I wonder how many of the people who attacked the U.S. Capitol on January 6th are sorry they did it.
I wonder if any of them understand they were conned by Donald Trump into betraying their country.
I wonder if they saw any difference between Black Lives Matter protesters standing up to police officers and they themselves attacking Capitol police to try and invade the building.
My guess is they didn’t. I was watching the testimony of an officer trying to protect the Capitol who said the invaders told him he didn’t have to be afraid of them because they weren’t Black Lives Matter.
“I saw many officers fighting for their lives against people, rioters, our own citizens turning against us, people who had the thin blue line on their chests,” Capitol police Sgt. Aquilino Gonell said, “They were attacking us because we were defending the very institution that they are claiming that they are trying to save.
“At no point that day did I ever think about the politics of that crowd. Even the things that were being said did not resonate in the midst of that chaos. But what did resonate was the fact that thousands of Americans were attacking police officers who were simply doing their job.
“In retrospect now, thinking about those events, the things that were said, it’s disgraceful that members of our government, I believe, were responsible for inciting that behavior and then continue to propagate those statements. Those individuals are, you know, representative of the worst that America has to offer.”
Back in his first term in the White House, George W. Bush made a remark about how it would be easier to govern in a dictatorship — as long as he was the dictator.
To be fair, Bush was joking.
Trump never jokes. In fact, he might be the first president since at least Richard Nixon to have no sense of humor, and if there’s a worse trail for a president to lack, it’s difficult to imagine.
The committee investigating the insurrection needs to put the blame squarely where it belongs — on Trump and his refusal to admit he lost a fair election.
As for Congressional Republicans who enable him, their party is never going to come out of the woods until they admit they were wrong.
The folks who actually did the insurrecting?
It’s easy.
Lock ’em up.