Tagging an insurrection: Shocking. Sad. Shameful. Inevitable.

Shocking

Sad

Disgusting Dismaying

Tragic

Shameful

Repulsive

Revolting

Appalling Treasonous Unbelievable

Insane

Inevitable

At some pointWednesday, I started keeping the list ofwords above, words that radio and TV commentatorswere using to describe whatever exactlywas happening at theUnited States Capitol. Itwas hard to tell what thatwas at first, beyond that inside, members of Congress were debating whether to affirm the election of the lawfully elected new president while outside, a mob had swarmed in support of the president who refused to concede he lost.

On a yellowlegal pad, I jotted thewords down as the mob climbedwalls and broke windows; as police tried, or didn’t, to hold them back; as lawmakers hid under furniture and locked themselves in offices; as the rioters brandished Confederate flags, smashed journalists’ cameras and posed for gleeful selfies; as the president who had goaded them to this carnival of lawlessness stayed safely inside his government-subsidized house.

I kept a list, too, of what this eventwas being called: Attack

Assault

Invasion Insurrection Insurgence

Riot

Coup

Siege

Rampage

Breach

Sedition

Mayhem

Chaos

Stunt

And I noted thewords used to describe the people committing the sad, dismaying, and yet somehowinevitable act.

Mob

Terrorists Insurrectionists Protesters Marauders

Invaders

Outlaws

Rebels

Rioters

Trump supporters Trump fans Extremists

Dupes

In the days since then, as all of us search for thewords to understand what happened, and what continues to happen, I left those lists onmy dining table, andmy eye kept landing on severalwords in particular.

For example, “shocking.” What happened at the Capitol was shocking. It jolted our minds and nervous systems. It has kept ordinary Americans up late or waked them up early and jittery.

Yet something can be shocking without being truly surprising, and this assault on the Capitol and the lawwas not surprising. Donald Trump has often encouraged his supporters to violence, and in the past fewweeks he has urged them to fight the results of a free and fair election.

It’s no surprise, then, that in the last gasp of his attempted tyranny, many of his supporters heeded his battle cry.

My eye also kept landing on the word “stunt.”

A stunt is something done for the purpose of gaining attention or publicity. It seems too lighthearted aword forWednesday’s insurrection, in which four

Trump supporters and a police officer died. And yet, in some ways Trump’s entire presidency has been a stunt, a series ofwords and acts by a showman who cares more about attention than useful action.

“Stunt” also fits the mood of many of the insurrectionists. Many of them roamed around the Capitol’s ornate halls, posing for selfies, mugging with statues, clearly having fun.

I heard onewoman on the radio say cheerily itwas the best two days of her life, as if she’d spent theweekend on a whirlwindWashington, D.C., vacation.

But stunts can have a dark side. AsWBEZreporter Odette Yousef points out in her excellent recent report on white supremacists at the Capitol siege, “Close observers of the far right areworried that thiswas an optics win for extremists, and that these events will be used to recruit more to their cause.”

And then there’s theword “sad.”

So many things about this eventwere sad—“sad” being a close relative of “infuriating.”

It’s sad howmany Americans can’t tell truth fromlies. Sad how much money there is to be made by media companies whose fortunes are built on obscuring the difference.

It’s sad howmany of the insurrectionists don’t seem to understand that Donald Trump doesn’t love them. He loves that they love him. The risk they took in assaulting the Capitol is, in his eyes, proof of their love.

It’s sad that it took this violence to shake many Republican lawmakers into renouncing this president.

And it’s sad howmany people equate the assault on theU.S. Capitol with the violence that sprang fromthe summer’s mostly peaceful protests for social justice.

Breaking into the Capitol and trying to disrupt our elected leaders as they prepare a peaceful transition of power is simply not the same as breaking storefront windows. Neither is legal. Neither is good. Both should be denounced. But the idea that they’re equivalent transgressions is just part of the danger nurtured by Trump.

Trump didn’t create all the fear and rage in his supporters. But for four years he has inflamed and legitimized them. He stoked the worst feelings of his most deluded followers, and he has put our country at risk.

But in a few days, he’ll be gone. Whilewewait, we can dust off a trusty oldword— hope.