The film and photographs of insurrectionists, rioters, trespassers, vandals and taggers-on during the Electoral College vote counting at the Capitol are such pause for reflection that one would think that even a group as dense and out-of-touch as the Congress of the United States would not rush to judgement but consider, at the very least, how matters came to such a bitter confrontation. While the role of the Instigator-in-Chief should be fully registered, it should also be recorded that contrary to his proclaiming that he would lead them up to the Hill, yet another lie and empty promise, as has been his thousands of misrepresentations over the last 5 years, he went home to his nicely appointed, publically-financed residence and watched on television as his supporters proceeded to criminal trespass and mayhem at his behest. At the forefront of anybody’s reflections should be the context and irony of the entire disaster.

Two months after the winner of the November election by over seven million votes, five million alone in California, is by law the time to certify legally the winner by the tabulating of the votes of the Electors from the states. This arcane system persists, in spite of serious mess-ups in 2000 and 2016, because an inert body of elected officials, the US Congress, has refused to fix it. It presents a substantive challenge to majority rule, as does the very working concept of the Senate and the faulty redistricting of House seats, that accentuates division and thwarts actual representation. In short, the fact that this was the business of the Senate and House when the rioting took place is ironic in the extreme and not mere coincidence. Here we had an institution, the Congress, that enjoys an approval rating of between 15 to 18 % these days, pretending to effect the outcome of a situation weighted with intense emotion.

Unnecessarily, I would contend, except for the fact that the Congress is incapable of conducting the business of the American people as a matter of practice and intent, and because of the idea that two political parties can monopolize the discussion and by the use of extravagant amounts of legalized bribes, called political contributions and deemed legal as ‘free speech’, are able to insure nearly 90% of incumbency re-election. It is not difficult to see why many question the legitimacy of the US government and would be incited to action by an unstable genius. It is most fortunate that one of the rebels did not have a stash of C-40 in their ruck-sack and blow Columbia off of her newly refurbished perch on the Capitol Dome. Au contraire, I noticed many of the participants staying well within the guide ropes as they proceeded through Statutory Hall. Also worthy of note is the yokel carrying the battle flag of the Confederacy through the halls of Congress, a feat that Robert E. Lee and the Army of Northern Virginia, a crack military outfit, couldn’t accomplish in four hard years of fighting.

The larger problems of American governance are not housed in the hearts and minds and emotions of the people but in the questionable institutions and procedures under which we are pretending to govern ourselves. If we are “to nobly save or meanly lose’ the battles over what constitutes a government of, by & for the people, we will need to make more honest efforts at real problem solving rather than posturing, dissembling, and then flipping out when things do not go our way.

By two criteria the current state of affairs rises to the level of emergency: one, over 140 members of Congress felt that they could not count the electoral votes legitimately won by the Democratic Party candidate, Joe Biden, although their oath of office requires that they do so no matter what they might believe about the actual mechanics of the vote on November 3rd, 2020, (and are in fact, responsible for seeing to it that the process is fair, safe, and lawful); and, two, they could not secure the precincts of government from a mob, which, in the final irony, was the ostensible purpose for which the Electoral College was created.

The People appear to be less a threat than the current rules or the government’s standing representatives.