82. D.C. and Covid get personal

In the wake of the January 6 debacle at the Capitol, three Democratic members of Congress have tested positive for Covid-19. New Jersey Representative Bonnie Watson Coleman, a 75 year-old cancer survivor, Illinois Representative Brad Schneider, and Washington Representative Pramila Jayapal all announced positive tests after being warned by the Capitol physician that they might have been exposed during the lockdown. 

There might be—will surely be—others, as Republicans and Democrats huddled together in secure rooms for more than five hours while insurgents were cleared and Congressional chambers secured and cleaned. Nancy Pelosi had made masks a requirement for the House Floor, but the instinctive refusal of Covid seriousness and mask effectiveness was stronger for some Republican representatives than any collegial pleas that they wear them in hiding. 

 

Schneider and Jayapal both condemned the mask-less behavior. Schneider worried that he had then exposed family, and all three now must decide how to conduct Congressional business in the next important days. 

 

It is absolutely beyond me that “the mask” has become such a symbol of party and politics. But watching January 6 unfold on the TV screen was beyond me as well. And watching the continuing denial by many, largely along party lines, in the face of rising Covid numbers and deaths, is beyond me as well.

 

Pramila is not. She is my friend as well as a Congresswoman, and I watched her on NBC, hunkering below the seats in the House gallery as the melee downstairs roared. There was fear on her face, and on the face of many as they were led to safety. Contrasted with the absolute glee on the faces of painted and red-hatted people—mostly white and mostly male—vandalizing the Capitol, calling for Nancy Pelosi, shouting that Pence be hanged. 

 

That mob resembled the Iranians who “captured” Americans in our embassy in 1979, and imprisoned them for 444 days, the Hindu mobs beating Muslim neighbors and burning mosques in Delhi, India this past February, and the not too distant public executions known as lynchings in our own country. 

 

And the Representatives and staffers you can see on video, clearly refusing to take masks offered them in their Capitol safe room, remind me of the often smug-faced on-lookers in those chilling photographs of mobs committing violence in Tehran and Delhi, and the sometimes sober-faced but oft-times laughing witnesses to lynchings in America.  

 

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81. Thanks to the R’s--and two big lies

I believe that Democrats—and all Americans—should thank the many Republicans serving as state governors, secretaries of state, and election officials who have consistently and sometimes with great difficulty conducted fair elections in Covid times, and then stood by the results of those fair elections when met with derision and lawsuits by President Trump and his followers. We must also thank the many Republican appointed jurists—many of them appointed by the Trump administration—who weighed lawsuits and dismissed them for lack of evidence.

 

In recent days a group of national Republicans rose to defend the nation against the incessant lies of a stolen election. Mitt Romney spoke early and eloquently against Republicans in the House and Senate who wanted to perpetuate the lie of a fraudulent election and Trump victory. 

 

Mitch McConnell, finally, came to accept and declare Biden’s victory, and, in a moment of true heroism, insisted that Congress proceed with the electoral ballot counting on the night on which the Capitol was stormed by Trump-inspired zealots intent on disrupting that count; some may have had an actual coup in mind. 

 

To his credit, Vice President Pence refused Trump’s call to override state electoral votes, and, after being whisked away to safety, returned to preside over the official toll of electoral votes by the states. He and Trump are apparently no longer talking.

 

The motley crew of January insurgents was driven by two major lies perpetrated by President Trump, Rudy Giuliani, and a (rapidly diminishing) number of close associates. The first lie was that the election was “stolen.” In case after case, state and federal courts have affirmed the results of the election declaring Biden-Harris its winner. 

 

The second lie was and is that Covid-19 is fake, or just another flu, or that the numbers and reportage of its toll across the country and the world are all part of some vast conspiracy against President Trump, President Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil and others who have played down its deadly seriousness. 

 

The results of this lie will persist: the thousands of January 6 insurgents, and the Representatives, Senators, and staff members confined for hours as the Capitol was cleared and cleansed, might spread the disease; and millions of Americans, including many health care workers, who are refusing vaccination, will delay the day when the country is sufficiently immune to Covid-19 to stop its spread.

 

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