The Reichstag is under attack

When I took the kids to DC - wow - 12 years ago? I got lost coming from the airport - really turned around. I turned right onto a street to park and get out the map. I looked up through the windshield and saw the Capitol dome, high on a hill, backlit by the setting sun.  I have never felt more American than that moment - to see the nation's Capitol for the very first time in such a majestic way. (Second only to when I finally achieved a lifetime dream - to see the Constitution and Bill of Rights in the National Archives. I literally cried. My nieces will never let me forget that!)

I am a political historian. I have spent decades studying not only our nation's history, but it's Constitution, its structure, its mechanisms. I value discussion, discourse, dissent. Those are vital to the survival of democracy. I support /every/ person's First Amendment rights to peaceable assembly, petition, and free speech. I'm sure the vast majority of people at the Capitol yesterday were simply exercising their First Amendment rights, just like the BLM protestors who were savaged by the security forces this summer. HOWEVER...

The sizable faction that committed domestic terrorism - and make no mistake - that is what it was - they were not exercising those rights. They had zip ties and guns - pipe bombs were found on the Capitol grounds as well as at nearby office buildings, targeting both parties. Truckloads of guns and Molotov cocktails were seized. These people were not there to just take selfies with the Capitol police, to prop up their feet on Pelosi's desk, to mockingly pose in the well of the Senate. To make a symbolic statement.

They were there to overthrow the government.  

They committed sedition, treason. They were trying to destroy the very governmental system that protects those rights. Why? Because their cult leader told them that because the vast majority of people voted for the other guy, their rights were being trampled on? Because the system worked, and the guy people actually voted for won?  Because people that don't look like them, worship like them, think like them have a more equal place in society? What did they think was going to happen - that the rest of the nation would just sit back and let it happen? Or worse, join them?

There are pictures of not only the Confederate flag, but Nazi flags - flying in our capitol. Think about that. The emblems of the slavery supporting loser of our Civil War as well as white supremacy coupled with the most vile incarnation of evil the modern world has witnessed - those were the ideologies displayed in OUR capitol yesterday. Those people are not patriots. They are not heroes. They are traitors. 

And they were allowed to just.... leave. Walk away unharmed. Yes - many were arrogant and/or dumb enough to post pictures all over social media. They will be found. They will be brought to justice. But we have a deeper problem. What about the ones who hid their faces from the cameras, who built and delivered the bombs, opened the gates, directed actions from the cherry pickers on the edges of the plaza? What about them? And what of the ones who weren't there but truly believe what happened yesterday - the assault on the very heart of our democracy - was justified, a legitimate blow against tyranny? Or, a "false flag?" What do we do about them? They are our friends, neighbors, family, co-workers. How do we root out such deep-rooted delusions? How do we repair the damage they have done?

I know that we are an anomaly in human history - a self-governing society. No divine right. No absolute power. Just us, making it work together by talking things out and taking a vote. We are not perfect. We have made /many/ mistakes - foreign and domestic - and have the blood of untold numbers on our hands - but we are something unique. We are a diverse nation that, at our best, literally changes the world. We bend that arc toward justice.  

I don't know how we move forward from this - given that 1/3 of the nation believes in an alternate reality, an America more like The Man in the High Castle than It's A Wonderful Life. But I do know that we have to do it together.