Infamy

I don’t have a dog in the fight, but the day that traitors stormed the Capitol, January 6, 2021, has left its marks on my psyche. I don’t live in the US. We have visited many states on many occasions. We had been in Arizona in December 2020 and hadn’t paid enough attention to see the treasonous acts coming.
Over the previous five years, we had seen and heard thousands of instances of violence signaling (the opposite of virtue signaling). Dog whistle language and images inflamed both sides of the political spectrum. Despicable spokespeople told lies and fabrications to suit their own interests. The disenfranchised clamored to hear more because it validated their grievances.
I sat horrified and mesmerized by the fiction playing out on TV. “Surely, this was a dramatic representation.” This couldn’t be happening”. But the 3-hour script was, in fact, factual. Domestic terrorists laid siege to a building, to elected representatives, to democracy, and to a fragile idea embodied in the Constitution. It felt surreal or at least geographically impossible. This could happen in South America, Asia, or eastern Europe, but how could it occur in the birthplace of modern democracy. I don’t have answers to the big questions, and the small questions have been buried in obfuscation and rhetoric. I am sure there is enough blame to go around and plenty of individuals to point at, but in some way, we all must be complicit because this happened on our watch.

As in many cases, this post is written for me and my sanity. If you have read the last line, thanks for being out there to witness and support my confusion and candor.

B