“Is it safe for us to have a presidential inauguration in two weeks?”
^ Plot twist: I’m not asking that because of COVID concerns. ^
I mean, yeah, that is also an important factor to take account of when doing this historic event; the virus spreads too rapidly and so does the violence and other radicalized behaviors that rallying right-winged Republicans exhibited today during a Trump rally.
When I first heard about this incident happening, I opened up a story on Snapchat just to see some masked Congressmen drawing guns on what appeared to be each other, while “ARMED STANDOFF AT DOOR OF HOUSE FLOOR” was written as a headline for CNN. At first glance, I thought it was weird to see lawmakers draw pistols at each other as they are supposed to be civilized in an ideal democracy. I looked more into this event on CNN’s website, as well as Youtube, only to see that there was a so-called “protest” at the U.S. Capitol. Well that makes a lot more sense.
I am not surprised that rioting Republicans ravaged and raided all over the Rotuna, rummaging around for reams of ballots as a raging retribution for the run-off in Georgia*. If I had to be honest, I haven’t really followed much into the run-off election nor who becomes victorious in Georgia — as I am not a Georgian myself — but I do feel that it may have affected the sentiments behind this disappointment of a democracy. Although I understand that there was a “good ole’ fashioned” Trump rally earlier that day, which those things are not suppose to happen as they draw in huge crowds in the middle of a frickin’ p*nd*m*c.
*Georgia had their run-off election that filled two senator seats in Congress. As a result, it flipped to blue.
As I tread further into this current affair, I was reminded of the time when we all protested against police brutality last summer and witnessed violent police behavior towards peaceful protesters (as most people recall); of course, the rioters were not given the same treatment and thus that is where white privilege comes into play. I agree with the idea that there is a difference between protesting and rioting, as well as protestors and terrorists. Unfortunately, most people (i.e. the media) tend to label individuals and their actions either/or based on race and agenda, rather than their collective behavior — which today’s incident serves as a reminder that we ought to educate ourselves and dismantling associations of race/color and their roles that is unfortunately ingrained in our minds.
Anyone in a free society where the laws are unjust has an obligation to break the law.
Henry David Thoreau
This is how American transcendentalist, Henry David Thoreau, describes civil disobedience at times when laws are meant to be broken. And there has been times in American history that this idea was incorporated to move this society forward. In the particular case of the Capitol Raid of 2021, this event was result of Joe Biden’s victory in the election of last year. The election itself is legal. Every vote should be legal (it’s a constitutional right). The results of the election are legal. There was nothing unjust that inhibits any human or constitutional rights in the United States. There were no “unjust” laws that the rioters were protesting against; all that they were protesting were legitimate election results which each and every single vote matters (since having a voice is a legitimate right in this country). Therefore, there was nothing civil about vandalizing the infrastructure of the Capitol building over a loss that happened months ago. This wasn’t an act to move this society forward, this was pure being a sore bitch about it.
Going back to the quote above, the inauguration of Joe Biden is two weeks from today. As expressed in my previous post, it is great to anticipate how the Biden administration will play out. However, I’m probably the only one so far concerned about how January 20th will play out. I’m sure there will be protests and riots over the inauguration instigated by non-supporters, as similar with the protests and riots from four years ago; there’s nothing we can do to prevent those, besides boarding up windows and doors to protect property (I’m talking to you businesses and other building tenants. Board them up the same way as you boarded yourselves up for other protests like those of the Black Lives Matter movement. That one side (i.e. Biden non-supporters) is as worth considered policing as policing the other side. Just sayin’).
If anything, the inauguration team ought to boost up their security even further. They ought to prepare themselves for unrest to make this inaugural event run smoothly as possible. Now I’ve heard that there are distance requirements of “protests” that are invoked for funeral events; the inauguration team must strongly consider using this tactic to keep violence and unrest away from the main event and they must strongly consider having the Reserve enforce such a violent group from dismantling the event. I wish Biden and his administration safety and security in terms of health and from harm’s way as they tread into January 20th.
Also, Trump’s response to the raids is quite flawed. He told the rioters to “go home” as they should, but he then brings up the “fraudulant election” claim and justified his response as for his supporters to avoid being “play[ed] into the hands of [others].” This delivery of the “go home” message would actually end up spanning the flames of fervorous anger and unrest among his supporters — which is not ideal for cooling down others of their anger.
Potential Removal of Trump (1/9/21 update)
Three days have passed since the insurrection that occurred on Capitol Hill. So far, DC security had installed long fences and are intending to have sand trucks to block out any insurrectionists from disrupting the main event on January 20th. I’d say that it’s a start.
Since three days, both Democrats and Republicans have come to an agreement that Donald Trump should be removed from office as a result of the Capitol Hill violence on Wednesday. There are two possible options that Congress is considering for Trump: Impeachment or the 25th Amendment. As much as many people want to get rid of this dangerous tyrant, there are still eleven more days (as of this writing) until Joe Biden gets inducted as a president.
I feel it’s quite preferable to impeach Trump for fueling violence and domestic terrorism among his radicalized supporters. He should be held accountable for all these injustices that he’s enacted since the time when he stirred anti-Hispanic sentiment by promising to “build a wall” almost six years ago. Wednesday’s incident and his response to it are the tipping point that should lead him to conviction.
However, with the 25th amendment option, this would mean that Mike Pence would have to invoke it to remove Trump from office. That could be a possibility given that Pence actually recognizes Biden’s victory in the Election of 2020. He may not be as favorable of a candidate for Trump opponents, but perhaps he has some sort of sense to turn against his running mate for the interests of the GOP.
Regardless of what Congress decides, which it needs to act fast; I’ve been waiting since Thursday to hear back on what they’ll do to Trump. Should he be removed from office before Joe Biden gets inaugurated, that leaves Mike Pence in charge for only less than two weeks!
Honestly, I prefer that we just leave the presidential position vacant for only a couple days. It honestly doesn’t make sense for Pence to take office for only a week and a half and be the 46th president of the United States. I mean, Joe Biden campaigned himself to be the 46th president of the United States, not to be the 47th. This unprecidented swearing-in of Pence will result in controversies whether if people should count him as the “46th president” or not since it’s only for a few days. How would future U.S. History teachers catagorize Pence? Should he and Trump be ranked “45th” collectively given a short timespan? Should Pence not be given a rank of “46th” and assign him a special number? Or should Pence just be given the “46th” rank and give Biden the “47th” rank? As I said, this would result in controversy among historians and scholars to come.
What I propose, although unconventional, is that we ought to leave the presidential position vacant for only these two weeks since Biden is going to get inaugurated anyways. Perhaps some people would rather prefer to have no one sitting in the Oval Office than someone who seeks to divide us and instill a sense of white supremacy in many institutions. There are still going to be governors and local municipal leaders that will keep living and executing their functions without having a president for these remaining eleven days. Society will still function. People will still live. Congress will still go on although they may not have a president to sign a bill into law (not that anything like that will happen soon anyways).
There was an instance from The Office when Michael Scott left Scranton and left some Buddy-the-Elf-look-a-like guy to be the regional manager of Dunder Mifflin Scranton — only to be severely incapacitated after that one accident during a game of Basketball in the warehouse. As a result, the regional manager position was left vacant where the Dunder Mifflin employees were functioning pretty effectively without a supervisor. In fact, they were performing their tasks better without a regional manager overlooking them. It wasn’t until Jo gave Dwight the opportunity to be regional manager in which the latter started enacting these ridiculous, Draconian policies for only a few days.
If we consider the “regional manager-less” model exemplified from The Office, then we might be able to tolerate (enjoy in this case) a president-less America up until Inauguration Day. Or perhaps the federal government ought to set up an impromptu group of people, of both parties, to execute presidential duties for only these couple days left. Though I prefer the former option just to see what it’s like.
Otherwise, I suppose it’s quite satisfying to see Twitter shut him up forever. He’s grown too addicted to tweeting out random messages. Perhaps Instagram, Facebook and other social medias should follow suit too.
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