The Ultimate Reality Show

And there I thought we were having a slow week leaving me with “what will I write about?” Then vlam!! The House –literally- fell on us.

Always allow for the unexpected.

A lot has been said and will be said in the coming days about the final unraveling of Donald Trump –taking democracy and the country down with him- so I won’t go there.

I will concentrate on what comes next as his legacy of conspiracy theories, lies, myths and rumors marches on making it impossible for the “healing and unity” that all sides are invoking, even the now-rudderless Trump.

There are a couple of things we should all try to agree before we take the first step towards restoring peace and the rule of law, the path to “healing and unity”.

The attack on the Capitol was not an attack on a piece of real estate, or property, like some of Trump’s supporters affirm, comparing the injury done to “one federal building damaged” as opposed to “150 + federal buildings damaged” during the BML riots and dismissing it by the sheer value of numbers. If there is anyone out there that still thinks this was an attack on a “building” we need to reset priorities and values.

The Capitol is not bricks and mortar. It is the most powerful symbol of democracy, a system of values, of checks and balances that exists to allow us to live and disagree in peace and civility. A system people die defending -especially Americans- and people all over the world aspire to and try to emulate, my country and me among them.

We work awfully hard to stay within the straight and narrow, at great cost and no little sacrifice, and I refuse to let this symbol be just a another federal building.

The second is the vastly different and shocking reaction of the police during the BLM riots of last summer and their actions on Jan 6. The call to come and march in DC had been planned and circulating for days on social media yet the police was indecently unprepared –no weapons, no gear- with in some cases with the strange attitude of taking selfies with rioters or helping them down the stairs, nanny-style.

The cavalry arrived only when the rioters had left; this in a country that prides itself on having total readiness for combat, foreign and domestic. I don’t know about you, but if I allowed myself any menacing gestures in the vicinity of the Capitol it would result on four cops throwing me to the ground face down in hand cuffs, and I am a White woman.If I were a Black man storming the Capitol I would probably get shot right then and there, no questions asked.So yes: there are differences between last summer’s deplorable riots and this week’s.

(Far right: White policemen cracking down on BLM protestors. Near left: Black policemen at Capitol calming White unruly mob).

The third being that for all that rioting and violence is totally unacceptable, I mean totally, the BLM riots were triggered by a cop pressing his knee, on camera, for nine minutes, on the neck of a Black unarmed suspect, choking him slowly –nine minutes is a very long time- until he expired. Was this an isolated case? No. Was it right to resort to looting and burning? Of course not. But is it right to slowly choke a man on the ground because he is Black? Definitely not.

Today I would be terrified to be a Black man in America.

The Rabble-Rouser. The Rabble

On the other hand the storming of the Capitol was not incited by the killing of anyone. It came as a result of the meltdown of a furious, narcissistic, and clearly deranged man who could not accept defeat. Period. There was no fraud, no “steal”.

This is true not because the media says so. But because 90 cases were dismissed -mostly by Republican judges- for lack of evidence, which is the only way to introduce a case in court.

One last myth that needs debunking: the rioters were not Antifa or BLM disguised as extreme right wing thugs.

Their faces are known, their names too. The FBI has already picked up and detained some. Several of the leaders belong to a movement that believes Washington is controlled by a cabal of “pedophiles Satanists” and came to the Capitol to find them. “We’ll hunt them down and destroy them”.

That crazy, uh?

What they left behind:

A lynching hangman's noose Mess cleaned up by Black staff

And who pointed them in that direction? Who said go fight, don’t let them take your freedom, be strong, I will be walking with you?

The same man who took cover inside a tent in the White House celebrating with his family* the mayhem that was to descend upon the Shining City on the Hill, and all of us: the President of the United States who swore to protect the Constitution.

While Trump’s latest reality show ratings were going through the roof -people unable to tear themselves away from the disgusting/fascinating spectacle at the Capitol- his perception as President of the United States and Leader of the Free World was taking a final nose dive into the abyss.

*A question begs answer: where was Melania?