Painful work remains
I endorse Mr. Paleno’s Jan. 9, 2021 letter to the Record Bee in two respects. He correctly depicts what happened January 6 in Washington DC: “A howling mob of fascistic terrorists stormed our Capitol … .” Strong but appropriate words. He also points out in his conclusion, “The guilty must be made to pay … or there can be no healing.” No accountability — no healing.
However, seeing these events as “a stretch a year ago for anyone to believe” seems seriously naïve. We who opposed Trump from the very beginning did so because of the clear potential for just such events. He asserted he alone could fix our problems. He incited violence and unspeakable crimes against people of color and demonstrated misogynistic attitudes toward women. The birther hoax was his calling card. He spoke of the evil “carnage” that had overtaken our country. Disagreeing with him meant dismissal and public humiliation. Media became “the enemy of the people.” History books will document his anti- democratic actions and beliefs. Mr. Paleno himself refers this president as “the man who would be king or dictator.” Those of us who saw this far more than a year ago are not brilliant nor clairvoyant. We just paid attention.
A second problem with Mr. Paleno’s analysis of events is his statement that “one man is the cause.” Dictators require cadres of supporters convinced their interests lie in buoying up the despot. The members of this “mob of fascistic terrorists” are far too many to list. Millions of Americans who apparently need simplistic and divisive explanations for our problems, and will resort to violence to redress their grievances especially when incited by an authoritarian leader, are members of that mob. So too are Senators McConnell, Hawley, Graham, Cruz, Kennedy and others. Rudy Giuliani is deserving of special notice, as is Fox News. The majority of Republican Congressional Representatives were coconspirators. The Vice President was with them until the very end when he could no longer participate in the coup attempt. The mob literally attempted to find and hang him as a result. The point is that seeing one man as the cause is an amazingly simplistic view of where we are and how we got here.
Painful work remains to understand what has happened in its full context and correct this nation’s course.