Violence at U.S. Capitol must never be repeated
Emphasis on retribution will only lead to a cycle of escalation restraint
Virginia to the rescue.
It was heartening to see Virginia State Police officers on TV, with their easily recognizable shoulder patches, making their way through the labyrinthian corridors of the U.S. Capitol complex during Wednesday night’s fiasco.
There were no bugles, as these Virginians came over the figurative horizon. But they were there, and they were ready. They bravely answered the nation’s call.
Gen. Robert E. Lee out; Virginia State Police in. Such are the quirks of history.
And the troopers are staying through the Jan. 20 Inaugural, along with members of the Virginia Guard.
“Let me be clear,” Gov. Ralph Northam said. “Virginia will be there for as long as it takes to protect our nation’s capital and ensure the peaceful transfer of power.”
Good. Right thing to do; right thing to say.
Other Virginia voices were heard, as well. U.S. Sens. Mark Warner and Tim Kaine want President Donald Trump out the door, via the 25th Amendment.
Kaine got downright colorful in his aftermath commentary, referring to Republicans and chickens and the stuff that comes out of chickens.
This was the pure, personal Kaine some have come to know over the years, god bless him.
Some Virginia voices were a little unexpected.
“On Wednesday, our democracy was savagely attacked by armed Trump supporters,” said Jay Timmons, Gov. George Allen’s festy, former chief-of-staff.
“The facts are clear. They were inspired by outright lies that a free and fair election had been stolen and ‘rigged,” Timmons wrote in The Washington Post. “They believed the president’s baseless claims that he somehow won an election that he overwhelmingly, indisputably lost.”
Well said and thank you.
Was Trump, indeed, the proximate cause of the great U.S. Capitol assault?
Subtle it was not. Trump stood out there on the Ellipse, fronting a giant TV screen, and pretty much told his red-hat crowd, “Go get ‘em!”
And they did.
“What happened at the U.S. Capitol yesterday was an insurrection against the United States, incited by President Trump,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said.
Insurrection. That word got a lot of play this past week.
In a strictly historical sense, as insurrections go, this could have been worse. Trump’s inspirations furnish little or no coherency. It’s anger for the sake of anger.
Nor did this insurrection ignite
the wrathful state responses so common to history.
We’re coming up on the 150th anniversary of the Paris Commune — it began in mid-March 1871.
Now that was an insurrection, as the city of Paris rose up against the French government, then relocated to Versailles.
It was crushed. By rough estimate — because no one knows for sure — the destruction of the Commune produced an estimated 20,000 dead, give or take.
That was French people killing other French people by the bushel. Many were summarily executed, over a period of days, in a state of rage, without hesitation and with negligible remorse.
“Bloody week,” Yale historian John Merryman writes,
“cast a long shadow over the next
century.”
That may understate it. You can climb the slope up to the top of Père Lachaise Cemetery in
Paris and see the wall where the Versailles army lined up insurrectionists and shot them dead.
The Paris Commune was not composed of innocents, far from it.
But violence begets violence, state-sanctioned or otherwise, and the tendency nearly always favors escalation. It’s not what you want.
Consistency? Yes. But between an aggressive state response and restraint, take restraint every time.
It’s also worth recalling a line, attributed to Bismarck, that followed in the wake of some transgression he suffered at the hands of another.
What punishment should follow, Germany’s 19th century chancellor was asked.
“Punishment?” he reputedly responded.
“I am not interested in punishment. I just want to make sure it doesn’t happen again.”
As we navigate beyond this sorry American episode, that may be the most useful mental framework to embrace.
After writing editorials for the Daily Press and The Virginian-Pilot in the 1980s, Gordon C. Morse wrote speeches for Gov. Gerald L. Baliles, then spent nearly three decades working on behalf of corporate and philanthropic organizations, including PepsiCo, CSX, Tribune Co., the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation and Dominion Energy. His email address is gordonmorse@msn.com.