Power, and How We Use What Power We Have
In an attempt to overturn election results with the “Big Lie” that it was he who really won, former President Trump incited over 2,000 heavily-armed supporters to storm the U.S. Capitol and wreak havoc. Severely outnumbered, Capitol police officers were left to stave off an insurrection that left four people dead, at least 138 injured, millions in damages to the Capitol, and subsequent suicides of four of the very officers who, against immense odds, had sought to do their part in upholding the nation’s constitutional mandate for a peaceful transfer of power.1 Anger at what the virus was doing to all of us built up alongside these and other political tremors, carving deep crevices in the foundation of a government whose stable functioning many had assumed could be taken for granted. But as the pandemic persisted in taking the lives of fellow citizens, six feet of social distancing and shifting political fault lines broke into emotional and ideological divides that stretched miles. Thus, a second year of enduring the pandemic began within the political chasms we still find ourselves working to bridge. Machiavellian plot lines and pent-up frustrations fused with the pandemic’s eerie indifference to what was happening to our way of life and what we were doing to our country as a whole. This is what you might read in books, play games with, or watch online, but not encounter in real time. Internal political turmoil simmered as the bipartisan House Select Committee held hearings that retraced events inside the White House leading up to and during the January 6 insurrection on the Capitol. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss), Liz Cheney (R-WY), Pete Aguilar (D-CA), Adam Kinzinger (R-IL), Zoe Lofgren (D-CA), Elaine Luria (D-VA), Jamie Raskin (D-MD), Stephanie Murphy (D-FL), and Adam Schiff (D-CA) were determined to distinguish, as best as possible, an historically accurate account of events, apart from fiction, gossip, conspiracy theories, and other forms of misinformation. In May, 2022, members of the committee began providing information that answered many of the questions raised by the attack on the Capitol. Rational, deliberative inquiries informed each hearing, and a mass of evidence, much of it coming from the former president’s own lawyers, the courts, and many other Republicans, solidly backed up the assertions made. Each hearing gave still others the courage to come forward in order to provide additional perspectives and helped to unravel the events surrounding the insurrection. Despite having been repeatedly informed of losing the election–by his attorney general, numerous Republican attorneys, members of the Justice Department, and his own cabinet members; despite having filed 60+ lawsuits, all of which failed due to lack of evidence in support of the claims made; and despite many Republican state and election officials refusing to alter vote counts in his favor, the former president insisted on fraud that, ironically, he himself had been trying to perpetrate on the will of the American people.
Gabriel Sterling, Republican and Chief Operating Officer of elections in Georgia, had asked Trump to “halt the fraud claims… because someone’s going to get hurt.”7 Then Sterling addressed the complicity: “This is an election; this is the backbone of democracy, and all of you who have not said a word are complicit in this.”8 Rusty Bowers, former Republican speaker of the Arizona House of Representatives had campaigned for Trump. He received calls from then-President Trump and Rudy Giuliani pressuring him for a different slate of electors. In December, 2020, Bowers wrote in his personal journal: “I do not want to be a winner by cheating; I will not play with laws I swore allegiance to.”9 (Subsequently, he and his family were threatened and defamed, as were many others.) Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) would later summarize these events: “The people closest to Trump told him the truth. On January 6 … they pled for him to act, to place his country above himself.”10 The hearings conveyed fear of people in power losing their grip on power—even at the expense of indifference to the best in our heritage. The indifference of those in power seemed to compete with that of a global pandemic’s indifference to human suffering as it persisted in spreading. The political divisions that ensued were the major source of exhaustion to millions of Americans adrift in an ocean of distrust. Citizens able to agree to disagree, now increasingly used the “us vs. them” rhetoric of war and saw each other only as enemies. Threats to our democratic way of life felt imminent, everywhere. On August 31, 2021, President Biden pulled the United States out of its 20 year war with Afghanistan. We know the evacuation did not take place smoothly. What we did not know is that a year earlier—when there was more time to prepare, the U.S. had agreed to withdraw from Afghanistan, despite advice from Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley that doing so was “not feasible or wise.”11 CNN correspondent Paul Le Blanc spoke with Sam Kiley, a senior international correspondent who witnessed the withdrawal. On the job for some 30 years, Kiley remarked, “It’s pretty difficult to surprise me.”12 Yet he found the airlift “extraordinary”…The numbers astronomical…Indeed, Americans witnessed the “largest airlift in US history, evacuating over 120,000 citizens, citizens of our allies, and Afghan allies of the United States.”13
Controversy remains, however, over the number of Afghan allies who helped Americans in the war effort and who remain at risk, though eligible for the Special Visa Immigrant (SIV) form to citizenship in the U.S. Although warned to leave, these Afghan allies are now at the mercy of the Taliban, which is hardly guaranteed when the “new government’s security forces are run by a leader of the terrorist Haqqani Network wanted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.”14 “James Miervaldis founded the nonprofit No One Left Behind (NOLB) to “ensure the U. S. keeps its moral obligation to our Afghan and Iraqi interpreters.” 15The organization is aware of some 200 approved SIV applicants and their families hiding throughout the country…who were told by the State Department to remain in place” during the evacuation.16 Sam Kiley remarked on seeing Afghans’ fear for their future and on the “extreme loyalty” people felt toward those they had worked with inside Afghanistan. Efforts to get former colleagues and friends out were “heartening … genuine relationships.”17 Kiley commented that “the human bonds that exist between the people in those nations remain very strong.”18 Despite, then, 20 years of war, political treachery, and dangerous uncertainties of the future, genuine human relationships—that is, simple “human bonds”–held fast. Amid the chaos, and in further testament to those human bonds, a flood of rejoicing filled people’s hearts at the sight of a U.S. Marine lifting an Afghan baby to safety in the airport in Kabul. An Afghan linguist and cultural advisor, helping with evacuations, had grabbed his 16-day-old baby by her arm and passed her over a razor wire before trying to save his wife.19 The image was seared into memory, as were the father’s reflections: “That day I handed over my baby to a total stranger. The only thing I trusted is that he was a Marine and that my daughter would be fine.”20 Later that day “the three were evacuated on a flight out of Kabul” and taken to safety. Simple “human bonds” held again–even with a stranger—and despite war. This example of trust well placed in our common humanity was in marked contrast to the environment at home, where disagreements with each other kept intensifying. In May, 2021, the president had urged us to “give hate no safe harbor.”21 In the latter part of 2021, the contagious Delta variant preyed on the unvaccinated. With new cases and an average of 1900 more deaths per day, hospitals were struggling not to be overrun. 22
Kentucky Gov Andy Beshear spoke of a tornado–dubbed “the beast”–“that “tore a 200-mile gash” across the state and was the “worst tornado event”33 in the state’s history, with “devastation like none of us has ever seen before.”34 But like the human bonds Sam Kiley remembered from Afghanistan and that “had held,” something else also held–something commonplace and resilient. Something distinctly human—at our best. Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear commented, “We’re going to grieve together, we’re going to dig out and clean up together, and we will rebuild and move forward together. We’re going to get through this. We’re going to get through this together, because that is what we do.”35 Others spoke of everyone pitching in, and the a cappella group Pentatonix used music to suggest “measuring one’s spirit in love.”36 Some even spoke of what then seemed somewhat quaint–that is, Americans’ friendliness…with and towards each other. Kentucky Gov Andy Beshear spoke of a tornado–dubbed “the beast”–“that “tore a 200-mile gash” across the state and was the “worst tornado event”33 in the state’s history, with “devastation like none of us has ever seen before.”34 But like the human bonds Sam Kiley remembered from Afghanistan and that “had held,” something else also held–something commonplace and resilient. Something distinctly human—at our best. Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear commented, “We’re going to grieve together, we’re going to dig out and clean up together, and we will rebuild and move forward together. We’re going to get through this. We’re going to get through this together, because that is what we do.”35 Others spoke of everyone pitching in, and the a cappella group Pentatonix used music to suggest “measuring one’s spirit in love.”36 Some even spoke of what then seemed somewhat quaint–that is, Americans’ friendliness…with and towards each other.