I watched it all. I had not planned this. I have purposely limited my news intake for many months in order to keep myself sane and well. But in the early afternoon, as I sat down on bed to fold laundry, I decided to take a break from the audio book I had been listening too, because Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix was getting intense, what with Dolores Umbridge having taken over Hogwarts as High Inquisitor and death eaters running amuck doing the Dark Lord’s bidding. Witnessing a national legislative process was of interest. I knew there was a possibility of legal shenanigans and grandstanding, but I had not really considered it as the joint session of Congress was gaveled to order.
As expected, objections began early on and we were only at Arizona when both houses separated into 2 hour debate sessions before voting separately as to whether to support or reject the objection. Clearly, it was going to be a long day. Debate had barely begun when inexplicably; Vice-President Pence announced the senate would be recessing. What on earth? Can these folks not meet for 10 minutes without a bathroom break? It would be inauguration day before this session was finished. But hey, wasn’t the GOP goal to interrupt the process? Mission accomplished. Or so I thought.
Moments later video of smoke in front of the capital was on the screen. I walked into my husband’s home office to report this. By the time I made it back into the kitchen (where I was now stationed making vegetable soup) to see protestors flooding into the front doors of the capital building and a news anchor reporting that live fire was being reported from inside the capital building. A hard knot formed in my stomach, tears sprang into my eyes. I turned the soup off and began experiencing the same kind of sinking dread and shock that I had when 9/11 unfolded before us. Whatever happened next would go down in the annals of history as a painful turning point in our nation.
We watched in sick horror as a woman was removed from the capital covered in blood and intubated. The elementary age daughter of a friend watched that too. I began feeling waves nausea as I watched an inept protestor mount scaffolding and begin changing out the American flag on our nation’s capital for a Trump flag. Even writing that makes me want to vomit.
As the afternoon unfolded we were thankfully assured that House of Representatives and Senate members had been evacuated and secured. We would see a Capital Law Enforcement officer being chased through the building attempting to hold back crowds with a baton. Militia clad cultists would enter the senate and house chambers, breaking national monuments, looting for souvenirs, breaking windows and trashing the capital. Later we would learn that one of Fox News anchors, Glen Beck’s producers was the man photographed lounging behind a legislator’s desk.
I seethed with rage and bile rose in my throat as I watched a videotaped statement by our nation’s president saying he loved the protestors and saying they were “special.”
I texted friends and family, checking to see if people were watching and were okay? As the day unfolded, the institutional racism in our society was again underscored. Seditious acts INSIDE our nation’s capital building were met with relative non-aggression and non-violence toward the almost entirely white protestors. A Capital Law Enforcement officer was assaulted by the crowd causing serious injury, but no organized, aggressive police force was used against the crowd. Unlike nearly every other large urban Black Lives Matter protest where peaceful protestors have been brutalized, less than 80 people were arrested and most of them for curfew violations after the incident. I certainly was not hoping for an escalation in violence toward the protestors, but the lack if it tells the story of race in our nation. Had this been a seditious undertaking by Black, Indigenous or people of color (BIPOC), rest assured the outcome yesterday would have been very different.
I watched it all. Hours after it began order was restored to the building enough that the legislature could return to the business at hand. I watched as the most sycophantic members of our Senate attempted to speak rhetoric as American heroes of our democracy.
I watched as the joint session reconvened, counting of the Electoral College continued and still members of the GOP attempted to object to accepting the predetermined Electoral College votes. Even after what they had witnessed, these white men and one woman could not overcome their egos, personal need for power, and pandering to their basest base in hopes of laying plans for their future aspirations to garner power in lieu of simple choices to put reverence for our democracy and the voice of the American people ahead of their own interests.
I watched as Senator Michael Bennet articulately and respectfully spoke about the significance of the role of American Democracy in the context of global history and its’ relevance to this very moment of decision in our nation.
Drained, physically exhausted and yet locked in and unable to sleep until it was finished, I watched until nearly 4 a.m. this morning as finally, votes for Wyoming were counted, Chaplain of the U.S. Senate Barry Black offered a much needed and appropriate prayer and the senate was gaveled to a close.
I have not checked news sources today. I do not know what comes next for our nation. The next 13 days concern me greatly, as our nation is more vulnerable than ever to outside forces with weak leadership and broken down internal structures.
What I do know, what I do believe, is that we have more Americans aware of and engaged in processes, in trying to understand, converse about and make sense of what they personally can do in the world, how systems are changed and the deep divides now out in the open that simply must be addressed for change to happen. We have a nation of younger generations who simply will not and do not stand for the current ways of our nation, and whose time has come.
The work is unrelenting. The trauma in our nation has been ever-present for people who are BIPOC for centuries. It’s way past time for every white person in this nation to be as uncomfortable. It’s way past time for us to overturn gerrymandering and systems that ensure oppression. We have decades of work to do. We also have a template. We have leaders and history we can look to. We can make decisions. Change is possible.
Today I’m exhausted. I am angry. I am traumatized. I am heartbroken. I feel devastated. I feel loathing and rage and can still taste the acrid and nauseating feeling of adrenaline in my mouth and body. I feel hopeless. Yet in that same breathe of hopelessness, I feel the necessary discomfort of leaning even harder into my own blind spots, the promise of young people who do not accept the status quo and the many exhausted but hard working people in our nation who are willing to do their part to fuel change. I hope that I am one of them. I have hope that you are too.
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