LONSBERRY: They Weren't Patriots, They Were Traitors

God damn them all.

               Every single one of them.

               And God damn the one who sent them, who led them on with lies, who promised them messianic deliverance and who ginned them up with an hour-long harangue and sent them down the avenue and up the Hill of freedom.

               Where they desecrated the temple of the American people, where they displaced rule of law with rule of mob, where a constitutional process involving the duly elected representatives of the American people was broken up and chased away.

               Where the compact of citizenship and the pretense of order were shattered by savages pretending to be patriots.

               Savages who have done what no foreign enemy dared try. Savages who have shamed us before the world and in the face of our heritage.

               Never in American history has any such thing happened. That’s because never in American history has any such group of people been so craven and disrespectful of our country’s institutions, Capitol or elected representatives.

               This isn’t Philadelphia in 1776, this is the Reichstag in 1933.

               This is not the work of patriots, it is the work of traitors and insurrectionists. We are a Republic, we believe in rule of law, we follow the Constitution.

               And the Constitution says the Electoral College is to report to the Senate and present its tally of presidential electors, in order to officially declare the next president of the United States. It is a sacred juncture in the governance of a free people. It is a touchstone of liberty.

               And these bastards stopped it. They, through force of numbers and in violation of law, sent the people’s representatives scurrying to safety, in gas masks, while Capitol police with guns drawn ran to their defense.

               That is a coup.

               That is a violation of the rights of every single American. In the person of those congressmen and senators were represented all the people of the United States. White, black, Democrat, Republican, young, old. Every language, every opinion, every person.

               And they were put to rout by a mob of thousands who didn’t even respect the seat and home of their own government. The people on Flight 93 gave their lives to protect the Capitol; these Neanderthals spat on their memory by making that same Capitol a mockery, a desecrated ground.

               Never in American history has any aggrieved group of people stormed the Capitol. Never in American history has any president so clearly incited people to reject and overturn an election. Never in American history has any president, other than Jefferson Davis, so promoted insurrection.

               And that is exactly what Donald Trump did.

               And he, and those who heeded his call and stained those sacred halls with their trespassing feet, are traitors. Yes, they marched under an American flag, but so did Benedict Arnold.

               There is no defense for this action, and there can be no acceptance of it.

               And those who are so blinded by their own tribalism as to impulsively defend this attack need to check themselves, and understand what it means to be America. Those who would point to BLM protests and riots in city streets and find some moral equivalence or justification are evil and wrong.

               Life is about moral choices which reflect our character. Those who use force to push past police officers and stream onto the grounds and into the halls and chambers of the Capitol, putting to rout the vice president and the speaker of the House, showed their true character. And it wasn’t red, white and blue.

               It was yellow.

               A patriot would lay down his life to defend the U.S. Capitol. A traitor would treat it like an enemy citadel.

               This is the end of Trump. He has disqualified himself. If January 20thdidn’t get him, an impeachment would. The accomplishments of the first 46 months of his term do not outweigh the outrages of the last two weeks or 24 hours.

               He needs to go.

               And the conservative movement and Republican Party need to look in their hearts and examine who they are and what they stand for going forward. They need to weed out the seeds of taint which recent times have planted. And all Americans need to step back from the hate which has come to define and motivate our politics, and find common cause in the Constitution and country we all share.

               The storming of the temple of our democracy was a vile act which must never be repeated. We must now reconsecrate that Capitol through a renewed commitment to the constitutional process that has always guided our Republic aright.

               We must be Americans first and partisans second.

               Today, tomorrow, and always.


View Full Site