January 6, 2021 was the darkest and most existentially threatening day in our nation’s post-Civil War history.
Hyperbole? I don’t think so. Previous crises have posed dire foreign threats to our homeland, taking American lives and challenging American resolve.
But on January 6, 2021, Americans tried to take down America, and they came perilously close to succeeding. Our flag is not our nation. Neither is our anthem.
Our Constitution is our nation. The rule of law is our nation. The peaceful transfer of power is our nation. And we almost lost the farm as we attacked us. This was an inside job. This was fratricide. This was the darkest and most existentially threatening day in our nation’s post-Civil War history.
We survived the immediate attack. But our recovery has been rocky and our prognosis remains uncertain.
Fortunately, a life-saving drug is available to us. Truth. Truth is the regimen back to national health. But we have to have the courage, faith and humility to take the treatment.
Here’s the truth. January 6, 2021 was a premeditated, coordinated assault on both our physical Capitol and our national soul. It was incited by our nation’s president. It was a deadly armed insurrection whose intent was to overturn the results of a fair election and illegally keep a defeated president in power.
By definition, that was an attempted coup. By definition, that was an attempt to overthrow the government of the United States.
Fast forward exactly two years. Driven by essentially the same zealots, there is another assault on our Capitol, continuing even as I write. This one is being waged in the House Chamber. And this assault is every bit as perilous as the one we barely fended off 730 days ago. Once again, this is we trying to take down us. This is an inside job. This is fratricide.
We’re not going to get well until we are brave enough to hook up to a national chemotherapy IV of truth and facts.
We have to stop the lies.
We have to bring facts back into fashion.
We have to make simple sanity sexy again.
And we have to defeat crazy, in all forms, in whatever direction it’s coming from.
Crazy is the enemy.
Crazy is not cool.
Being radical is no vice in the pursuit of rational thought and action.