In his charmingly self effacing memoirs, All For the Union, Elisha Hunt Rhodes, wrote of a Confederate attack on Washington.
"Our columns passed through the gate of Fort Stevens, and on the parapet I saw President Lincoln standing looking at the troops. Mrs. Lincoln and other ladies were sitting in a carriage behind the earthworks. We marched in line of battle into a peach orchard in front of Fort Stevens, and here the fight began. For a short time it was warm work, but as the President and many ladies were looking at us every man tried to do his best. Just at dark I was ordered to take my Regiment to the right of the line which I did at a double quick. I never saw the 2nd R.I. behave better. An old gentleman, a citizen in a black silk hat with a gun in his hand, went with us and taking a position behind a stump fired as cool as a veteran. The Rebels at first supposing us to be Penn. Militia stood their ground, but prisoners told me when they saw our lines advance without a break they knew we were veterans. … The Rebels broke and fled. I lost three men wounded. It was a fine little fight but did not last long. A surgeon standing on the fort beside President Lincoln was wounded. We slept upon the field, glad that we had saved Washington from capture."
The Army of Northern Virginia was never able to fly their flag in or near the Capitol. But, of course, the Army of Northern Virginia did not have Elisha Rhodes and his veterans opening the barricades to let them in.
On January 7 at 3:30 AM, Louis Gohmert, the Dunce of Crazytown with a preternatural inability to read the room, objected to the electors from Wisconsin, the last act of a dying rebellion. After the events of the day, even Josh Hawley didn't have enough sedition left in him to join Gohmert.
Four people died in the attempt to stop this obsolete ritual, born out of a compromise with people who owned other people. One was shot while attacking police. The other three were trampled to death. Those of a certain age, like me, will recall that as the same number of people who died at Kent State in 1970. In that case, they died demanding that the government of this country live up to its Constitution. They were massacred by that government. In this case, they died attempting to destroy that very Constitution and replace it with the principle that Elisha Rhodes fought to defeat. They were invited in by that government.
On September 20, 1962, James Meredith attempted to be the first black student to register at the University of Mississippi. Armed students rioted in protest, fired on federal marshalls, and the campus was in open rebellion until the arrival of federalized National Guard and the U. S. Army 2nd Infantry Division. Two people were murdered, one a French journalist, Paul Guihard, who was shot in the back, and Ray Gunter, a 23 year old jukebox repairman who was inconveniently curious and was shot in the head. Both were described by law enforcement as execution style killings.
Today, James Meredith is 87 and has been treated to yet another vision of white supremacist insurrection. There is a memorial to him on the Ole Miss campus, but its significance seems to be lost on the Republicans who run the state.
I thought in 2008 that we as a nation had turned a corner. I was optimistic for the future of our democracy. I thought the Jim Crow generation was finally leaving the stage. I thought the election of Trump was a fluke, a perfect storm of circumstance. Boy was I wrong. 74 million of us tried to get more of the same. That means not just the rapidly disappearing Jim Crow generation, but their children, the boomers who were not disturbed by Reagan speaking about state's rights in Philadelphia, Mississippi, and their grandchildren who dress up like maskless buffoons and waltz right into the Capitol, invited in by those who are putatively defending the place, and then politely escorted out again when they are finished trashing it and allowed to go home.
Yes, 74 million was a minority of the vote. Joe Biden got 81 million votes. But it always has been a minority, ever since Elisha Hunt Rhodes fought them off. It is a minority that simply cannot be satisfied. All this time that evangelicals have been in the driver's seat, going back to Reagan, they have consistently complained that they are being oppressed and their rights violated by people who are allowed to believe something different.
It's never enough. It is who we are. We have entered a place beyond conventional politics at this point. Certain people are groping for a way out. On Colbert, Adam Kinzinger floated the idea that somehow the attempted destruction of democracy after an election is qualitatively different from before, when Kinzinger voted against removing Trump from office. That's complete bullshit. Coming after an election loss is not what makes insurrection wrong. Butyou know what, Adam? If you'll vote differently now, welcome to you.
Minor Trump functionaries have hit the silk, but no one higher up than Betsy de Vos and Elaine Chao, likely, at least in part, to avoid having to participate in any 25th Amendment shenanigans. There's nothing noble about these people. They served the mob, not America, and now want to escape responsibility for what they've done. They should be shunned by people and domestic animals.
The DOJ was talking about investigating people up to Trump himself, but today backed off. The House stepped in with a demand that Trump either resign or be impeached a second time. Biden appears to still be against either course. But the alternative is normalizing this behavior, as happened in the 1850's, and what happens down that path is obscured in darkness. The Republican party appears to be slowly cracking up, split between people like Kinzinger who are horrified by what they almost did, and people like Gohmert who are unable to process what they are currently doing while they do it.
I am heartened by Pelosi's demand that Trump either resign or be the first president to be impeached twice. Disgrace is powerful in the long run. But I have no confidence at all that it will be successful. The principle argument against it seems to be that it will further enrage Trump's supporters. But if our purpose is to avoid that, isn't that the same thing as saying they win? In the end, I expect only a few dipshits who were too stupid to keep their mouths shut and their mugs off camera will be prosecuted. The Very Important People are still above the law and will suffer no consequences. Neither will the police.
The Roman Republic died because when Sulla led an insurrection to restore the norms and practices of the Republic, after it had descended further and further into power politics and demagoguery since the Gracchi Brothers, others, like Julius Caesar, Marc Antony and Pompey Magnus, instead of seeing it as an opportunity to return to normal saw it as an opportunity for them to be the new Sulla. I think I set a record for dependent clauses.
Even if impeachment succeeds, that will not end anything. The rot in the GOP and its white supremacist allies goes too deep. It will be a long, twilight struggle with an ambiguous ending. It is, after all, the same thing Elisha Hunt Rhodes thought he had defeated, yet here it is.
In the early 1970's, Neil Young's career as a rocking folkie was taking off. He had charted with two highly polished albums, Harvest and After The Gold Rush. Then, in the space of a few months, Young's friend and roadie, Bruce Berry, died of a heroin overdose. Berry had been introduced to heroin by Danny Whitten, rhythm guitarist in Young's backing band, Crazy Horse. Whitten showed up to rehearsals for the Harvest tour stoned out of his mind and unable to figure out his parts. Young gave him $50 and a plane ticket back to LA. Whitten bought heroin with it and overdosed.
Young felt deeply responsible for Whitten's death and his next two albums were a radical departure that baffled critics and fans alike. The tone was bleak and the production was crude, rough monitor mixes of the songs that alienated his sound engineers.
Recorded first but released second, Tonight's the Night was a descent into grief and utter despair. The title track mentions Berry by name. Danny Whitten is vocalist on "Come one baby let's go downtown." Printed on the album sleeve was a picture of the band with their names written underneath each player. Whitten's name is beneath an empty space. There was a cryptic message written by Young: "I'm sorry. You don't know these people. This means nothing to you."
Eleven months earlier, Young had released the second album first, On The Beach. It was not as raw as Tonight's the Night, but came as a shock to critics and fans alike as it followed the slick, smooth, commerically successful Harvest. Not knowing what was to come, the Rolling Stone review described it as "One of the most despairing albums of the decade."
I can't balance rage and sadness anymore. That's the reason for the Neil Young song I posted last night, and the King memorial photo the night before. I thought a generational change was finally bringing this country into alignment with its principles for the first time in its history, but it seems I was wrong. We are what we have ever been, a country with a sickness we can't cure and a government designed by people we didn't deserve, subverted and destroyed by people we do. After all, if Sulla can do it, why not me?
I fear this is the death of democracy, a little known codicil of the Contract with America. It turned out to be a transient historical phase after all. People who think the place can be improved are overwhelmed by those who think it is a creation of god himself, a glory home for white people, and how dare you mess with his work.
An ambulance can only go so fast.
Comments
Post a Comment