Carole Levine January 6, 2025
Today, January 6, 2025, finds me pondering many things. As in the past four years on this date, I am remembering where I was (at home) and what I was doing (working/writing) when I got notices on line of an attack on the US Capitol building by Trump supporters who hoped to disrupt and change the outcome of the Presidential election. I, like so many others, turned on my television and was immediately able to see, first-hand, what this insurrection looked like. It was not pretty.
While I was far away from the chaos and threats in DC, I felt threatened and violated. I have spent time in our Capitol. I have walked those halls. I have journeyed to the basement when you could ride a tram to get to office buildings… and been there when the tram was limited to only elected officials and staff. I have viewed the House of Representatives hall where the election certification was to take place. And now I was viewing destruction, chaos, anger, and fear. This was not the United States that I knew. This was a rebellion from within. This was a scene of people who could not accept that their candidate had lost the election and who were nowt going to violently take over the government to get the results they wanted. And all of this was initiated, encouraged and egged on by then President Trump who refused to accept his documented loss of the election.
Today, as I reflect on what I witnessed on January 6th, 2021, I wonder, had the election victory gone to Vice President Kamala Harris in 2024, would we be witnessing yet another insurrection? That thought brings a chill because I really have no doubt that it would.
Our President-elect is not just a sore loser, he is a denier of any kind of personal loss. This can be seen in his court cases, juxtaposed against his public statements. His statements about women and his power to do as he pleases with them, contrasts vividly with his claims of innocence in his sexual abuse convictions. He is, at least according to him,never wrong. This puts our nation in a strange position of how to deal with a bombastic, autocratic leader who has surrounded himself with loyalists and “true believers” to support the positions he takes on issues no matter how un-informed and unwise they may be. I anticipate that the next four years will be ones of battling untruths as much as we will battle for the rights that will surely be attacked by this Administration.
I am concerned as I think through what lies ahead. I am concerned that the incoming President will do what he says. But I am equally concerned that many in this country who are able to stand up and fight back will choose not to do so. This is, indeed, a choice. And as I join in discussions and listen to friends and acquaintances, I hear this position stated in many ways. “There’s nothing we can do…” “My voice won’t make a difference…” “I’m just going to wait this out…” I find this infuriating and so did blogger/writer/activist Charlotte Clymer, who wrote today in her blog, Charolotte’s Web:
But what I cannot stand—what I will not tolerate—is nihilism: the view that nothing can be done in this moment to better our world, to help the most vulnerable around us, to make a damn effort, especially when you have the privilege to do so where others don’t.
Nihilism pretends to be clarity, but really, it’s just a particularly pathetic laziness powered by narcissism.
[…]
I’m not talking about people who are feeling directionless or exhausted or depressed, maybe all three, and may need a break to recharge.
I’m talking about people who fall back on the incredibly entitled and ridiculous excuse that they don’t even need to try because it won’t matter.
Bullshit.
Bravo, Charlotte! I am in full agreement.
Also today, Joyce Vance, lawyer, political commentator (Civil Discourse is her blog) and activist re-published a column she wrote for MSNBC right after the January 6th insurrection. She ends with the following:
But our focus should stay on the threat itself and the people who created it. Because that threat has not dissipated.
Now we see the consequences of preserving the fiction that all of the people on both sides of the political divide are operating in good faith. It takes bomb-makers to build bombs. It takes leaders to create insurrection and sedition.
Again, Joyce Vance wrote these words four years ago. We need to be paying attention.
One final column landed in my inbox today. This one from columnist/writer/activist Roxanne Gay. She writes of her own personal frustration with our health care system (and her own privilege and resources to deal with it) in a column about vigilantism and why people resort to this option. Roxanne Gay is all about taking action, bu she does not condone those whose actions cause harm to others. There was great harm (physical and psychological) caused for a great many on January 6, 2021. The reach of that harm extends to today and beyond. Gay says in this column entitled – The Least Amount of Harm:
What we’re really talking about here is who is allowed to use violence and who we condemn for turning to violence. We’re talking about the why of those decisions. We’re talking about how often, when people condemn the use of violence, they are revealing their sociopolitical allegiances. Lots of us preach non-violence but that ethos extends only to the point that it becomes an inconvenience or an obstacle. The relativity of our morality is probably one of humanity’s greatest weaknesses. I don’t know that any of us are capable of rising above that weakness. The best we can do, perhaps, is manage it, do our best to tolerate the least amount of harm to the greatest number of people.
I think January 6th will always carry significance for me and, hopefully, for many others. For me, it remains a call-to-action. It pushes me to look for ways to stand up and also not accept defeat or unacceptable outcomes. But to do so, we must, as Roxanne Gay says, “tolerate the least amount of harm to the greatest number of people.” Our work is before us.
