The ‘ peaceful transfer’ that wasn’t

You might have thought the flags would come down by now.

The election was over months ago. The lawsuits have been tossed, the official tallies recorded and a new president has taken office. Still, the Trump 2020 flags wave on residential streets across Connecticut, at least near my house.

Instead of being removed, some have been augmented. Sitting alongside the election flags are signs asking us to “Stop the Steal,” presumably referring to the not- stolen 2020 presidential election.

However puzzling they are, the signs are instructive. Helpful, even. Because even as the inaugural went off without a hitch on Jan. 20, we’re only a few weeks removed from one of the most serious crises the country has ever faced, and in spite of that obvious fact, too many among us seem to want to pretend it never happened. Even a literal insurrection on behalf of their preferred candidate hasn’t shaken supporters’ conviction for the departed president.

It’s a continuing of the normalization of the most abnormal president the country has ever seen.

Wednesday’s news coverage, for instance, featured one reference after another to “the peaceful transfer of power.” That’s what makes America what it is. And it’s true that Wednesday’s inaugural ceremonies did not see the violence some people feared.

But it was a peaceful transfer of power only because the violent attempt to hold power had failed.

Certainly the attack on the Capitol was mentioned many times Inauguration Day. But in pretending the inaugural ceremony was a transition like any other in the country’s history, it becomes entirely too easy to write off the attempted coup as something that has no bearing on the future.

Consider, for example, the continued attempt to conflate violence last summer associated with various Black Lives Matter protests with the attack on the Capitol, even as few if any Democrats in a position of authority came out in favor of property damage last year. The support was for the marchers’ cause, which was just. The cause espoused by the Capitol attackers was not just. It was a lie.

But the bigger issue is a failure to grapple with what was at stake Jan. 6. We still do not have answers as to how the planning was undertaken, who was involved and who might have known in advance how far this was meant to go. All that will come out in an investigation.

It does seem clear that many people involved were simply along for the ride. They joined the crowd that broke into the Capitol, took a few selfies and basically milled around for a while. It was an attack on democracy, but from the perspective of these participants, mostly, in the end, harmless.

But that doesn’t apply to everyone, and that’s what we need answers about. The intent was to stop the counting of electoral ballots. The threat to elected officials, including to Vice President Mike Pence, was real. We don’t know what would have happened had the rioters gotten ahold of Pence or a Democratic lawmaker, but it’s not hard to imagine.

That’s what our country needs to grapple with. Maybe there was no mechanism by which the attackers could have kept Donald Trump in office, but that was the intent, and they used violence to make it happen. There’s no soaring oratory about a new day for America that can wash that away.

The urge to move past it is understandable. The 45th president is gone, a private citizen in Florida with a whole mess of legal trouble. After five years of insanity, it’s no wonder people are happy enough to look forward.

We shouldn’t. This country did not have a peaceful transfer of power. Saying we did is another step in the process of normalization, which is another step toward it all happening again.