A low bar for okay by Ruth Neuwald Falcon

Today, finally, Twitter banned Donald Trump. He tried doing an end run by posting on the @POTUS account. They shut him down there too. Twitter also posted: “Plans for future armed protests have already begun proliferating on and off Twitter, including a proposed secondary attack on the US Capitol and state capitol buildings on January 17, 2021.”

Twitter permanently suspends Trump’s account to prevent ‘further incitement of violence’—The Guardian

In Capital, a G.O.P. Crisis. At the R.N.C. Meeting, a Trump Celebration.—The New York Times

‘I want him out’: Lisa Murkowski of Alaska becomes the first GOP senator to call for Trump’s resignation in the wake of deadly Capitol insurrection—Business Insider

January 8, 2021

A low bar for okay
by Ruth Neuwald Falcon, Seattle, Washington

On the one hand, I’m doing business as usual, which almost makes me laugh as I write it— “usual” not being what it used to be. I’m still working, still at my computer at my kitchen table that doubles as my desk, with CNN on the iPad beside me. This is what my “usual” has become over these last ten-plus months. This plus breaks for a daily walk, conversations with friends, food.

Only now, in addition to the occasional story they squeeze in about the medical disaster that is Covid in California and the most recent record that’s been broken of more than 4,000 dead in one day, there is discussion of invoking the 25th Amendment and a second impeachment. There is footage of rabid mobs smashing their way into the Capitol and, in the Senate chamber, men in tactical gear brandishing zip ties. A Reuters reporter heard “at least 3 different rioters at the Capitol say they hoped to find Vice President Mike Pence and execute him by hanging him from a Capitol Hill tree as a traitor.”

During a “Moms for America” event on Tuesday, freshman Republican congresswoman from Illinois Mary Miller quoted what Hitler got right. At Wednesday’s rally prior to the mob attacking the Capitol, Alabama Rep. Mo Brooks shouted, “Today is the day that American patriots start taking down names and kicking ass.”

A truck full of bombs and weapons has been found near the Capitol. More and more footage of Wednesday’s mob violence is being released. It is almost unwatchable and yet must be seen. We can not turn away. Too many people turned away for too long.

In her conversation with Anderson Cooper tonight, Doris Kearns Goodwin quoted Abraham Lincoln: “Public sentiment is everything. With public sentiment, nothing can fail. Without it, nothing can succeed.” She went on to say, “We have to hope that public sentiment can change through this.”

I am terrified. I want to think that it’s going to be okay, whatever that means. The bar for “okay” is a lot lower than it once was. But I am deeply discouraged by the number of people who called Chris Cuomo’s radio show this morning and said, yeah, he’s a lunatic, and nah, they don’t like him, but yes, they would vote for Trump again.

And then there was the woman who tested positive for Covid two days ago. “I won’t get into fear,” she said. “I’ll get into faith.”

I’m doing the best I can.