Adi Explains It All: The Capitol Riots

January 6, 2021.  Especially if you live in the States, it’ll be one of those dates that live on in infamy.  A bunch of Donald Trump supporters, spurred on by calls for “Trial by Combat,” and the fervent belief that the President of the United States supported them, did something that hadn’t happened since Canada burned down the Whitehouse in 1812 (Yeah yeah, Canada was still a British colony at the time, but I’m still not wrong).  They stormed the Capitol building where the Vice President was leading the House in affirming Joe Biden as the 46th President of the United States.  Humans who had been conned into believing the election had been rigged (I ain’t gonna call them protestors, and if you do, just leave my site now), stormed the building and absolutely trashed the place in the fervent belief that they’d be able to overturn the fair and balanced democratic process.  The only ones there to stop them were a Capitol Police Force that was woefully unprepared for any kind of rioting and were denied assistance from the National Guard that they so desperately needed.  Granted it didn’t hurt that a bunch of the insurrectionists were current/former police and military who thought the idea of being legally racist was just great and didn’t want to give that up.

Of course, there’s always the question of “why?”  Not why they did it, because that’s kind of obvious at this point.  I’m talking about why those humans thought they *could* do it.  Why they decided they could storm the Capitol Building, commit assault, murder and numerous other crimes, and think there would be absolutely no consequences for their actions.  Most of that reasoning I’ve covered to various degrees in my other columns about Trump Himself and Patriotism in general.  But there’s the matter of the truth.  Namely the truth we expect versus the actual truth.  The rioters basically sold their souls to their president.  They pledged him absolute support in exchange for living in country where they could be as prejudiced, unaccepting of change, and just plain hateful as they wanted without fear of consequence.  Things not going your way?  Believe in Trump and he’ll give you an enemy to blame all your problems on without having to accept responsibility for anything.  Caught committing a crime?  The Mexicans made you do it!  Made a scene and punched someone out at the grocery store?  Well, clearly they should’ve been speaking American!

My human explained it to me after the riots, and here’s how that conversation went:

“So, about twenty years ago now, I was walking across the campus of the Community College in Truro with a friend of mine.  We happened to be talking about this movie, ‘Pay it Forward,’ and she was telling me about how it was so uplifting, one of her all time favorite movies, so on and so forth.  I had taken the other side, that the movie was awful, Kevin Spacey’s character was actually a villain (and yeah, decades later I was proven right about Spacey, but that’s a whole other thing), and every character’s motivation was entirely self-serving.  Over the course of the walk, I actually started to win her over to my side.  She actually started to believe me that the movie was garbage.  I think I had her believing everything I was telling her for a solid ten minutes before I decided I had to tell her the real truth.”

“Which was?”

“I’d never seen the movie.  Hell, to this day, twenty years later, I’ve still never seen ‘Pay it Forward.’ Every single thing I said to her, every point I made, was based entirely on the movie’s trailer and my own creativity.”

“You lied to her?”

“Pretty much every word for the entire conversation.”

“And she believed you?”

“Of course!  Why wouldn’t she?  I was her friend, so why would I lie?  She didn’t question a thing I said, even though it went against things she already knew to be true.  Asking even a single question would’ve destroyed my credibility entirely, but the thought never even occurred to her.”

“Because you were her friend.”

“Yup.  Now take that same idea, and think bigger. Same idea, pushing a falsehood that you truly believe in, but it’s on a national stage, and you’re convincing thousands upon thousands of people who believe every word you say, because you believe it.

That’s why the terrorist attack on Capitol Hill happened.  The Coward in Chief was so self absorbed that even the idea of losing the election never once occurred to him.  He was so convinced that everyone loved him that a loss meant the election had to have been rigged.  His enemies had to have stolen it from him.  And Trump was so convinced of this that he preached it to his followers as gospel.  So when Trump said to march on the Capitol, they believed he was right because he believed he was right.  His followers figured Trump can’t be wrong, he’s their president after all, so they’d storm the Capitol, they’d stop the vote count, and they’d force the results to be overturned.  Then when all was said and done, anyone who was arrested would be perfectly fine because Trump would be back in power and he’d just pardon everyone who was involved.

Of course, that’s not exactly how it all turned out.  The terrorists failed, and their leader completely abandoned him once they were no longer of use to him.  They all thought they’d be able to go back to their regular lives like nothing happened ... because they were right so everything was clearly going to work out in their favor.  And then, reality struck ...

I believe the human expression is ... “Ya love to see it.”  So maybe next time someone is trying to convince you of something, be it the plot of a movie or the result of an election, maybe you’ll want to believe them but still verify what they’re claiming?  After all, it might be their truth, but it’s your actions and your consequences.