Ok this is Harry Potter metaphor level cheeseball but this was something to be proud of.

I have debates in my head: "But probably at least some of the people who attacked the capitol believed that they were *defending* the republic." https://twitter.com/suzania/status/1347159444388511745

But the thing is, that what in fact they did, was that they attacked the US Capitol building and disrupted the 230-year tradition of peaceful transfer of power. The fact that some of them may have had "reasons" for believing they were doing right is itself a failure.

Everyone acts towards what they think is a good- or they act with a kind of nihilistic for-the-lulz lack of reason, with the "good" being the good of bringing memes to life, political performance art.

But this was not a joke. It was a violent attempt to keep a president who had lost in power: to not accept the result of an election. This kind of thing is *precisely* one of the things that people who worry about democracy "not working" worry about:

when a demagogue captures the imaginations of a people and gins them up on his behalf, *this is how democracies can get trashed.* That's one of their weaknesses.

It was *in reality,* though perhaps not in the intentions of some of the people who were acting, the playing out of one of these scenarios of decadent failure.

I love my country, at its best and at its worst, because it is mine; and I love it for other reasons too: as an expression of civic republicanism which optimistically extends the franchise to as many as possible, to draw as many as possible into the honorable office of citizen.

We're not done, and we shouldn't make a bigger deal of this than it is. And we'll get through this, because we need to, and we'll get through it together, left and right, Trumpists and nevertrumpers, because we are who we have: we are the actual people of this country.

O God, you have bound us together in a common life.
Help us, in the midst of our struggles for justice and truth, to confront one another without hatred or bitterness, and to work together with mutual forbearance and respect;
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.