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1/7/21 It's hard to know even how to begin writing about yesterday. The news reports have all the big details, of course: we woke up to Raphael Warnock's win in one of the two GA Senate races and periodically kept checking for updates on the Ossoff/Perdue race. Everyone knew madness was brewing since January 6 was the day for Congress to approve the results of the electoral vote. Someone close to me registered about a year ago for a seat at an on-campus event by a right-wing group -- K-Pop style, to keep the seat empty -- and, since he apparently is still on their mailing list, got an email about buses planned to take local people to DC for the rally -- from here, all the way up the East Coast.Long story short: there was nothing at all surprising about the convergence of radical maniacs and Trumpists in DC to make a scene. Nothing at all. How many agencies should have organized to plan, coordinate, defend -- the building, the entrances, the country's elected officials? Seriously? We were both working at our desks when I got a text to "Famiglia" (our family group chat) from Mom asking if we knew what was going on. We tried to listen / read / watch and work for a while. But as more of the mob entered the Capitol and more images and livestreaming popped up on Twitter, CNN, NBC (we eventually turned on the TV, which we NEVER do -- certainly not in the middle of the day), I started viscerally feeling the anxiety and tension in my body. WTF was happening? More messages on WhatsApp and in a group work chat from friends and colleagues overseas. It's been about 36 hours now, and I feel like I still haven't even really begun to process what happened, or what the entire world could see in real time, and then in video clips and photos: MAGA maniacs strolling right into the Capitol, some of them wearing crazy things. The youngish guy with the horns and the red/white/blue painted face. The older guy with the black sweatshirt that said "Camp Auschwitz"(!!!) casually talking on his cellphone, the cord apparently plugged into a reserve battery in a front pocket. Scaling the outer wall of the Capitol. On a window-washing apparatus getting ready to break in. Crashing windows and breaking in. Tussling with police inside the building. Using a barricade with a T@#$ flag on it as a battering ram trying to break through tall wooden doors -- into one of the chambers? Congressmembers and staffers ducking to hide in the gallery, barricading themselves in offices -- all with masks on, of course, and reporting they'd been told to use the gas masks under their seats because of tear gas. Yes, tear gas in the rotunda of the US capitol. The photo here -- taken by a pro-T$#% journalist, who quickly deleted it because, well, maybe he was tweeting about committing a crime? -- showing an unsecure computer in Nancy Pelosi's office. The guy sitting in an office chair -- Nancy Pelosi's seat? -- with his feet on the desk. Video of the Senate parliamentarian's office ransacked, papers strewn everywhere, lamps askew. People on the Senate floor rifling through desks -- stealing things? planting things? Who even knows. How they managed to secure the building again in time for the proceedings to continue is beyond me. When we stopped watching -- to try to work a bit, to get the kids -- it was probably a solid 2-2 1/2 hrs after the siege began (was that a siege? I'm looking up words because I don't even know how to describe all this), and we saw on NBC a stream of police cars, sirens going, heading toward Capitol Hill. Before then, for HOURS, apparently, these people had been milling around, destroying things, probably stealing things, terrifying people. It's only now, tonight, that I'm seeing some of the photos and footage from what happened after the National Guard arrived with riot gear. Jelani Cobb had a solid tweet today (yes, I probably am spending too much time on Twitter these days): "After making two documentaries about police brutality I never thought I would be this disgusted by a show of police restraint." This is all just skimming the surface of what yesterday was like. Somewhere in there, Ossoff was declared victor in the second Georgia Senate race. In the evening, kiddo #2 and I worked assiduously on a 200 piece train puzzle while I tried to listen to the radio broadcast of the speeches on the Senate floor once they were back in session. (How did they clean up the building in time? How did they know it was secure-- that no one was hiding, that no explosive devices were planted, that secure documents hadn't been stolen from Congressional offices?) Heard Mitch McConnell try to weasel his way out of blame. Watched Kelly Loeffler give a flat-toned speech about how after all that had happened, she was withdrawing her objection to recognizing the electoral college results. Watched clips from DC hotels where people who may well have been in the Capitol violating federal law just hours earlier are sitting around drinking beer, chatting, eating, hanging out calm and maskless with their MAGA hats and rolled up banners. And today: calls to invoke the 25th Amendment from some quarters, for impeachment from others. And then those NYT and WaPo lists of ALL the Republicans who voted for objections to confirming the electoral college results. And this afternoon and evening, all the cowards resigning to avoid having to vote on a 25th Amendment question -- Elaine Chao, Betsy DeVos, Mick Mulvaney, etc. Spineless, every one of them. On one hand it's all so wild, feels so unreal. And yet for anyone who's been paying attention these past 4-odd years, it's no surprise. None of this is a surprise. Not the sedition, not the white supremacy, not the violence, not the complicity on the part of Republicans in office, not the fucking selfie taken by mob people with Capitol Police. As someone said on tv today, maybe Joy Reid (?), it's shocking, but it's no surprise. Oh yeah, and there's this pandemic going on. How many cases of Covid did these traitors cause yesterday? The US broke a new record today: more than 4,000 people died of COVID. Today. Woman dies after shooting in U.S. Capitol; D.C. National Guard activated after mob breaches building https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2021/01/06/dc-protests-trump-rally-live-updates/ Video of Black Capitol Workers Cleaning Up After Mob Mayhem Goes Viral https://www.newsweek.com/video-black-capitol-workers-cleaning-capitol-riots-trump-supporters-1559674 Trump Administration Officials Who Resigned Over Capitol Violence https://www.nytimes.com/article/trump-resignations.html