Today In Washington D.C.

Today

Today Americans are glued to their television screens. Just like they were when the space shuttle Challenger exploded, just like they were on 9-11, just like they were during the Rodney King riots.

Where is the president? Nowhere to be found.

Putin, Kim Jong Un, and all of Donald Trump’s other butt buddies are laughing and slapping high fives. To quote George Bush, the younger, “MISSION ACCOMPLISHED”.

We have finally achieved third world status. It is no longer within our grasp to “respectfully agree to disagree”. Democracy has effectively been replaced by mob rule...incited by the sitting president of the United States...although I hesitate to use the word “united” in the context of our citizenry.

Certain factions of the population are united, that much is certain. But the divisive politics of this administration have polarized our nation along racial, economic, and ideological lines like no time since the United States civil war. 

The episode that unfolded in the nation’s capital today...at the urging of the sitting president...did not manifest on some social media platform, but in the hallowed halls of the very seat of our democracy.

What happened today was not citizens exercising their constitutionally protected right to peaceful assembly.

As a side note, I believe that had the majority of these “protesters” been of a darker complexion, things likely would have been resolved quite differently. But that’s neither here nor there.

Today the whole world got a glimpse of exactly how susceptible our democracy is to intervention by hostile players. Today it was our citizens antagonized into unlawfulness by our own president. But do not delude yourself that hostile governments are not sitting forward licking their lips right now.

What are the consequences of today’s spectacle? Who will be held accountable, if anyone? What lasting damage has been done to our democracy and our governmental credibility in the world?

The system is broken. And if this president is not held accountable for his insane antics at some point, what does our collective future forebode? 

Asking for a friend.