"The behavior we witnessed in the U.S. Capitol is entirely un-American," read a statement from a bipartisan and bicameral group of elected officials that included Senators Joe Manchin, Susan Collins, Mitt Romney, and Mark Warner as well as Representatives Josh Gottheimer and Tom Reed. [Many others including former Presidents Bush and Carter concurred.]
... [But] to say that this is not part of America, American politics, and American history is a bald-faced denial. But the denial is normal. In the aftermath of catastrophes, when have Americans commonly admitted who we are? The heartbeat of America is denial.
In March 1783, Continental Army officers plotted mutiny against the Confederation Congress until George Washington convinced the officers to remain loyal. In 1861, pro-slavery insurrectionists assembled at the U.S. Capitol to stop the counting of electoral votes for Abraham Lincoln. The Civil War came, lasting until 1865. White terrorists laid siege to the county courthouse in Colfax, Louisiana, on Easter Sunday 1873, and violently overthrew the local parish government, massacring roughly 150 Black people in the process. On September 14, 1874, the White League violently attempted to overthrow the newly elected governor of Louisiana in the Battle of Liberty Place, in New Orleans. White terrorists rioted; destroyed ballot boxes; and intimidated, wounded, and murdered Black voters in Alabama's Barbour County on Election Day in 1874, securing victories for their candidates.
In 1898, white supremacists murdered dozens of Black people and violently overthrew the democratically elected and interracial government of Wilmington, North Carolina. In 1921 ... In 1933 ... on February 25, 1956 ... [et cetera] ...
On January 6, 2021, as the siege occurred at the U.S. Capitol, officials in several states, including New Mexico, Georgia, and Colorado, evacuated state capitols to protect against the gathering mobs. The crowds, on that day, breached the gate to the grounds of the governor's mansion in Washington State.
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In a fall 2020 survey, 54 percent of Americans said that their nation is the greatest in the world, with 80 percent of Republicans and 35 percent of Democrats expressing this sentiment. In January 2020, the majority of Americans said in a survey that the United States embodies the grandeur of gender equality, happiness, health consciousness, and public health. Nearly four in 10 Americans said that their nation promotes income equality. But America's actual standing in the world tells a different story on these issues and others. The life expectancy of Americans is shorter than for people in other rich countries that spend far less on health care.... Police in the U.S. kill their fellow citizens at significantly higher rates than in any other rich country. The United States has the largest incarcerated population per capita in the world....
If you can look at the carnage and respond That's not us, then you'll consider it to be an anomaly. Humans -- like nations -- are not going to perform radical surgery on cancers that they don't think are part of them. Instead of seeing white supremacists as the greatest domestic-terror threat of our time, too many see them as marginal actors. Thus, the marginal response to the carnage. Thus, the carnage continues.