— The Capitol Insurrection on January 6, 2021 —
Arrest and prosecutions are ongoing. It is important NOT TO FORGET — is the stage set for another January 6th to happen? We must implement democracy safeguards to ensure this never happens again.
MORE THAN HALF A DOZEN “STOP THE STEAL” ATTENDEES WERE ELECTED TO PUBLIC OFFICE LAST NIGHT — Vanity Fair, November 3, 2021
BEFORE, DURING, AND AFTER THE ATTACK — The Washington Post, October 31, 2021
THE 147 REPUBLICANS WHO VOTED TO OVERTURN ELECTION RESULTS — The New York Times, January 7, 2021
DID TRUMP AND HIS SUPPORTERS COMMIT TREASON? — The New Yorker, January 28, 2021
DONALD TRUMP’S BIG LIES: HOW MILLIONS OF AMERICANS WERE RADICALIZED — Salon, January 28, 2021
THE WORST PRESIDENT IN HISTORY — The Atlantic, January 19, 2021
HOW PURE PATRIOTISM COULD OUST NATIONALISM — Patty Limerick and Bob Draughon, The Denver Post, January 25, 2021 excerpt, here:
“Patriotism, we believe, means supporting constitutional ideals, even when — especially when — supporting those ideals requires rethinking our own assumptions and political affiliations. A patriot’s allegiance is not to any governmental office, nor to the individual who fills it. A patriot’s convictions govern daily life, steadily aiming to make our nation a little better than it was the day before, whether through civil debate, legal action, carefully considered protest, or something as powerful as spreading grace to people in our proximity.
“Here are the features that we believe characterize patriotism in contrast to nationalism:
- Patriots do not abandon critical appraisal, and in fact believe that honest criticism is the necessary first step to demanding better of their nation; nationalists are susceptible to thinking that criticism approaches — and crosses — the borders of disloyalty.
- When they encounter people who hold differing convictions and principles, patriots commit to continuing to work collaboratively. Patriots refuse to throw in the towel; nationalists can feel fully justified in taking a “my way or the highway” stance.
- Patriotism is dynamically inclusive; nationalism can be prey to intended and unintended exclusion on the basis of race and nationality.
- Patriots embrace the ideals in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution and recognize that the nation has an undeniable record of failed promises — to Indian peoples, Blacks, Latinos, Asians, Jews, Catholics, Muslims, members of the white working class, and people of varying gender identities. And yet letting the failures define our nation discounts the complexity of American history and surrenders to a sense of inevitability and fatalism.
- Patriots see the failures as a challenge to do better; nationalists are inclined to dismiss the failures as exaggerated and dismissible grievances”
Apparently we’re not the only ones who believe “accountability is the only way forward for the Republican Party”:
Bill Kristol, Elizabeth Neumann, Olivia Troye, and Sarah Longwell, some of whom are former trump advisors, have launched the Republican Accountability Project, which will:
- Support Republicans in Congress who, at great personal and political risk, are defying party leadership and defending the institutions of our republic;
- Work to unseat those who have tried to overturn a legitimate election and supported impunity for political violence, including by strategically recruiting and promoting primary challengers through our PAC;
- Push back against lies and conspiracy theories about widespread voter fraud and “rigged” elections.
Fair enough, though republicans probably should have been thinking about accountability long ago (after Eisenhower, perhaps?). A robust two party system is another one of democracy’s “check and balance”. That once serving under the domes of our state capitol, or our US Capitol, that both parties argue over policy — not ideology — to work together to “foster the best outcomes” (as stated in our Support of Democracy statement) for the American people.
