Why I'm not ready to "put Jan 6th behind us."

Something broke in me on Jan 6.

A friend asked why I found it traumatizing. I grew up with a deep, idealistic love for the US, emotionally moved by patriotic songs as much as any song in church.

Even as I’ve become less naïve and more aware of my country’s many faults, I’ve never stopped believing in our professed (not always practiced) ideals, and I’m more convinced than ever that liberal democracy is far better than the alternatives.

Visiting China and El Salvador, watching Hamilton, reading about Lincoln, studying the Holocaust, growing up in the Cold War when people risked their life to escape places like the USSR and East Germany, having a foster sister who escaped Vietnam as one of the “boat people,” teaching a Bulgarian student whose dad lost all his teeth in a Communist gulag, discovering that Stalin’s mass murder exceeded even Hitler’s, and Mao’s exceeded even Stalin’s, watching the US lose its longest war in another failed attempt to transplant democracy

… all of this has left me with a deep appreciation for how precious and fragile liberal democracy is, and with a hatred for authoritarianism in all its forms, from fascism and Nazism on the Right to Maoist/Leninist totalitarianism on the Left, to the menagerie of military juntas, murderous dictators, lawless warlords, supreme leaders, caliphates, and oppressive CIA-backed regimes.

Convincing millions of a massive election fraud conspiracy to invalidate any election their side loses is Coup D'état 101.

People who believe this lie, despite their leaders’ inability to produce a shred of evidence in the sixty-some court cases they’ve lost, stormed our Capitol, murdered a police officer, assaulted and injured scores of others, and planned to stop Congress from its constitutional role in the peaceful transfer of power.

The influential men who instigated this riot, advised the President to impose martial law, pressured the Vice President to overturn the election (extra-constitutionally), and/or pressured state officials to falsify vote counts have not been held accountable.

The effort to destroy confidence in the electoral process and delegitimize the last election continues apace. And 28% of Republicans believe “patriots may have to resort to violence” to save the country (PRRI poll in May).

So no, I’m not ready to “put Jan 6 behind us."