Letter: Stop the Steal, Again

Mik Muller, Greenfield Recorder. January 7, 2021

Make no mistake about what happened on Wednesday, January the 6th, during the certification of the Electoral College votes in the Capital Building. That was an attempted coop.

The mob that went in? Some were after the states' ballots. Thankfully, junior staff had the presence of mind to grab them as they ran out ahead of the mob that broke in, smashing windows at multiple entrances. Had the antique ballot boxes been taken or burned we would have had a VERY real constitutional crisis. How do you tally and certify votes if they’re destroyed?

The groups that broke in? Militias, all. Anti-government, white-supremist, Q-Anon anarchists who were stoked up by the president at a rally only an hour or so earlier. They wanted to show him that they were there for him in a real, committed way. Wrapped in his visage, they kicked over cabinets and vandalized the marbled walls, firing guns into chamber rooms, taunting capital police in their perimeter line, waving the Confederate flag.

Do not think for a second that our media mogul, narcissistic president wasn’t sitting, thinking, even for a brief moment, or perhaps longer, that he had a standing militia literally occupying the Capital Building... waiting for his bidding. How close did we come to having our own burning of the Reichstag? Can't it happen here?

Where was the president all night as he watched, and what was he thinking about? Capitalizing on this turn of events? Planning for a future with those white supremacists who adore him and are simply waiting for a command? Why did he hold a militia rally on the day of the certification... just mere blocks from the Capital Building?

Will this country wait until he takes another dangerous step before we shut him down? And what will he do when he leaves the office? This may only be the beginning.

Mik Muller lives in Greenfield