensical claims about the election but winked at them.
They backed the lawsuits and the challenge to electoral votes planned Wednesday. They participated in this cynical, awful farce.
The group includes, I’m deeply sorry to say, our own Elise Stefanik, the Republican who represents the North Country, a woman who entered Congress at a young age and with so much promise. What a disappointment.
To be clear, Stefanik is not responsible for Wednesday’s violence. No person is responsible for the bad behavior of others. As I write this, many of the details of what has happened at the Capitol remain unclear.
But Stefanik and some other Republicans have been playing with fire.
They refuse to acknowledge that Joe Biden won the election, even though they must know that he did. They won’t actually say material fraud impacted the election, instead wrapping their unspecified objections in vagaries and legalese, because they realize there’s no evidence the election was stolen. They aren’t selling Trump’s snake oil, but they’re helping him push the cart from town to town.
Here’s what George W. Bush, Stefanik’s former boss, said Wednesday: “I am appalled by the reckless behavior of some political leaders since the election and by the lack of respect shown today for our institutions, our traditions, and our law enforcement. The violent assault on the Capitol ... was undertaken by people whose passions have been inflamed by falsehoods and false hopes.”
What was this all supposed to accomplish? Where did Stefanik and the others want this to go? Have they thought about the consequences of turning aside the votes of millions of Americans, as the challenge they mounted Wednesday sought to do?
“If this election were overturned by mere allegations from the losing side, our democracy would enter a death spiral,” said Senate Majority Leader Mitch Mcconnell on Wednesday, before terrorists stormed the building. “We would never see the whole nation accept an election again.”
Mcconnell is right, of course. Overturning the results of a fair election would end the country as we’ve known it. This experiment of ours would be over.
The truth of Mcconnell’s words highlight how unpatriotic Stefanik and the others have been. Though their challenge to the election was never going to succeed, as they surely knew, they undermined faith in democracy. They weakened the country. Their reputations are forever stained, and we should never forget what they have done.
And now we have this terrible scene at the Capitol. What do we call it, exactly? An insurrection? A coup?
However we decide to describe it, Wednesday must be a turning point. It shows the costs of cynicism. It should open our eyes to how bad things have become and how terribly, deeply divided we are. We can’t go on this way.