I was talking to my friend Veronica in London via Google Messenger on Wednesday at about 2 a.m., when the Georgia runoff had been called for Warnock and it was clear that Ossoff was going to win. She said that it looked like things would finally start to get better on January 20th, and I signed off with, "At least until the Reichstag Fire." I was kidding. Mostly. I've been sort of half-expecting a Reichstag Fire since before the September election. If that asshole who broke into Pelosi's office today had had a can of gasoline, we might really have had one.
Paul had a bunch of work phone conferences, so he was upstairs a lot of the afternoon, but Adam sat downstairs with me and watched the attempted demolition of democracy with me in real time. I watched a lot of 9/11 with him too when he was in preschool, and in a weird way it felt similar, though on 9/11 the word "terrorists" was used a lot and today it was "supporters of the President" even when they had pipe bombs. It was terrifying and exhausting, after a morning when for a few minutes, with the Georgia results in, I felt almost okay about the coming year.
We watched the end of Avatar during a break from the news and we did manage to take a walk. I'm just going to post a bunch of links here that cover this weeks-long day because other people summed up my feelings in clever tweets:
https://twitter.com/fredosmithjr/status/1346689026607239178 "Rev. Warnock was Congressman John Lewis's pastor. Ossoff was Lewis's intern. And somewhere, somehow both near and far, I have to think that Rep. Lewis is saying, "Well done.""
https://twitter.com/GuthrieGF/status/1346841389066309632 ""I think [Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel] and Dr. King are smiling in this moment and we hope to make them proud" - Senator-elect @ReverendWarnock"
https://twitter.com/akela_lacy/status/1346817919263629312 "Loeffler ran ads darkening Warnock’s skin and Perdue ran ads enlarging Ossoff’s nose and I’m not done thinking about that"
https://twitter.com/bryanbehar/status/1346713412051456001 "I know it hasn’t been called for Ossoff yet. But I’m starting to get unexpectedly emotional at the the idea of a Black man and a Jewish man, both protégés of John Lewis, walking into the United States Senate as the elected representatives of the Deep South state of Georgia."
https://twitter.com/lynnsweet/status/1346982437600026625 "After @RepMaryMillercomment about Hitler, @janschakowskycalls on her to resign. Condemned by @CPG_USHMM , other #Illinois lawmakers."
https://twitter.com/ElijahSchaffer/status/1346881968819105792 "Trump supporters have breached the Capitol building, tearing down 4 layers of security fencing and are attempting to occupy the building — fighting federal police who are overrun"
https://twitter.com/jmadelman/status/1346903001051623424 "The Confederate battle flag has reached the United States Capitol building, something that did not happen during the Civil War."
https://twitter.com/littlereview/status/1346923490193113090 "Tammy Duckworth: "I have defended the right of people to protest all my life...but these are not protestors. This is a mob doing the will of a wannabe tin-pot dictator who lost the election.""
https://twitter.com/JenaFriedman/status/1346921346492559361 "Fox News right now is saying that these protesters are peaceful since “no vandalism” is taking place as live video shows people smashing windows."
https://twitter.com/littlereview/status/1346930339747397632 25th Amendment or impeach every one of those Republican MFs.
https://twitter.com/TheRealHoarse/status/1346967830827208709 Lindsey Graham: "Those who made this attack on our government need to be identified and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. Their actions are repugnant to democracy." The Hoarse Whisperer: "Lindsey Graham calls for @HawleyMO and @tedcruz to be prosecuted."
https://twitter.com/NAACP/status/1346916733915955205 NAACP: "And you thought "Taking A Knee" was too much!?!"
https://twitter.com/KailiJoy/status/1346904870691942408 "When Democrats lost in 2016, they knitted pink hats and donated to Planned Parenthood."
https://twitter.com/RepMaxineWaters/status/1347002550608818179 RepMaxineWaters: "We must investigate the security breach at the Capitol today. I warned our Caucus and had an hour long conversation with the Chief of Police 4days ago. He assured me the terrorists would not be allowed on the plaza & Capitol secured. What the hell?"
https://twitter.com/slack2thefuture/status/1346973262178181120 "As we all take in the staggering fifteen (15) arrests made for today’s attempted coup, please join me in calling for a national commission to investigate the infiltration of US law enforcement by white supremacist groups."
https://twitter.com/Public_Citizen/status/1346942043294035971 "For reference, there were 14,000+ arrests at the George Floyd protests."
https://twitter.com/traceyecorder/status/1346962474357063683 "Today has shown police don’t need de-escalation training, they choose who to escalate on, that’s not a training issue. Police don’t need unconscious bias training, they are conscious of their bias."
https://twitter.com/louisvillager/status/1346923475689234435 "I keep thinking about how "property damage" was such a talking point in so many protests and now that an armed mob is literally breaking into the US Capitol, the police and vigilantes are in no hurry to defend property."
https://twitter.com/griotspeak/status/1346900662416596993 "Just to be completely clear today, pointed questions like "Where is the teargas?" or "Why don't we see more choke slams?" are not demands for police brutality. They are rhetorical questions meant to highlight the fact that police *do* know how to avoid police brutality."
https://twitter.com/zakiyyahwashere/status/1346965585368907778 "Do you remember when like 100 BLM protestors had to hide in that mans house in DC all night cause the police were arresting everyone for not abiding by curfew? Just thinking about this for absolutely no reason."
https://twitter.com/SABrumsey/status/1346948281901998080 Amazing Reuters photo
This is some of my family in the Capitol in 2015. You can see photos of invaders standing in this spot from the news earlier. I wanted this memory instead.
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