Apparently I have extra-keen perceptual powers. nnAnalyzing an Associated Press photo from last week of armed protesters stalking the Kentucky statehouse, I clearly made them out through their camouflage.
The camo might have fooled any deer in the area, but surely not anyone upright on two legs.
All one had to do was see how the contours of background foliage did not keep pace with the warriors’ XXXL bellies.
They came armed to add menace to their outrage that Mitch McConnell voted to affirm Joe Biden’s election – something McConnell did because that’s what the Electoral College did.
See? Our enemy is clearly visible – the enemy of the system that is ours.
Enemies like Ted Cruz, Josh Hawley, Louie Gohmert, and of course the con man they would make king.
Cruz and Hawley owe an apology to a lot of Republicans. Their comments on the Capitol floor imply that as a whole they are stupid and un-American.
Indeed, based on the comments of the two insurrectionists, a whole lot of Republicans wear the horns of anti-democratic hysteria.
That’s just wrong. For many the horns fit. But what about the rest?
Hawley: “74 million Americans are not going to be told that their voices don’t matter.” That implies that all who voted for Trump reject the election results.
No they don’t. Most Republicans can do simple math. The math says Joe Biden won by seven million votes.
They could have overturned the Electoral College results in Georgia – and lost.
They could have overturned Pennsylvania – and lost.
Arizona. Lost. Michigan. Lost. Wisconsin. Lost.
They lost. They know it. They know Trump lied when he pronounced, “We won this election,” just as he lied every time he has sidled up to a mic as president.
If they didn’t or wouldn’t believe they lost, 60-plus court cases hence, and with 50 states certifying, they knew the score.
That leaves the others – the enemy – they who reject reality, like our twice-impeached president and members of the Sedition Caucus.
As Trump moves on, he leaves us with fanatics in red caps and camo openly speaking of kidnappings and assassinations.
He leaves us with QAnon supporters, white nationalists or those simply off their noodles serving racist-safe districts in Congress. Gerrymandering will assure that we have more. How about it, Texas, Arizona?
We’ve now seen evidence that via districts drawn to certain specifications, one can be elected to Congress or the statehouse simply by virtue of brandishing an assault rifle on video.
That doesn’t make them representative of most of us, not of America, not of Republicans in general; no, they are enemies of us.
If you voted for Trump, no assumptions here: Are you one of us, we who support a constitutional republic and can do math, or are you the enemy, wholly in support of an autocracy?
Despite what Cruz and Hawley imply, a lot fewer Americans believe in the Big Lie about the 2021 election. A lot more believe in our system, and that the election was as fair as it could be.
Ted Cruz said on the Senate floor that our democracy is in crisis. That is only because of a serial liar and his serial enablers. Otherwise, we just had an election and some people are violently refusing to accept the results, with Cruz and Co.’s tacit approval.
Now we brace for acts of insurrection to follow through on those insurrectionist acts Trump and his sycophantic caddies in Congress attempted.
We should all worry about public safety. However, it’s most likely that armed traitors in red caps or camo will give us a new slang term for how to end it all: suicide by Trump.
If a resounding majority had not voted for safe and sound leadership, our nation would be set to experience that very end.
John Young is a longtime Texas newspaperman who now lives in Fort Collins, Colo. Email jyoungcolumn@gmail.com. See johnyoungcolumn.com.
From The Progressive Populist, February 15, 2021
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