To the Editor:
January 6th is a religious holiday called the Epiphany. It marks the 12th day of Christmas when the three wise men, following the guiding star, discovered Christ in his manger. In that instant, they found a new beacon and guiding light for hope and love in this world.
Now, we have a new and very different reason to mark this day. It is the day when Trump summoned his evil mob to the capitol and incited and manipulated them into attacking the sacred halls of our government. He fueled the gullible mob with weeks and months of repeated and baseless incendiary lies. They believed his deranged pathological ravings despite numerous fruitless investigations, unfounded and useless court hearings, and wasted election recounts.
We mark this day because our democracy came so close to being destroyed. For 187 horrifying and agonizing minutes, we powerlessly watched as our hopelessly outnumbered heroes, denied outside intervention or assistance by Trump (so as to allow time for his treacherous insurrection to work), were being mauled and bludgeoned by his mob. This all went on as Trump sat watching and rewatching the TV footage in the White House dining room, grinning, and gloating over his treason.
We mark this day, this year, and hopefully, every year henceforth to remind us of how a few brave heroes, alone, unsupported, defended our country, its values, and its fragile democracy against a vicious despot.
Five lives were lost in that heroic struggle. It is a day that will go down in infamy and be used as a rallying cry for reform and legislation to prevent this kind of treachery from ever happening again.
– ALAN WOLF
Villas
