Insurrection

In the early summer of 1989 in Washington, D.C., my Dad and I took a Metro downtown (or maybe we drove) and went to the Capitol to see the mighty legislator Claude Pepper lie in state. As I recall, it was kind of on a whim. He at the time was running his own newsletter so his schedule was flexible; I was a kid, so my schedule was flexible. We woke up, he said hey, let’s go see Claude, and we went.

My Dad up and moved to D.C. a few years before this. By this time, he had purchased a hovel of a house over the river in Virginia that he would soon raze and replace. So I had been hanging out in D.C. for several years by that time. I was commuting like a pro by age 15, taking the Metro to wherever I liked, and where I liked was often to the National Mall. My favorite spot was the Lincoln Memorial, where you could stand at the man’s feet and see so much of our Nation’s Capital’s great landmarks all in a line. I’d sometimes walk the whole way from Lincoln, down to the Vietnam, along the Mall passing all of the great museums, past the Washington, and then wonder at the majesty of our U.S. Capitol building.

I would later spend a semester in D.C. via a program sponsored by my school, interning and visiting various interest groups and lobby shops. I would work a summer there as a busboy just off of Georgetown Much later, I would finally succumb and move there, landing a job on a magazine published by a trade association, and ending up as their Web guy until the job was too much for me. I lasted there 13 years. And, when the weather was nice, a lunchtime walk around the White House was a usual event. (This blog, in fact, was born there, a nice way at the time to get this introvert to go out and meet people.)

Washington, D.C. is in my backbone. And though I haven’t even been there in more than a decade, it is one of the places in the world that I call home. It is decades of memories. And many of those memories involve that big beautiful bicameral building.

So I was properly horrified watching the events of January 6, 2021. I was not just horrified for my country, or for my government, or for the insurrection’s victims. It was as if my own house was being mauled. It was as if someone had crapped all over my temple. I think of the fellow who sat with a big grin on his face with a foot up on Speaker Pelosi’s desk. I think of those morons rifling through legislators’ notes looking for “dirt,” as if they had half the brain-power required to even comprehend what was on those papers. I think of that douche in the horn-hat crowing from the lectern, those who climbed the walls, those who came prepped with plastic cuffs, and my blood boils.

Due to this, yes, I wanted to hear more from Attorney General Merrick Garland today. I have liked to imagine that his demeanor through his speech would be closer to how I feel about this event, that he’d get a vein-bulge on his forehead, that his eyes might bug out some, that he’d clench his fists and declare that heads will roll. But Garland doesn’t seem to be the veiny-forehead type. C’est la vie.

But I want to see heads roll for this. 365 days now and I have yet to witness this cathartic experience. I want heads to roll. I want tales told. I want names. I want to know who paid for this. I want to know who advocated for it. I want these people to suffer as I suffered seeing my home, my temple, so horribly violated.

More than anything, I want that orange idiot to be shuffled off in chains for this. Not for tax evasion. Not for fraud. This. I fear largely that this country may punish him for his toilet business practices but may never assign him accountability for his septic tank presidency. The Republican Senate failed to do this job. It failed to do it twice. And while the Attorney General is taking massive pressure to do something regarding this, I think every conversation about that should note that had the Senate done its job in February 2021, Garland’s position would not be nearly as precarious as it is now. He would feel far less political pressure as he does now to do the right thing, to prosecute this doorknob to the fullest extent of the law. Don’t land this on Merrick Garland. Land it on Mitch McConnell. He drove the getaway car.

As an American. As a person who used to live there and considered it home to my heart. As a person who followed public policy since I was 4 years old. As a guy who took a field trip with his Dad to see Clace Pepper’s dead bald head. As a person who would genuflect entering the Capitol but would refuse to do so in any other building.

I detest what took place one year ago. I hate them all. I hate them all with a passion that spills bile from my eyes, from my mouth, from my penis. I hate them all. I hope they all find a place in a burny place after they die, I hope that burny place chops them into little pieces one crouton at a time. I want them to suffer. I want them to know that what they did wrong. They invaded my home. They violated me personally. And I want them to pay the price.

Let’s go.