The Fuse Is Lit

In the aftermath of JFK’s assassination, I vividly remember watching Jack Ruby shoot and kill Lee Harvey Oswald on live TV in November 1963. I was a kid. It was shocking. The Sixties was a turbulent decade for America. The assassinations of Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy, growing national protests against the Vietnam War, and civil rights issues and conflicts were incredibly significant historical events. The country held together even though buffeted by these tenuous times.

Not since then have I witnessed anything so threatening as the mob storming Capitol Hill. Yes, that includes 9-11. America’s democratic institutions dodged a bullet on January 6, 2021. Had rioters gotten to the Electoral College ballots on the Senate floor and destroyed them, widespread national chaos would have ensued and ignited a full-blown constitutional crisis.

In case you think the worst has passed, more bullets are coming.

As names become attached to the faces splashed on the media, we will discover insurrectionists from across the country. Most will come from red states or Trump country in blue states. They freely gave interviews to the press and published personal social media accounts revealing a fanatical opposition to the election results. But, Trump’s refusal to accept his loss is a flashpoint for a much deeper belief that the government is failing to stop the onslaught of socialism and address white grievances. Covid-19 failures, millions of people out of work, and racial injustice issues at a boiling point have brought America to a dark time.

My permanent home is in the Seventh Congressional District in Minnesota. It flipped from a long-time conservative Democrat to a Trump Republican representative in 2020. My county went for Trump by a 2 to 1 margin. The official Twitter account for the Seventh District Republican Party retweeted a tweet calling Vice President Mike Pence “…a coward, a fraud, and worse” for simply fulfilling his constitutionally mandated responsibility.

That is dangerous, inflammatory rhetoric.

A close friend who works with the construction industry shared last summer that others have said, “If Trump loses, there’ll be a war.” Is there any doubt similar reactions echo around the country? White grievance has reached its zenith and the disaffected are not going to write letters-to-the-editor. I fear that many more Trump minions will take violent action. It is as likely to happen in Mayberry as in Gotham City or your hometown.

The fuse is lit. Now, it is a question of how much further damage will be done from the explosion. Like the sixties, we find ourselves in tenuous times.

I have to believe the country will survive again.