An attempted overthrow of the federal government. The culmination of Trumpism

The dust has at least temporarily cleared from yesterday's storming of the United States Capitol and attempted coup by a mob of MAGA terrorists.

How long have I been railing against Trump and the danger he presents to our nation? It's not as if I'm a brilliant sage or learned political scholar. Anyone with a brain could have seen this coming as far back as 2015, when Trump announced he was running for president and started to get traction. And in all actuality, this is a wound that has been festering since well before Trump became president.

What should have been a celebratory day--after Georgia elected Raphael Warnock, the state's first ever Black senator (and Jon Ossoff also winning his Georgia senatorial runoff)--turned into an afternoon of chaos in Washington, DC. What happened at the capitol was simply the culmination of the ferment that Trump has been stoking for the last four plus years. 

The week began with me leaving messages on the voicemails of Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley. You can see how effective that was. I did feel some catharsis from doing it, however.

Yesterday afternoon, I decided not to take a walk in downtown Lansing. This has been one of several times in the last nine months I have simply decided not to risk it. That is how periodically disturbing our state capitol has been, between COVID/Lockdown protestors and MAGA nutjobs. (The Venn diagram for these groups has a vast overlap). I had a feeling the scene would not be good, and as it turned out there were a handful of right-wingers at the state capitol. 

Michigan State Capitol, January 6, 2020 (photo credit: Matthew Dae Smith, Lansing State Journal)

Instead, I drove the short jaunt to the Record Lounge and thought I'd spend a few minutes looking at records. (If you're wondering if I bought anything, of course I did). As I was exiting my car a little after 2:00, I saw reports of what was happening in Washington. By the time I returned to work, all hell had broken loose. I could barely work the rest of the day. I was shaken. It was a nightmare come true. I have never been sadder to be an American citizen as I was yesterday.

What happened yesterday cannot be tolerated. The perpetrators need to be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. Donald Trump needs to be held accountable for inciting an attempted overthrow of the federal government. He cannot be allowed to get away with this.

And with that, I'm out for now.

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