Rant #2,567: America

What went on yesterday in Washington, D.C., was an atrocity.
 
I could end today’s Rant simply with that one sentence, but I have a bit more to say about it.
 
This is something that should never happen in this country, but it did.
 
Happily, legislators were able to reconvene, and let the electoral college do its job.
 
Our next president is Joe Biden, and that is the end of it.
 
Here is what I wrote on Facebook yesterday, and after you read it, I have a couple of more comments to make about yesterday, a day that will certainly live in infamy in American history.

 
“What is happening in Washington, D.C., right now is a total atrocity.
To have marauders invade our sacred governmental buildings there and take them over like they have, with violence and bloodshed, is something I thought I would never see in my lifetime.
I supported the president in his run for a second term. However, his post election loss behavior has been atrocious, and his egging on these criminals is even worse, as is the rancid behavior of some of his cohorts, who actually believed that disputing the election was a prudent thing to do.
Yes, much if the blame falls on the Republicans, but the Democrats haven't been much better, disenfranchising so many Americans with policies that made citizenship worth nothing.
But the main blame falls on the president, someone who believed that he was making America great but was destroying whatever civility we had in the process.
The only way to react is to vote out any incumbent--I don't care who they are and what party they belong to--during the next spate of elections.
And I, personally, plan on doing just that.
What our forefathers were most fearful of was mob rule, and now we have the mob ruling in Washington in our most sacred chambers of government.
How dare they take away the freedoms that we all have as Americans.
And how dare the president not only allow this to happen, but spur it on and justify it with his insidious post-election actions.
How dare he do this to myself, my family and to all Americans.”
 

I actually know somebody who was there at the rally. She has told me that it wasn’t Trump supporters who were being unruly, it was Antifa factions and anarchists.
 
I do not disagree with what she told me. I mean, she was actually there at the scene when this happened, so I have no reason to doubt her.
 
However, if the president did not fan the flames of this type of insurrection during the past few weeks since he lost the election, this would have never happened.

 
And then in a hastily put together video, he went on to praise this group as the icing on the cake.
 
So whether these were Antifa terrorists masquerading as Trump loyalists or not, this really is immaterial.
 
It should never have happened, but was allowed to happen because the president fanned the flaming embers and turned them into a 10-alarm fire.
 
He is not the only one who is guilty of fanning the flames. The media did nothing yesterday to put out those flames.

 
I watched CBS News for several hours yesterday, and those leading the insurrection were constantly labeled as “Trump Supporters.” Not once did I hear the word “Antifa” used; not once did I hear the word “anarchists” used.
 
However, when the national protests were at their height during the summer, you always heard that the protests were “peaceful” and that outside agitators were the ones that caused violence and destroyed our cities.
 
What is good for the goose is good for the gander, wouldn’t you say ... unless you have your own political mandates and agendas to fulfill, I guess.
 
This is irresponsible reporting at best, and at worse, it is its own insurrection.

 
How dare they lump me—someone who voted for Trump—and millions of others in with this garbage.
 
Look, I made my vote and I never turned back, nor did millions of others who voted for the president.
 
I would say that 90 percent of us are OK with the election, and we accept the fact the Joe Biden beat Donald Trump fair and square.
 
We might not like the fact that the election was decided by mail-in ballots, a format which was clearly misused by people who really didn’t need to vote this way, but we are fine with the result.
 
We accept Joe Biden as our new president, and look forward to his term in office and hope that he and his vice president, Kamala Harris, and his administration can cure our ills as a nation.
 
But yes, there is that 10 percent of Trump backers who refuse to concede the election, who salivate at every Tweet and everything the president has to say as if his words are the words of God, and they are clearly not.
 
His constant diatribes that he was robbed during the election only fanned the embers of what turned into a mass catastrophe yesterday. And those people hanging on his every word … sorry, whether you like it or not, Joe Biden IS your president.
 
And the guy you really have to feel sorry for here is Vice President Mike Pence, a guy who appears to be a decent person who really had to back the president no matter what he said.

 
He was between the proverbial rock and a hard place. He had to be loyal, he had to be the carrier of the president’s message, he had to be the face of the nation at times in the president’s stead.
 
But when push came to shove—or wrong came to right—Pence did what he needed to do to continue our Democratic process.
 
After all the tumult, he did his job, and certified Biden as our president through the electoral college.
 
So what did the president do? He called him disloyal.
 
I don’t know what the future holds for Pence, but he demonstrated that our system, even under attack, works just fine, and no agitator will ever be able to stop that process.
 
Someone on Facebook said related to my post that I included in this Rant that I “had no balls” because I did not back Trump in his delusional behavior since the election was lost.
 
I replied to her that at least “my balls are not in a sling” like his are now. He has destroyed whatever good came out of his presidency by his actions, he has destroyed the Republican party, and he has also destroyed the Trump name.
 
His actions have made him and his family pariahs, through no fault of their own.
 
He has a wife and a young son. What will be the effect on them by his actions?
 
Yes, people can be cruel. I truly fear for his young son.
 
Enough about what happened, let’s look at the future.

 
We have a new president in place, who will have to tackle everything that ails this country right now.
 
He will have to win over not only those who voted for him that they made the right choice, but he will have to win over more than 70 million people who voted against him.
 
Let’s give him a fresh slate, and let’s see what he can do.
 
After yesterday’s atrocity, what better thing can we do?