Last Wednesday, January 6th, 2021, was one of our darkest moments in American history.

Not only because of what happened in our nation’s Capitol Building, but because of the response of so many people I know. This week’s blog is for you, although I seriously doubt you’ll get very far into it.

There was violence and death and everything that comes with a seditious act that was directed by the leader in power. Kim Jong Un couldn’t have been more proud. Vladimir Putin probably sent Trump a congratulations bouquet.

The unthinkable happened and it all happened from within. If this attack had been the results of international terrorists, the country would have gone ballistic! But because it was a biproduct of the populist banter that’s been going on for the past four years, for a sizeable portion of our population, it was just ‘unfortunate’. But, you know, those kinds of things happen when you rig an election.

First off, regarding this ‘rigging’ lie: that was put out there starting in the spring so Trump would have an excuse if he lost in the fall. (for the record, he’s technically lost two elections for president, if you’re talking popular vote) He doesn’t like to lose, we’re told. Research this all you want, but all 50 states verified their results, some after re-counting their ballots multiple times. In Republican states with Republican governors and secretaries of state. And seriously, if you think they somehow rigged it, why would so many Republicans in lower offices have been elected? Do you need to re-listen to Trump’s call to the Georgia Secretary of State and the threats he made? Over 50 courts tossed out Rudy Giuliani’s claims of fraud, some of those Trump-appointed judges.

The problem was the top of the ticket. But let’s get back to last Wednesday.

We have oodles of footage of the low-intelligence, misinformed masses that invaded our halls of democracy. They overwhelmed the Capitol police, beating some of the police officers with poles–poles with American flags on them. They stole government property. They took selfies. They wore Camp Auschwitz sweatshirts. They chanted, “Hang Pence!” Hang Pence!” They put up a symbolic gallows. They brought along zip ties hoping for hostages. They mocked our nation.

Is that today’s Republican party?

One conservative friend I talked to went immediately to one of the defenses the right must have put out during their last meeting: “I heard that was actually a bunch of ANTIFA (left wing extremists) dressed up like Trump supporters.”

Even FOX News says that’s not true.

The saddest pictures to come out of the encounter were the nutbrains who brought Confederate flags with them to carry around once they got in the building. And it was all thanks to Trump supporters.

Your next line is something along the lines of, “Well, he’s not perfect, but at least he’s against abortion.”

Really? You voted for Trump because he’s against abortion, or at least that’s what you understand. You’ve been duped.

For the Christian Evangelicals using that as a reason to support this disturbed man, it’s part of a package deal. This is what you’re telling the rest of the world that Christianity is all about. This is “your side.”

Here’s what the late Billy Graham’s son, Franklin, had to say about it all.

What’s a good Christian to do on Inauguration Day? Huh. You and I both guess wrong.

And on a quick side note, Joe Biden is a practicing Roman Catholic. Abortion? For years that church was even against birth control. I guarantee he’ll never have one, but he doesn’t think he has the right to tell anyone else they can’t. OK, well, since Hindu’s believe cows are sacred, we’re shutting down all the McDonald’s in the world, right? What? Oh, your religion is the right one and has all the answers. Keep telling yourself that.

I know, I know, those are “Libtard” news sources. Or, “I’m sure that was written by ANTIFA.”

I declared my own war on Facebook the day after the attack, and so far have unfriended a dozen friends and relatives. If they want to spend their time on that social media platform parroting what the president claims or passing along his twisted lies as fact, I’m done. Seriously, done.

One of them posted this comment:  “To be clear, this isn’t about violence. This is about Big Tech trying to control what we think, what we share, how we communicate.”

Ask the officer’s family who was killed if this was about government restrictions. Ask the other officer who was so traumatized from the events of the day that he killed himself if this was about Big Brother. “Big Tech” stepped in to remove the ability of manipulative people to get others to think about overthrowing the government, sharing plans on how to do it, and communicating that they were going to attack the Capitol Building to disrupt our democratic process.

I was raised in a Republican family in California, a state where you have to declare a party affiliation, so it just made sense to be a Republican. In 5th grade, I remember riding my bike over to the Del Amo Shopping Center in Torrance, California, to watch Ronald Reagan give a speech on the back of a flatbed truck, as he ran for governor. In high school, I was a “Young Republican for Nixon” and campaigned for his re-election. Over the years, as that party de-evolved, I became more and more a centrist and started voting for the better candidate, regardless of party. I voted for Hillary in 2016 because I just didn’t trust The Donald. But when he won, I was going to give him a chance and see what he could do. I’ve always felt we needed more of a business style leader than a politician in that office.

But the problem did not lie with what we knew about Donald Trump, but what we didn’t know and what we saw for four years. The borderline insanity of his tweets. The revolving door of cabinet members. His silence when there was racial injustice, his “there are good people on both sides” quote during one of the early neo-Nazi confrontations. He was simply unable to distinguish the difference between being on a reality show, and being President of the United States.

The good news is that history will judge. We will learn even more about what happened during his tenure and his legacy will be forever cemented in the halls of dysfunction. I can only imagine the giant sigh of relief by the Nixon family, as Trump takes over the title of being the worst leader our country has ever had to survive.

With the Capitol Building incident, I find myself going from a centrist to a conservative Democrat. Rather than supporting the spineless party that saw itself taken over by a carnie and then continued to suck up to him every step of the way out of fear, I’m going to see what I can find on the left side of the aisle for a while. Even if the Republicans survive, it will be fragmented. There will be Trump Republicans and Sane Republicans, which splits the party and that means they’ll never win another election, at least in the near future.

Retired general and former Secretary of State Colin Powell announced last week he was done with the Republican party. Arnold Schwarzenegger was pissed enough to post his feelings on YouTube.

Both my life-long Republican mom, at age 92, and my youngest sister are actively applying to switch parties. They’ve been disgusted by what they’ve seen over the past week and I’m proud to see them do something about it.

One of the cynical questions I hear from right (not as in ‘correct’)-minded people is, “Yeah, but do you actually know of anyone who has died from it?”

I’ve heard of some distant family connections, but one closer to home occurred today.

Both my wife’s aunt and uncle were hospitalized due to COVID over in Idaho. Of course, that’s Trump country and it turns out their daughter and son-in-law were the ones that gave it to them because they didn’t believe in masks and such. In time, the aunt got good enough to come home, but not the uncle. He already had the classic ‘secondary health conditions’, but we hoped for the best. For a while, it seemed like he would pull out of it, but his lungs kept getting worse and worse. He came home to a hospice setting and passed today.

When my wife passed along the news to her Facebook friends, the daughter immediately posted a comment that he DIDN’T die of COVID. Oh, no, it was COPD and had nothing to do with the coronavirus. So, my wife took down her post, and that family can pay homage to their fearless leader by believing it’s all a hoax and amounts to nothing more than a bad cold. (the aunt actually said that)

Damn you, Donald Trump.

It saddens me that so many people have drank the Kool Aid and are willing to go to all lengths to maintain this psychotic delusion. He has proven he is in over his head. He set the stage for almost 400,000 Americans to die from a disease we could have at least contained if he had recognized it. He threw America under the bus for his own advantage, saying that COVID would “just disappear.”

I’m not saying stop being a Republican. If you hold those values, embrace them but distance yourself from Donald Trump. He is NOT a Republican. I can only imagine what President Reagan or John McCain would have to say about the events of the past week. By the way, Conan O’Brien has an excellent podcast with Ron Reagan, Jr., talking about “Insurrection Wednesday’. Definitely worth a listen.

Tim Hunter