It’s an all too familiar story. A new child at school is ruthlessly harassed by bullies time and again. No matter who the child tells, no action is taken – no discipline doled out. No one in an authority position cares. Of course, the new kid isn’t perfect: they call names, exaggerate, get loud, but what the bullies do is much worse. Without giving the child a day to get settled, they start with their chants and negativity. One of the more popular girls declared that anyone who eats lunch with the new kid should be harassed. Another classmate, the class clown, thought it would be funny to draw a picture of the new kid decapitated. Kids that tried to be nice to the new kid were no longer allowed to play kickball at recess. Another mean girl took and ripped up the new kid’s paper in front of everyone. The jokes and taunts were endless, the attacks were unchecked and endured throughout the year. Eventually, the child started to stand up to the bullies – the child lashed out, feeling hurt and demeaned, ready to fight back. Less skilled than the bullies at hiding this behavior, the new kid was caught and blamed while those that had spent months torturing the new kid got off scot-free.
Now consider the last four years of President Trump’s term. While he certainly wasn’t the typical President in temperament and personality, and said many things that were wrong and inflammatory, the foul and ruthless treatment he and those who have supported him have endured can not be denied.
Chants of “Not My President” rose from “pussy hat” wearing protestors a day after Trump’s inauguration. The “more popular girl” was Maxine Waters, standing on a street corner, demanding Democrats harass Trump supporters when they see them in public. The class clown was comedian Kathy Griffen who thought a picture of herself with the decapitated head of the President was humor. The kids who were no longer allowed to play kickball are the Trump supporters that were “doxed” and fired from their jobs for their political point of view. Endless jokes were made by every late-night TV show host, almost as if they had nothing else to talk about. And that other mean girl… that was Nancy Pelosi tearing up the State of the Union address on live TV.
None of this behavior was called out as wrong, divisive, or even inappropriate. In fact, it was celebrated by many as part of the “resistance”
While comparing school bullying to the actions of so many over the few years creates a very simplified version of what has happened – that simplicity is needed to get to the foundation of what has led us to this point.
To be 100% clear, what transpired at the Capitol last week was horrible and heartbreaking. But playing the Blame Game only results in the old adage that when you point one finger at someone you’re pointing three back at yourself.
The finger pointed at Trump is not wrong. He messed up, “bigly”. That finger should also be pointed at the small percentage of 74 million Trump supporters that advanced on the Capitol. Trump didn’t tell the protestors to enter the building, but his refusal to accept the election results and question its integrity created unrest among some of these far-right supporters.
But Trump and the supporters protesting at the Capitol are just a small percentage of who’s to blame for what happened…The other three fingers should be pointed at all elected officials, the media, and the far-left liberals and celebrity mouthpieces taking to their soapboxes to propagate hate and unrest.
All elected officials are to blame for the direction our county has headed in the last decade, but specifically the Democratic Representatives and Senators who have called for harassment and violent action toward Trump supporters. Adding to the unrest among the right are the actions of our elected leaders who have refused to pass COVID relief as a political ploy prior to the election, and spend to spend much time and energy focusing on trivial votes, like Nancy Pelosi’s bill to remove “gendered language” from the House’s official language that passed last week. President-Elect Joe Biden saying that he would prioritize COVID relief to “black, Latino, Asian, and Native American owned small businesses, … and women-owned businesses.” continually add fuel to the fire. The past year has been very difficult for all businesses, especially in states where they were required to shut down for months on end. The new administration deciding to restrict relief by race and gender is a perpetuation of the misinformed values of the Democratic Party. His statement harkens back to the 60s and 70s when affirmative action created more problems than it solved before the Supreme Court declared it unconstitutional in 1989.
The second finger points firmly at the media who have repeatedly stoked the flames of division in the country over the past four years. Skewing coverage of the administration to the negative and rarely covering the divisive actions of the left. Following the Capitol attack, the coverage, still now almost a week later talks about the “Insurrection” being one of America’s Darkest Days… but where does it really fall in comparison to 9-11? Is it darker than any day there was a school shooting? Of course, this is different because it is an attack on federal property by the American people, which in a way is similar to the Oklahoma City Bombing that killed 168 people and injured 800. Which was darker?
The media must know that they are the writers and recorders of history. They are the resource that future generations will turn to when learning about the past. Their deliberate attempt to capture current events through the skewed lens of their politically motivated owners is not only alarming but absolutely disturbing. It’s the reason Real Stories North exists. As a rule, we try to stick to local stories, but due to the lack of integrity of the countries’ biggest news sources, we find it important to add a small voice to pile in the hopes that decades from now when an 8th grader is working on a report about elections he can find this and realize he must read with skepticism, and research harder to see the big picture of what has happened in recent years and decipher the truth for himself.
When you compare what happened at the Capitol last week with the BLM riots over the past seven months the media and their liberal owner’s agendas become clear. The Capitol Riot lasted just a few hours, was condemned by Republicans and Democrats alike, one unarmed person was shot dead (by the police), 14 officers were injured, one building was damaged. The result of the BLM riots where over 20 people shot to death, 700 officers injured, over 150 federal buildings damaged, and hundreds of small businesses destroyed. The BLM riots were immediately condemned by Republicans while the Democrats remained quiet and the media downplayed what was happening, broadcasting about “peaceful protests” in front of burning buildings.
Thinking of this, I was struck by the video and photography coverage of the Capitol events. There were some videos that were awful – a Capitol Police Officer trapped in a doorway, teeth bloody, being crushed by the crowd trying to push in, but then there was a video of the “attackers” in the rotunda, casually walking within the velvet rope stanchions with plenty of room between clusters of people. There were also pictures of what has been called “One of America’s Darkest Days”. One photo of Pelosi’s office showed a guy lounging with his feet on her desk, everything on her desk intact. Offices with papers on the floor, but computers, phones, pens, water bottles are still neatly organized on desktops. Not exactly the visual of “ransacking” I would expect, considering the stone-faced reporters covering what they have called “devastating events”.
The third finger points at the far-left liberals – the social media trolls harassing, name-calling, and inspiring hate throughout comment sections on news articles and even personal posts (the far-right did that too, but they are included with finger aimed at Trump). This finger also points at the liberal voters that supported or at the very least didn’t condemn the riots where buildings were set on fire, businesses looted, and police and bystanders were assaulted and killed, after George Floyd was killed, calling it “racial justice” and “peaceful protests”. Along with accepting the chaos of the Seattle Autonomous Zone and the violent protestors that gathered outside the RNC and attacked Senator Rand Paul just in the last year as part of the “resistance”.
It also points at the celebrities that have come to think their opinions should matter and influence the masses. Just this past weekend, Former CA Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger compared what happened at the Capitol to Kristallnacht (Night of Broken Glass) where in 1938 a Nazi approved action by German Civilians attacked Jews in Germany, Austria, and Czechoslovakia. The results of the two-night anti-Jewish Pogrom was the capture of over 30,000 Jewish males, the destruction of over 7,500 Jewish owned businesses, synagogues, and homes plundered and destroyed, and the deaths of at least 100 people.
This week Savannah Guthrie, who was called out for her abrasive hosting of Trump’s town hall this past fall, was interviewing James Comey about his new book on the Today Show. She mentioned how 9/11 was an eye-opener of a threat that we didn’t realize was there until it was too late, and compared that to Trump supporters who do not see the President as the evil genius behind the issues in America, and asked Comey how to get these people, who might be family and friends, to accept “facts”. In that one question, she blamed all that has happened in the last four years on half the country completely refusing to acknowledge the impact the politicians, media, and left had on leaving a big ol’ dent in our democracy.
Trump has certainly played a role in the unrest, but those against him have taken that seed of unrest and tended it nefariously. For example, editted news clips of Trump’s January 6th rally show him saying only this: “We will walk down to the Capitol.” and “We are going to have to fight much harder.” In the transcript of the rally this comments were this:
“Republicans are constantly fighting like a boxer with his hands tied behind his back. It’s a like boxer, and we want to be so nice. We want to be respectful of everybody, including bad people. We’re going to have to fight much harder, and Mike Pence is going to have to come through for us. And if he doesn’t that will be a sad day for our country because you’re sworn to uphold our constitution. Now it is up to Congress to confront this egregious assault on our democracy.”
“And after this, we’re going to walk down, and I’ll be there with you. We’re going to walk down. We’re going to walk down anyone you want, but I think right here. We’re going to walk down to the Capitol, and we’re’ going to cheer on our brave senators, and congressmen and women. We’re probably not going to be cheering so much for some of them, because you’ll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength, and you have to be strong.”“We have come to demand that Congress do the right thing and only count the electors who have been lawfully slated, lawfully slated. I know that everyone here will soon be marching over the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard. Today we will see whether Republicans stand strong for the integrity of our elections, but whether or not they stand strong for our country, our country. Our county has been under siege for a long time, far longer than this four-year period.”
Quotes from President Trump’s January 6th Rally
The exaggeration of these types of things is what is picking and pulling at the thread holding our democracy together. Inflaming both ends of the political spectrum and leaving the center at wit’s end. It is imperative that our political officials and media are called out as part of what led up to the events of last week – and all of last year. Instead of saying “look what he [Trump] has done”, they need to say “Look what we have done”, Trump, elected leaders, and the media. Until that happens, there can be no resolution to the division in our country. There can be no “America United”, as Biden hopes, in the next four years.