I am so incredibly angry because people died last week,
Trump supporters and a Capitol Police officer died, and this was predictable.
This was predicted.
This was predicted by journalists,
by intelligence analysts, by politicians, by experts on disinformation
and domestic terrorism,
by anyone with a pulse who could see the extreme damage being done
to our democracy by Trump's lies,
and fear-mongering, and conspiracy theories over the past five years.
And stepping even back further than that,
when we knew he was a racist and misogynist
accused of sexual assault
who gained more prominence with a 'birther' lie about
Barack Obama after decades of using the media
and his real estate business to harm
Black and brown people.
Anyone who wasn't previously aware of the kind of man that Donald Trump is finally,
hopefully, woke up last week when a mob of his supporters viciously beat a police officer
on the steps of the U.S. Capitol with an American flag.
I'm angry because so many people in the 'Blue Lives Matter' crowd are either silent on the
subject of dead officers, or they're twisting themselves into knots trying to defend what
happened and absolve themselves of any responsibility.
I'm angry because we saw this coming, and too many people didn't listen.
I'm angry because we only ever want to protect ourselves, as well as our neighbors—
even the ones who threaten our lives, Black and brown lives, and seek to divide us—and instead
we get blamed for being divisive and are chastised about so-called unity.
I'm angry because even though crowds of aggressive, armed people were captured on video chanting,
'Hang Mike Pence,' following the president's tweet that threw his own vice president under the bus,
Mike Pence remains the president's loyal foot soldier.
If being forced to evacuate the Capitol under duress and threats of violence and actual
execution aren't enough to change Mike Pence's mind about fealty to a wannabe dictator,
nothing will.
I'm angry because even at the height of the riot, when members of Congress were hiding
away in a room together from people with guns, pipe bombs, zip ties, and a thirst for blood,
Republican members of Congress put their own colleagues at even further risk by refusing
to wear masks that Democrats were handing out.
At least three members have since tested positive for COVID-19.
I'm angry because even when white supremacy rears its ugly head against its own,
it's still Black and brown people who pay the price.
I'm angry because the nature of white supremacy is so insidious that even when it takes the
lives of white people, too few are willing to stand up and say, 'This is wrong.
This shouldn't happen.
What can I do to make sure it never happens again?'
I'm angry because my own friends, my own industry colleagues, were put in the position of documenting
a violent riot on a day that was supposed to be historic for the continuation of U.S. democracy.
After the president directed his supporters to march on the Capitol and the situation
quickly devolved, I watched in horror as video after video was posted, showing an angry mob
beating at the doors and windows of a building where I have reported from countless times.
I saw my friends' names being shared all over social media and TV, crediting their critical
eyewitness footage, but I was terrified for their safety.
I saw the noose that a mob fashioned out of a cameraperson's equipment and cables,
the 'Murder the Media' graffiti,
and I thought, they don't want us here.
As a journalist, they hate me for doing my job.
As a brown woman, even though I was born and raised here, they don't want me here, and
they will go to this incredible, extreme length to try to invalidate our votes.
They built gallows outside the Capitol,
actual gallows.
As bad as the riot was, with five people dead, it could have been even worse.
I'm also exhausted.
Because anger is exhausting.
Fear is exhausting.
Screaming into a void is exhausting.
It's hard not to feel hopeless when the most powerful and extreme forces of our country
beat us back constantly, beat back any attempt at progress that we make.
Even after the events and images of January 6 horrified the country and the world,
still voted to overturn the results of a free
and fair election in the United States.
147 Republicans, a not insignificant number.
We know their names.
Some are starting to hold them accountable.
We should know when they're up for re-election.
But I worry that our country's short attention span and our society's obsession with feeling
normal means that many of these people will escape any long-term consequences.
If you believe in and support democracy, you cannot let that happen.
I'm angry because this was predictable and, more to the point, preventable.
I'm angry because Hillary Clinton gave a speech in 2016 about the connections of the Trump
camp to white supremacists, and not enough people listened.
I'm angry because the legacy of white supremacy in this country put Trump in office despite
Clinton winning the popular vote.
Now, the Electoral College is an institution we can do something about, especially with
a Democratic president and Congress.
It didn't have to get to this point first, but here we are.
I'm angry because not enough people in the media, in my industry, took the threat of
Trump seriously, and those of us who did were called alarmist, sensationalist, biased, and partisan.
I'm angry because many of the people who ignored the threat still have their jobs in leadership
positions in newsrooms across the country, making decisions about coverage that millions
of people see.
They still have their platforms.
I am thankful to at least have this one.
I'm angry because the same day that domestic terrorists took over the U.S. Capitol, nearly
4,000 Americans died of a disease that we now have a vaccine for.
It didn't have to be this way, but it was just another failure of leadership that affects
our lives, permanently.
This is our worst-case scenario, our nightmare scenario when Trump was elected:
a deadly pandemic raging out of control that his decisions and denial have actively made worse, and in
the midst of this, a deadly riot that he incited.
I'm angry because I and others have been saying for years that both parties are not the same,
both sides are not the same, and too few people have wanted to confront that truth.
People have been too lazy to confront that truth.
I'm angry because this is my country that I love, and I have been told over and over
again to get out.
I'm angry because when Black and brown women in Congress stand up to a president who tells
them the same thing, to get out,
they get death threats.
So do I, and so do too many journalists who are just trying to do their jobs and tell
the truth about this country.
My white husband, also a journalist, wrote an op-ed about armed white insurrectionists
who took over a wildlife refuge in Oregon in 2016; a commenter threatened to put a bullet
in his head.
The lead organizers of that armed takeover have faced no charges or consequences,
and now experts are pointing out that it was a dress rehearsal for what we saw at the Capitol.
The armed takeover of the Michigan State Capitol last May was also a threat by itself and a warning
of what was to come, a blueprint for more chaos.
Gov. Whitmer tried to warn us about it, including in interviews on NowThis.
I'm angry because we have spent years watching Black and brown bodies beat down, shot, and
killed by police, and these white rioters were allowed to not only leave the Capitol,
but in many cases, fly home.
Many of them have since been arrested in their home states.
It's a start.
But the road to justice is long and winding, and I am heartbreakingly skeptical that the
number of people paying attention to these arrests now will pay attention when they're
actually tried and sentenced.
I'm angry because our institutions of democracy came this close to failing.
As journalists and Americans, we have been traumatized over and over again during the
Trump presidency.
From watching innocent people die in mass shootings, to watching innocent children be
ripped away from their parents at the border, to watching the violence unfold and be threatened
ourselves at the Capitol, it's trauma after trauma after trauma, and still, many of us
are focused on reporting the truth, and still, people rebuke us.
It's chilling.
Here is a truth:
Joe Biden will take office on January 20.
81.2 million Americans voted for him.
81.2 million Americans said no to fascism.
That's a reason to hope.
But more people will die between now and then, either from COVID-19 or in more planned extremist
plots that the FBI is already warning us about, and Biden's presence in the Oval Office doesn't
mean our problems are over.
There are bright spots of movement toward accountability.
The House has moved quickly to impeach Trump a second time after giving Pence a failed
ultimatum to do the right thing: to invoke the 25th Amendment and remove Trump from office.
Donald Trump will be the only president in 243 years of American history to be impeached twice,
and he deserves to be.
He will not go away after January 20.
He will either run for office in the future, or his family members and his many enablers will.
The work doesn't end when Biden takes office, and there are legal and constitutional options
for prohibiting someone from serving in an office again after inciting an insurrection.
But the political and public will must be there to support such measures.
Both the House and the Senate have introduced or drafted resolutions to potentially expel
people from Congress who supported the president's attempt to overthrow democracy, who voted
for it even after blood was shed at the Capitol.
Look up Congresswoman Cori Bush and Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse.
Follow their work as they try to hold people accountable.
The work will take time.
It requires unceasing public support.
What I ask is that if you are feeling as angry as I am—or fearful, or disappointed—that
you hold on to this feeling and allow it to motivate you to call for accountability, to
demand better of your elected officials, to talk to your friends and families about the
conspiracies they might share on Facebook, and to promote facts and truth over disinformation.
To not slide back into the comfort of daily life and insulate yourself from the pain because
it's easier.
To not pretend like this isn't happening in your country, on your doorstep.
To feel it.
To do more.
That is our only hope of limiting the possibility of this ever happening again.
Inaction breeds inevitability.
Apathy breeds contempt.