TomFlannery.com

I’ve watched the Capitol riot footage. I watched it in real time. I re-watched it many times. I’ve seen it from this angle and that angle, from surveillance cameras and cell phone videos, and in the last few days we’ve seen never before released stuff……showing…..indisputably…..that as bad as it appeared…..as bad as we thought it was at the time…..it was way worse. There’s a particularly chilling moment when a rioter is roaming the hallway mockingly, contemptuously calling out “Naaaaancy…….Naaaancy…” and all that’s missing is the dragging leg and the hatchet. What might have happened if lawmakers had not been swiftly brought to safety is enough to stop that heart.

And it’s all there. This is not a “he said she said” moment, distorted by any partisan lens. This is all on camera, each gleeful face as clear as the selfies you save on your phone. Each sent there with a clear mandate from Dear Leader. Each convinced of their patriotism, but prepared to be a bit…er….flexible at times. I mean, they did have a guy waving the Confederate flag front and center. You may be familiar with that that was all about. And they were chanting “hang Mike Pence” repeatedly, and normally wanting to hang the Vice President isn’t part of the Patriotic bingo card. Even now, with Trump stewing illegally at Mar-a-Lago, our area is filled with TRUMP 2020 signs, but with a new twist. The “Pence” on the signs has been crossed off. So their boy is alone now….fighting the good fight…….our last hope against Jewish Space Lasers and Pizza Parlor Pedophiles and Chinese Hoaxes. But, alas, Twitter-less…..which as it turned out was kinda like slicing his achilles tendon. With the hate-spigot turned off, and his seeming unwillingness to deal with that he called the “low-class” on more….er….white supremacist friendly social media outlets, his devotees are left to wander in the desert, not sure if they should shine Mitch McConnell’s shoes, or threaten to hang him too. SAD.

And so now we have impeachment. Again. It’s not gonna happen of course. While the videos of a violent coup were being shown, Trump sycophants were sitting in the gallery with their feet up, doing their best to appear blazingly uninterested for the cameras. The same party that was mortally offended by a blow job are able to whistle dixie through an attempt to overthrow an election. They will acquit their man…..freeing him up once again to the drag what’s left of the “grand old party” through what Andy Dufresne crawled through to escape from Shawshank prison. That they consider this a politically expedient thing to do is precisely why Bruce Springsteen heading to Kansas in his Jeep looking for the “middle” is kinda like searching for Bigfoot.

Trump has had a series of legal teams lately. Who would have thought his habit of not paying his bills would catch up with him, but here we are. Reputable firms are reacting to his phone calls the way we do when we get extended warranty calls from the car dealer. What he’s left with now is 2 guys who make Rudy Giuliani look like Clarence Darrow. It’s like being defended by Jim Carey and Jeff Daniels. But at this point he could hire the 3 stooges and it wouldn’t matter. All that’s left is the vote. These people need to stand up and say, for the record, and for all time, that fomenting a coup is not grounds for impeachment. And with that, they become historical pariahs. They get to hang out in political hell with Joe McCarthy. In the short term? The Klan will cheer and Parler will light up like a pinball machine and guys like Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley will consider themselves instant Presidential timbre, but the arc of the universe bends towards justice, which is something racists always forget. It’s a long, lonely life. Just ask the guy who stood in the schoolhouse door.

There can be no unity without accountability. More and more this mythical “middle” seems a place where we’re supposed to kumbaya. A place where we don’t have to take sides, because we accept that universal health care and jewish space lasers can exist on the same plane.

They can’t.

In a bit..

–tf