Is This Who “We” Are? Why?

The following is “The Editor’s Letter” from “The Week” Magazine, January 22, 2021, by Theunis Bates, Managing Editor. Please reflect on his thoughts – who are we?

“This is not who we are.” That was the cry that went out from politicians of all stripes after last week’s deadly pro-Trump insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. The behavior of the 8,000-strong mob was “entirely un-American,” read a statement from a bipartisan group of lawmakers including Sens. Mitt Romney [R-Utah] and mark Warner [D-Va.], while House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy [R-Calif.] deemed the violence the antithesis of “the American way.” President-elect Joe Biden said the scenes said the scenes of the chaos in Washington “do not reflect the true America.”
“Yet the people who stormed Congress weren’t some alien other, but everyday Americans who – fed a diet of conspiracy theories – believed they were doing a patriotic thing. They included the CEO of a data analytics firm from suburban Chicago, a Florida firefighter, the son of a New York Supreme Court judge, two Virginia police officers, a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel, and an Olympic gold-winning swimmer who wore his Team USA jacket to the riot.”
“Far from being un-American, such explosions of brutality and tribal violence have long been a part of this nation’s story. Up to 750,000 died during the fratricidal Civil War, and nearly 4,000 African-Americans were lynched by white mobs in the Jim Crow South from 1877 to 1950.”
“Today, violence remains a fact of American life. The U.S. has the highest rate of mass shootings in the Western world and a gun homicide rate 25 times higher than those of similarly developed countries. During the Capitol siege, young staffers for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi took cover in a conference room, barricaded the door, turned off the lights, and hid under a table in silence – survival tactics they had learned growing up with active-shooter drills in schools.”
“We will never be able to treat the sickness that led to last week’s insurrection unless we recognize this is part of who we are. It might be America at its ugliest, but it is America.”


SO – Who are we? Why are the things said above true? What has happened in America that has made all of this possible? Certainly HATE. Quite obviously, “MISINFORMATION,” LIES, RUMORS. Apparently, for some SUSPICION. Much social science evidence tells us: FEAR. Apparently, for some, PARANOIA.
There’s also something else. 8,000 angry people, mostly men, mostly white, did not gather in Washington on January 6, 2021 by “accident.”
There was definite, very deliberate planning by some. There, over months has been very deliberate, definite “encouragement” of these unhappy people. They were told that something “wrong” had been done, and it was their “job” as “patriots” to right that wrong – over months, over many channels.

BUT – why would these 8,000 unhappy people listen to those messages? WHY would they listen?

WHO are “we?” WHY would some of “US” think they had a “right” to “solve” a problem of this nature by attacking the U.S. Capitol? WHY would some be looking to hurt, kill some members of the U.S. government – including the Vice President and the House Speaker? What was the message of the noose hanging in front of the Capitol?

Historian William W. Freehling, in his “The Road to Disunion,”on pages 103-104, states:”Some 300 lynchings of whites transpired between 1830 and 1860…Lynchings abounded only in moments of hysteria, either during insurrection or secession scares…Victims were almost Northerners or newcomers or other outsiders.”
Freehling mentions something else – “the shudder.” One had to be careful not to say the “wrong thing” about slavery in the South.

Saying the “wrong thing?” Apparently, some members of the U.S. government were heard to say “the wrong thing” about the 2020 election. These villains persisted in believing “the wrong candidate” had won the 2020 election. Not only that, they insisted on going through the last stages of this “fraudulent” election – certifying the “wrong” result. The 8,000 angry “patriots” were told this “fraud” should not be allowed to happen – it must be stopped, at any cost – or they’d “lose THEIR country.” So they acted.

There have been disputed elections before. But, in 231 years, nobody stormed the Capitol, intent on capturing, hurting, killing government officials. WHY now? WHAT has happened?

WHO are “we?”