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Imagine a Call From Your Wife, Asking if We Were At Civil War, Before Forgetting January 6th. [1]

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Date: 2023-01-06

It was to be a beautiful day. Wednesday, January 6th, 2021 was to be the day my family and I celebrated the official counting and approval of the Electoral College victory of then President-Elect Biden. We had frozen White Castle cheeseburgers, inelegant, but in keeping with our love for our regional food.

Prior to the election, it had been a terrible stretch for the country, and I was little more than four months removed from cancer surgery. We were still a few months from the freedom the Covid vaccine could provide. This day was planned out. We were going to have lunch as Vice President Pence carried out his duties and certified the vote. At long last, we felt there was sunlight on the horizon.

And now I must stop to explain something. That day has never left me. For me to tell you I thought it gave me a form of Post-Traumatic-Stress-Disorder might cause you to scoff. I would understand. And yet, when I look at the Capitol now I don’t see a seat of democracy, but rather the scene of a crime. And when I look further still, I see many of the perpetrators.

There was a time, to be sure, when I could sit down with my Republican neighbor and have a cold beer, watch the Dallas Cowboys, and debate tax policy. I miss those days. Sure we disagreed, but there was no doubt we were both concerned with protecting the nation and our people. We could chat good naturedly, he might call me a bleeding heart, and I might call him a winger, but we could still get together as friends.

In that respect, the nation suffered a compound fracture that Winter’s day. We had been dividing and cracks were forming, but the shattering of our national clavicle, that bone that allows burden upon one’s shoulders, was not complete until the traitors put a cult of personality ahead of the will of the people.

That was two years ago today.

It might as well be just five minutes. For you see, I feel no progress toward healing. I feel no sense of community. I have no faith whatsoever in anyone, even old classmates, that call themselves Republican. Is this somehow my fault? Is this something that represents a failing in me? Did I not have a thick enough skin? Should I get over it?

Do I apologize for the tears that form as I write this because it is inconvenient for the stock market, or the press? No, a thousand times no. I don’t owe them squat. I don’t owe them compromise. I don’t owe them bipartisanship. I don’t owe them a second chance, and I surely don’t owe them a Speaker of the House.

For almost 100 years, nearly every mess this country has dealt with has been directly because of their infernal ideology. And it used to be just that, misguided, clumsy, selfish ideology. But somewhere it went from bad policy to malevolence.

Oh did I mention there was supposed to be ice cream? Yes, I forgot about that. I did not get to it. About a half hour after watching maniacs climb our Capitol walls, in an attempt to harm our officials and overthrow an election, I received a phone call.

Now this phone call was expected, because my wife calls me on her lunch break. But the moment my wife asks me “Are we at Civil War?” is forever burned into my heart. Now please, for those that are not from this country, welcome though you are, try to wrap your head around this.

Civil War. I looked over at my mother, and told her what Val asked me. She said, “It looks like it.”

And then my younger brother asked me if “Joe and Kamala” were going to be safe.

How do you answer that?

It is difficult to quantify the sheer level of anguish caused by the very validity of such a question.

So I told my wife that it is a possibility that a faction of extremists is trying to overthrow the United States, and that some of our leaders could be in danger. I told her that hundreds have breached the Rotunda and I could not make predictions as to how it would go.

But I did not say, in answer to Civil War, “Yes.”

So please, with sugar on top, excuse me for not feeling magnanimous. Forgive my unwillingness to cut a deal with them. Understand my lack of trust.

If you live in a country that we once were, where disagreements are peaceful, and handled professionally, and with compassion, then you are enjoying a form of privilege we simply do not have anymore. We have one party that puts the country first, and one that had been reduced to a traveling carnival, a band of low-end performance artists seeking their next gig. They are supported by the deluded, and brainwashed, and misanthropic. They are dangerous. And now, we are expected to help them run a House, they themselves tried to tear down.

The process of eventual victory will be long. The circus unleashed, the endless pointless investigations, the vendettas, the white nationalism, the utter lack of humanity will all be painful to endure, but there is no band aid to put on this. There is no easy treatment-save one; the voters must vote MAGA out.

The trust is gone. It will never come back. The nation was betrayed that cold afternoon. They broke faith.

I learned that day, that the secret to an enduring democracy lies not in the power of the victor, but rather in the honor of the vanquished.

Only those who accept the will of the people, empower the will of the people. to that end, I can never again look at my political opponents in the same way. I can never again see them as part of the same “national” team. I can never accept them as one of my own.

That ended with these words: “Are we at Civil War?”

I suppose you had to be there. I suppose you had to be faced with the consequences of a coup. I suppose you had to hear the fear in your loved one’s voice, wondering if everything we the people worked for over the course of 244 plus years was going to go up in smoke because of a pathological liar with a bad combover.

And two years later and perhaps the main reason I feel compelled to write this, is when I think about Val’s question, about Civil War, I realize it is open-ended. It is not a query only valid on one day in history. So her question stands, hanging in mid-air, left unanswered as if the last sentence of a chapter unfinished, while we the people struggle over who the authors will be.

And I will only have an answer for her, when the voters themselves conclude how they wish to decisively exercise their power as editors.

-ROC

Been away a while because of fatigue but my focus is on getting my wife a kidney! You can help by applying to Mayo’s Donor program here! Anyone can donate! Just click paired donation if you are not O-Positive or don’t know your blood type! Tell them you want to help Valerie Robbins! Let me know if you sign up! And my heartfelt thanks for helping to save Val’s life.

Love,

-ROC

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/1/6/2145684/-Imagine-a-Call-From-Your-Wife-Asking-if-We-Were-At-Civil-War-Before-Forgetting-January-6th

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