On January 7th: Crying in the Wilderness

It’s a gloomy, quiet morning here as the chaos and uncertainty of yesterday’s events, stilled only by police and a curfew, have turned into the final stroke of legal pronouncement of Joe Biden as president.

There’s this joy and peace in the quiet, still morning feeling, but the grief that yesterday came to what it did whispers behind the clouds. Honestly though, it’s different for me, and for my Biden supporting followers than Trump supporters. This is what we have been crying out against for months, or even in my case years. We begged you not to vote for him because he is dangerous, not because we are petty MSM followers.

Yesterday, one of the Republicans(I didn’t hear who it was and didn’t recognize him) talked about how scary the day was, and he looked genuinely fearful. Then, today, I read about how the republicans crouched under their desks begging the president to tell the protestors to leave, BUT HE DIDN’T. He left their lives in danger, while he praised the protestors. He even fought to keep the National Guard from going in to save them.

I expected my reaction to be one of compassion and love for them, but instead, I am angry and, something else. They did this. They egged him on, and excused his violent speech, dismissed the threats he has made since he first started campaigning for the presidency, and refused to see any of his misdeeds. Now, they act like they haven’t seen this before. Why? Because they haven’t. They blinded themselves to it until it literally broke into their building.

Americans have this amazing gift for compassion when something really, really bad happens that they can relate to, but we turn a blind eye until is somehow strikes our imagination and breaks our own heart. We have got to learn how to hear the stories of others. We told the republicans what Trump was saying was dangerous, we told them he was hurting people, but they literally had to have gunshots in the capital to see it.

We saw this coming, we didn’t know what it would look like or how bad it would be, but we saw how dangerous Trump was, and we cried out to them, to you, to stop it. Yet, now you are trying to say it was anti-fa, or it was any number of other people. Don’t blame this on us, your side has been planning this for weeks and you have turned a blind eye.

4 and a half years ago I begged everyone I knew to see how dangerous Trump’s words were. Over and over I begged them to see that this man who constantly talked about how violence was the best answer for everything was maybe not a good idea to have in charge of our country. Any man who could say what he did to and about women, or who could say that we should be using nuclear weapons, is not a man I wanted in control of anything in our country.

You treated me like crap for that. You acted like I was some sissy, scared, little hyper-sensitive… *deep breath* this is what I was afraid of, and worse. I never could have imagined that he would be responsible for the pandemic spiraling out of control in the US, or that his constant encouragement of racists would lead to enormous outbreaks of pre-MLK style battles, or that his followers would be bold enough to fly a confederate flag in the Capitol of our country, but I did know he was dangerous.

So I’m going to say it, because you need to know you did something wrong while you try to absolve yourselves again. You need to know YOU did this.

But that’s not the end of the story. You can hear us now. Those of you in power, you can stop him before he declares martial law, which he has already threatened to do multiple times, and those of you who voted for him, you can start looking at your neighbors who cried when you voted for him, and you can ask them why. You can hear their tears when they tell stories of who died in their family, who starved, who had to choose between food or medical care, who was beaten to death in the streets. Then, you can say you are sorry that you did not hear them, and you can work towards a world that is better for you AND for them.

I’m not saying to give up your values. I’m honestly not even saying that you can’t be Republican. I know we disagree on things and that is fine. I’m not upset about that. What I want you to renounce is the violence and cruelty of one man. We have Republican role models to follow who I do not agree with on many things, but they are good men. Mitt Romney, George W. Bush, and many others. You do not have to stop believing what you do, just don’t support it with violence and a lack of compassion.

I pray that from here we can return to disagreeing in peace without condemning each other, and learn how to live as one united body of individuals again.