I have friends who tell me that Donald Trump didn’t expect there to be violence on January 6th – that it was actually “leftists” who brought the violence to the capitol to make Donald Trump look bad. And I keep coming back to this one question: What did the people who showed up for Trump’s “rally” expect was going to happen on that day? Did they really think that they were going to stand peacefully outside the capitol, holding their signs and yelling “STOP THE STEAL!” or whatever other lies they’d been told and that the legislators were going to go, “Oh, okay. Let’s discount the votes of the more than 81 million people who voted for Biden, and the 306 electoral votes he got, and just give this to Trump”?
Did Donald Trump really think he was going to change the results of the election by sending his followers to the capitol building to peacefully protest? Seriously?!
No, I’m not voting for Harris because she’s a woman. If Trump was a woman, and Harris was a man, I’d still be voting for Harris.
No, I’m not freaked out by the flags that proclaim “WITCHES FOR KAMALA.” I am freaked out, though, by the Confederate and NAZI flags I’ve seen at Trump’s rallies.
And you can tap dance around it all you want, but the Trump-led insurrection of January 6th should have been a deal-breaker for every patriotic, stars-and-stripes-flying, law-abiding, Constitution-loving American.
Here’s what I witnessed live in front of my television on January 6: I witnessed Trump urging his followers to march on the capitol and “fight like hell” – I watched his followers climb over barricades, clash with capitol police, stab the police with flagpoles, crash through windows, and enter the capitol building with Confederate battle flags. I watched legislators being rushed out of the building by security because their lives were in danger. I saw a gallows for Pence set up. And we were wondering where the National Guard was – why hadn’t they been called in? Surely Trump could have called them directly – he was the commander-in-chief, he didn’t need to go through official channels.
I had a friend who actually went to the rally – she was a Trump supporter and still is, I think – but she left after Trump spoke and got on a bus and went home and I don’t think – even though she was there for the speech – she’s ever actually realized what happened after the speech. I feel like I had a better view than she did at that point. What my friend did was practice her First Amendment rights – she came to peacefully protest the lie she’d been led to believe – that this was a “stolen election.”
What happened after my friend left, though, was criminal. Our Constitution guarantees that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” For me, the key qualifier there in regards to January 6th is “peaceably.”
I was, frankly, traumatized by what I saw that day. How could this happen in the USA?! -Karen Molenaar Terrell Link to footage from January 6th.
It’s interesting to hear your perspective on things. It’s good to hear that you oppose the violence of January 6th – and I assume you oppose any talk of future violence, too. A violent Civil War wouldn’t be helpful to our country, would it?
Lies have been spread from right-wing news sources that people who “pretended to be Trump supporters” were part of the insurrection that day, but there has been no actual evidence of this.
What I saw in live time, from my chair in front of the television, was a mob of people, crashing over the barricades into the capitol, attacking the capitol police, filling the halls of our capitol building with uncontrolled rage and hate. What I saw was a noose set up for VP Pence because he wouldn’t go along with Donald Trump’s plan to discount the legal votes of the more than 81 million people who voted for Biden. What I saw was Donald Trump spurring these insurrectionists on with phrases like “We fight like hell. And if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore.” As the legislators were fleeing for their lives, and the capitol police were heroically defending our capitol against great odds, and against stun guns, pepper spray, baseball bats, and flagpoles – I did NOT see Donald Trump calling in the National Guard to stop the insurrection. The insurrection went on for hours before the National Guard appeared. That is not acceptable. That does not show presidential leadership. That does not show integrity.
When I listen to Donald Trump I hear him disparaging women, the disabled, and refugees and immigrants to this country. His words are full of hate. Just last night he made fun of Nikki Haley’s dress when she spoke to her followers after the New Hampshire primary. Why would any presidential candidate stoop so low as to make fun of a woman’s dress?! It’s mean. It’s unkind. It is not presidential. He talks about the migrants who come to this country through the southern border as “poisoning the blood of America” and “destroying the blood of our country” and “destroying the fabric of our country.” As a teacher who worked with children who’d migrated from Mexico, I find his words deeply disturbing. My students were hard-working, wanting to learn, wanting to excel, wanting to give back to this country. They were not “poisoning” our country. I am the grandchild of immigrants from Europe. My grandparents came to this country to make a better life for themselves and their children. And that is why my students “from the southern borders” came to this country, too. Note that Donald Trump doesn’t use disparaging words against my white grandparents. He reserves those comments for the people who come through the southern border. He appears, to me, to be a racist.
Posted this on my Facebook wall this morning. Thought I’d share it here, too:
I’ve made an effort to keep politics off of my wall the last year or so. I haven’t always been successful with this, but I’ve tried. And why? Because I guess I’ve wanted to move past the divisions in our country – try to focus on the things that unite us all: family, pets, loss, grief, birth, rejoicing, humor, the beauty in sunsets and sunrises and humanity.
But this morning – when I’m reminded again that there are so many places in the world where people are, literally, dying for the right to speak and write freely – I’ve decided to use my “wall” and my freedom as an American citizen to express my thoughts about the state of our democracy.
January 6th, 2021, is still with me. What happened that day in our capitol was terrifying to me. It was a BIG DEAL. And I have a hard time wrapping my head around the words and thoughts of anyone who tries to make that day sound like it was just another day in America – or worse, like the attempted insurrection that day was somehow noble and patriotic. WE ALMOST LOST OUR DEMOCRACY THAT DAY. I saw it happen in real time in front of my television – this wasn’t some slanted propaganda being fed to me by the “left-wing” media – the violence and insanity of that day was not some made-up “fake news” – it was there for all of us to see.
And I guess I hoped that everyone would recognize what they were seeing that day was over-the-top insanity. Afterwards, I was bewildered when I found there were people who thought the attempted insurrection was great. A year later and I am bewildered to discover there are STILL people who thought what happened that day was great. Capitol police officers were violently attacked that day, defending our democracy. The lives of our vice president and our legislators were seriously threatened. Thugs and bullies stormed their way into our capitol building and tried to force their will on our democratic process. This is not noble or “great.”
Joe Biden won the election – he got 7 million more votes than the other candidate. SEVEN MILLION! This tally was certified (over and over and over again) by judges and state officials of BOTH parties. If you think it’s alright to disenfranchise the 81,282,903 American citizens who voted for Biden by storming the capitol building to overthrow a legitimate election, you are not a patriot. If you think YOUR vote somehow matters more than my vote and the 81,282,902 other people who voted for Biden, you might want to consider moving to a country where elections just don’t take place at all.
Our system is flawed – there’s no doubt about that. How we ended up with the candidates we ended up with in 2020 is beyond me. But those were the candidates we were given. We all voted for the one we thought would do the best job (or cause the least harm), and Biden won. Why – after all that happened on January 6th and since then – there are still people proudly flying Trump flags in their yards is mind-boggling to me. -Karen Molenaar Terrell
Adventures of the Madcap Christian Scientist 