Peace: now. Democracy: now. Justice: now.
What are we seeing?
I lived in DC at the time of President Obama’s second inauguration, and my place was about 5 blocks from the National Mall. I relished the chance to walk through the Smithsonian museums on the way home from work or to escape weather, and once I was particularly lucky to get a tour of the Capitol by my niece’s friend, a staffer on the Hill, that included a few “not the regular tour” perks like stepping out on to the Speaker’s balcony and visiting the floor of the House chamber, even sitting where Supreme Court Justices sat during the State of the Union (which thrilled my niece, an ardent fan of RBG from a young age). When the weather was good after work or on weekends, I’d bike the full lap around the Mall, looping from the White House to the Lincoln, Vietnam, and Korea Memorials to the Capitol, and back home again. I never did that loop without a swell of disbelief, that I lived steps from the symbolic heart of the country. Whenever I passed the Capitol, I’d remember our tour of the building, our navigation of nooks and crannies and stairs and chambers and think of the thousands that built the building, that occupied it, that shaped our nation inside it.
A few days before the inauguration, folx in my building received notice about the security perimeter that would be established, cutting through our neighborhood. I’d never seen anything like it — the Mall stayed in tact, but the perimeter, set a few blocks outside the Mall (and off-camera for Inauguration coverage), felt like a destitute war zone. Military vehicles (including tanks) were everywhere; streets normally flooded with tourists, staffers, and locals, were empty and quiet; empty buses formed blockades to prevent any vehicle encroachment of the secured area. It was a stark contrast to the festive mood on the Mall and, I thought, to the peaceful transition of power, one of those things I took for granted as essential to American democracy.
Now, I’m watching my old neighborhood (really, the Mall is the nation’s neighborhood) desecrated and that complicated, beautiful, and imposing Capitol building is under siege. Commentators are stunned, and, while no one is saying it explicitly, it’s clear that the Capitol’s security forces aren’t sufficient to keep the building’s stewards, Congressional staffers, and elected representatives safe. Somebody tweeted a photo of the shelter-in-place alert on the screen in the Speaker’s office, steps away from the balcony being tear-gassed. A woman, bloodied and surrounded by EMTs, was just rushed out of the building on a gurnee. Protestors are on the floor of the Senate chamber, and an armed blockade is keeping the House chamber safe. For now. Democracy, at least in the form of Congressional procedures, is on pause at the beck and call of a would-be tyrant.
Is it more than a pause? Is this a real crack, a seismic shift, an erosion? There is already blood on the Capitol steps, adding to the blood on the hands of 45 and all who propelled him to power and propagated — who continue to propagate — his lies. Blood from the attacks on peaceful protestors in the shadow of the White House. Blood from the lives of hundreds of thousands who died from an unnecessary and mismanaged pandemic.
How much more blood needs to spill before we see each other as people, as neighbors, as mirrors of each other’s ambitions and faults and hopes and disappointments?
Peace: now. Democracy: now. Justice: now.
