{"id":5220,"date":"2022-01-03T09:53:58","date_gmt":"2022-01-03T14:53:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dahlman.online\/?p=5220"},"modified":"2022-01-03T09:54:03","modified_gmt":"2022-01-03T14:54:03","slug":"eureka","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dahlman.online\/index.php\/2022\/01\/03\/eureka\/","title":{"rendered":"Eureka"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A Year Later<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s January 3rd, 2022; a year since the Insurrection that almost kept Donald Trump in office against the will of the American voters.  I\u2019ve been looking back at my essays here on Our America <\/em>from that week.  The overall theme was:  we are in a time of crisis, a time when our Republic is at risk \u2013 what will we do?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And the answer to that, so far, is nothing.  Sure, they tried to impeach and convict Trump,  but \u201cafter the fact\u201d, after the inauguration of Joe Biden.  The fifty Democrats\/Independents who made up the majority voted to convict, as did seven Republicans.  But that fell well short of the necessary sixty-seven needed.   As Republican Senate Minority Leader McConnell told us at the time, the \u201cCourts\u201d were the \u201cproper\u201d place to hold Trump accountable for his actions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But a year later, we are far from seeing Donald Trump \u201cin the dock\u201d.  He\u2019s still raising hundreds of millions of dollars.  That money is ostensibly going to his 2024 Presidential Campaign, but it\u2019s also his \u201clegal aid\u201d money, and used to buy political influence throughout the country.  In fact, a year after the shock of the Insurrection, we are just about back to the \u201cnormal\u201d of pre-Insurrection Trumpian times.  It\u2019s as if that was a bad dream; one to be shrugged off and forgotten.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bad Dream<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The \u201cbad dream\u201d is that there has been no justice, no apportionment of responsibility for the Insurrection. Sure, hundreds of the \u201cpawns\u201d, the \u201csoldiers\u201d who followed their mistaken cause up the steps of the Capitol and into the hallowed halls, are being put on trial.  But they are exactly that:  pawns in the game.  Not even the rooks and bishops have been charged, much less the King.  It\u2019s as if the pawns played the chess match all by themselves.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

And this weekend on several of the national Sunday shows, I heard a new \u201cTrumpian\u201d talking point, just like the old Kelly Ann Conway days.\u00a0\u00a0\u201cIt was Trump\u2019s fault, but now it\u2019s Joe Biden\u2019s fault.\u00a0\u00a0He was elected to \u2018heal\u2019 the nation, and instead he\u2019s pushed all of these Roosevelt-like New Deal changes.\u00a0\u00a0So it\u2019s Biden\u2019s fault that folks are still turning to Trump\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Remember what the Majory Stoneman Douglas kids chanted, after the shootings and the pablum served by the Republican leadership?\u00a0\u00a0I call BS.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mythical GOP<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Republicans: if it was Trump\u2019s fault, then call him out for it.\u00a0\u00a0If it was Trump\u2019s fault, then denounce his actions.\u00a0\u00a0If it was Trump\u2019s fault, then Republicans take your own Party, and purge the evil from your ranks.\u00a0\u00a0Then you\u2019ve \u201cearned\u201d the right to complain about Biden.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here\u2019s a little \u201cinside baseball\u201d.  When NBC\u2019s Meet the Press <\/em>moderator Chuck Todd suggested on Sunday, that there were many Republicans who, whispering behind closed doors, speak out against Trump, NBC\u2019s Congressional Correspondent Garrett Haake literally rolled his eyes and shook his head.  He\u2019s on the Hill, talking to Congressmen all the time.  He knows.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The myth of the \u201ccloset anti-Trump\u201d Republican is just that, a myth.\u00a0\u00a0Either they are the few that are \u201cout\u201d, Liz Cheney, Adam Kinzinger and the like; or they are co-opted into Trumpism.\u00a0\u00a0There is no middle ground, no \u201cbackroom reasonableness\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0The myth of the \u201cGrand Old Party\u201d that will someday return to reason has sold out to the votes that Trump represents.\u00a0\u00a0Ask former Ohio Treasurer Josh Mandel, who is molded into a Trump-clone, in hopes of being a US Senator.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

History Rhymes<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

After the American Civil War, there was a period of time called the Reconstruction.\u00a0\u00a0It was a time when the changes to the South, the end of slavery and the citizenship of the Freedmen, was enforced by Union military presence.\u00a0\u00a0There were Black Congressmen and even a Black Senator from Mississippi (Hiram Revels), backed by the Thirteenth, Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the US Constitution.\u00a0\u00a0Reconstruction, was not, as my generation was taught in our sanitized history classes, a time \u201cundeserved military occupation of Southern soil\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0It sought to consolidate the gains won by the hundreds of thousands of dead on the battlefields of the war, including 40,000 Black men.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Who Won<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

But changing society seemed a bridge too far for the politicians of the 1870\u2019s.\u00a0\u00a0In the contested Presidential election of 1876, a deal was cut.\u00a0\u00a0The apparent winner, Democrat Samuel Tilden of New York, was denied southern electoral votes.\u00a0\u00a0Instead, Republican Governor of Ohio Rutherford B. Hayes became the President of the United States.\u00a0\u00a0In return, the troops were removed from the South, and a law written to prevent them from returning, the Posse Comitatus Act.\u00a0\u00a0Soon the South disenfranchised Black voters, and\u00a0\u00a0created Jim Crow Laws to build a segregated society.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s been over one hundred and fifty years, and we are still struggling with the results of those decisions in the 1870\u2019s.  After the Insurrection that was the Civil War, the Union won the battles, but lost the peace.  After the Insurrection of January 6th, 2021, who won?  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

That question is still not answered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Essays After the Insurrection<\/h5>\n\n\n\n