Remembering the Heroes of the January 6th Capitol insurrection and calling out the Republican cowards

 What January 6 in the US Capitol Taught Me About Courage and Cowardice. Published in Maria Shriver's Sunday Paper.

Adam Kinzinger

Seated to his right is Congresswoman Liz Cheney who said "Donald Trump was at the center of this conspiracy," and that the former president "spurred a mob of domestic enemies of the Constitution to march down to the Capitol and subvert American democracy." Addressing her Republican colleagues directly, Committee Vice Chair Liz Cheney (R-WY) said that those who "are defending the indefensible, there will come a day when Donald Trump is gone, but your dishonor will remain."

Former representative Adam Kinzinger reflects five years later on resilience, resolve, and the Americans still choosing to defend democracy. By Former Congressman Adam Kinzinger January 03, 2026 Architects of Change

Five years ago today, I walked into the U.S. Capitol with a knot in my stomach that I still struggle to describe. 

In fact, I had served in that building for years. I knew its rhythms, its quiet corners, the way the marble echoes when the halls are empty. January 6, 2021, shattered all of that. It didn’t just break windows or doors. It broke an illusion many of us had carried—that the foundations of American democracy were so solid they could never really be shaken.

I remember standing there afterward, surrounded by debris and disbelief, thinking: "This is not who we are." And yet, it was. Or at least, it was a part of us we had long refused to confront.

On the fifth anniversary of January 6, the memories are still raw. Not because of the violence alone, but because of what it revealed. The anger. The lies. The willingness—by too many in positions of power—to light a match and walk away while others watched the fire spread.

I often think about fear. Not the fear I felt that day, but the fear that drove people there in the first place. Fear of losing status. Fear of demographic change. Fear that was carefully cultivated and weaponized by those who knew better and chose ambition over truth. That fear didn’t come from nowhere, but January 6 exposed how dangerous it becomes when leaders refuse to challenge it.

What stays with me most, though, is not just the mob. It’s the aftermath. The silence. The rationalizations. The quiet deals made in the days and weeks that followed. I watched colleagues—people who knew exactly what had happened—decide that the safer path was to move on, to minimize, to rewrite. I learned then that democracy doesn’t just die from violent attacks. It erodes when cowardice becomes policy.

Leaving Congress forced me to reckon with that reality in a deeply personal way. Public office teaches you many things, but one of the hardest lessons is this: institutions are only as strong as the people willing to defend them when it costs something. January 6 clarified the price of principle. For some, it was too high.

I’ve been asked many times if that day made me cynical. The honest answer is complicated. It stripped away naïveté, certainly. It ended any lingering belief that norms alone will save us. But cynicism implies detachment, and I feel anything but detached. If anything, January 6 bound me more tightly to the idea of this country—not as a myth, but as a responsibility.

I think about the police officers who stood their ground that day. About the staffers who barricaded doors and texted loved ones, unsure if they’d make it home. About my wife, who learned all too personally that being in politics includes the whole family. About the election workers across the country who kept counting votes despite threats. They didn’t have cameras or applause. They simply did their jobs because they believed in something bigger than themselves. That, too, is America.

Five years later, the danger hasn’t vanished. The lies haven’t evaporated. Accountability has been uneven, and the temptation to “just move on” remains strong. History teaches us that forgetting is often more comfortable than learning. But comfort is not the same as peace, and denial is not unity.

What gives me hope—real, grounded hope—is not the absence of threats but the presence ofresilience. I see it in young people who refuse to accept that politics must be cruel or corrupt. I see it in Republicans, Democrats, and independents who understand that democracy is not automatic. I see it in veterans who know that loyalty to country is not loyalty to a man, and in citizens who show up, again and again, to vote, to organize and to speak.

January 6 was a moment of national trauma, but trauma does not have to define the future. It can clarify values. It can sharpen resolve. It can remind us that the American experiment has always been fragile—and that its survival has always depended on ordinary people choosing courage over convenience.

Five years on, I still believe in this country. Not because it is perfect, but because it is unfinished. 

Because each generation is handed a choice: to inherit democracy passively, or to actively defend it. January 6 reminded us what happens when too many abdicate that duty. The years since have reminded me that many more are ready to pick it up.

The work ahead is not glamorous. It won’t always be televised. It requires telling the truth when it’s uncomfortable, rejecting lies even when they flatter us, and remembering that losing an election is not the same as losing a country. Democracy asks something of us—not just every four years, but every day. It asks us to make an alliance with people we normally wouldn’t, because when we are threatened, small political differences become meaningless.

On this anniversary, I don’t feel despair. I feel resolve. The same resolve I felt walking out of the Capitol that night, determined that violence and lies would not have the last word. Five years later, they still haven’t. And as long as we are willing to learn, to stand, and to choose country over self, they never will.

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Donald Trump and maga Republicans attack Freedom of speech suppressing the press and political opponents

Speak up now❗  💢  #Resist

Echo opinion letter to The Daily Chronicle in Centralia Washington state: 

It is time to speak up, before we are no longer allowed to:

Freedom of speech is the foundation of our democracy, a sacred right that allows us to express dissent, share ideas and hold our leaders accountable.

But under the Trump administration, this fundamental freedom is under assault.

Donald Trump has made it clear that he will do everything in his power to silence his opponents. Whether through legal threats, attacks on the press or public shaming of critics, he has consistently shown contempt for open discourse.

This isn’t just about politics, it’s about preserving the very principles that define our nation.

Without freedom of speech, independent thought withers. The ability to challenge authority or expose wrongdoing vanishes. A government that fears criticism is not a government by the people, it is a government for one man’s power and ego.

We are at a crossroads. Will we allow our rights to erode in the name of political loyalty, or will we stand up for the freedoms that generations before us fought to secure?

It is time to speak up, before we are no longer allowed to.

From Shauna Wilhelm in Chehalis, Washington State

Donald Trump and maga Republicans must remove the mentally deteriorating president: Regressing into childish behavior

What to Do When the President Acts Like a Five-Year-Old? Echo opinion by George A. Akerlof published in The New York Times: 

Imagine a group of 5-year-olds playing a board game. The rules are clear, the goal is fair, and one child edges ahead — until, suddenly, another child starts losing. That’s when the trouble begins. “He cheated!” the losing child yells. “I’m the winner anyway!” he declares. And then, like clockwork, he flips the board. In the world of kindergarten conflict resolution, we expect this kind of behavior. We chalk it up to development. We teach better sportsmanship.

What do we do when the president of the United States behaves this way? On Friday, Trump fired the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics — the nation’s workaday scorekeeper of employment, wages and productivity. Why? Because the data didn’t make Trump look good. The statistics were inconvenient. So the president didn’t just challenge the findings; he fired the statistician. That’s not governing. That’s board flipping.

For over a century, the integrity of U.S. economic data has rested on a fragile but vital precept: independence. Agencies like the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Census Bureau and the Bureau of Economic Analysis operate under the executive branch, but their mandates are to serve the truth, not the administration. Their job is to report what is, not what the White House wishes were true.

Yes, legally, the president can fire the bureau’s commissioner. The position is not protected by statute. But like many pillars of democracy — free press, fair elections, impartial courts — what protects the Bureau of Labor Statistics is not law but a common set of assumptions about how government should function. A basic idea that says: Presidents don’t manipulate the scoreboard.

Past presidents respected this boundary. Ronald Reagan didn’t fire the head of the agency when it reported double-digit unemployment during his first term. Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama took bad news from official statistics on the chin. Mr. Trump has charted a different course. This is not his first tangle with truth. He has questioned unemployment numbers and dismissed Covid fatality figures as inflated. Removing the Bureau of Labor Statistics chief because the numbers were off narrative is a new breach. It is not only attacking the game; it is removing the referee.

This may sound like inside baseball, of importance mostly to labor economists. But it’s not. The credibility of American statistics is foundational. It undergirds investor trust. It guides fiscal and monetary policy. It tells businesses when to hire, when to expand and when to hold. When those numbers are tainted or appear to be, the ripple effects are vast. Markets can lose faith in the data and in the country that produces it.

Yes, the BLS made some retroactive changes to its May and June reports, sharply cutting its assessments of job growth. These kinds of revisions are routine as the BLS incorporates new data, even if these were particularly large. The job of counting is getting harder as the response rate to its surveys falls. But this isn’t malfeasance.

What about citizens? When a government fires the umpire, we all have reason to wonder: What game are we playing? One danger certainly is that a future Bureau of Labor Statistics head might feel political pressure to fudge a jobs report. 

But, the deeper risk is cynicism, the quiet corrosion of faith in institutions. If we can’t believe the numbers, how do we believe anything❓

Most children learn that flipping the board doesn’t make them the winner. It just means the game is over. In a democracy, the same lesson holds. We need our referees. We need our scorekeepers. And most of all, we need leaders who understand that losing the game fairly is far more honorable than winning by force.

Why so❓ Because when presidents flip the board, it’s not just a game that ends. It’s the pieces of democracy that get scattered to the floor.

Americans who avoided civics 101 class are in a learn as we go mode- IOW Trump cannot be allowed to think and act like a king

Trump’s Crown Doesn’t Fit👑😔😒

Echo opinion published in The New York Times by Jamelle Bouie

"Donald Trump proposed for nomination — to key agencies, including the Department of Defense, the Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Justice — a group of unqualified apparatchiks, sycophants and conspiracy theorists."

This opinion essay reminds me about how important it is for Americans to learn about our government in 5th grade civics class. 

It sure seems like those who missed out on this primary school curriculum are now in "learn as we go along" mode, where journalists are trying to fill in the educational gaps. In other words, Americans should all "already" know this stuff.....but Bouie gives a refresher class.  

The Constitution is not a grant of power for a king.

It is, instead, a grant of authority from the sovereign people to establish a republican form of government — a representative democracy of limited and enumerated powers. And the republican character of American constitutional government is expressed in the way it divides the executive, legislative and judicial powers among separate institutions.

“In the establishment of a free government,” a 19th-century Supreme Court justice, Joseph Story, observes in his “Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States,” this division “has by many been deemed a maxim of vital importance, that these powers should for ever be kept separate and distinct.” When those powers are mixed in a single individual, “such a form of government is denominated a despotism, as the whole sovereignty of the state is vested in him.”

It is not, as Story continues, that the “departments of government” should have “no common link of connection or dependence, the one upon the other, in the slightest degree.” Rather, it is that “the whole power of one of these departments should not be exercised by the same hands, which possess the whole power of either of the other departments; and that such exercise of the whole would subvert the principles of a free constitution.”

In our system, the executive branch cannot exercise the full power of the legislature. It cannot act as a monarch would. The sovereign people did not imbue their power into a leviathan. The upshot of this is that any interpretation of the Constitution that grants the president monarchical power is wrong. The structure of the Constitution precludes a royal prerogative and the ethos of American democracy forbids it. Otherwise, the revolution was for nothing.

Last week, Donald Trump proposed for nomination — to key agencies, including the Department of Defense, the Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Justice — a group of unqualified apparatchiks, sycophants and conspiracy theorists.

As loyalists, they were picked as agents of Trump’s will, less independent administrators than a group of glorified Renfields. The problem for Trump is that his nominees are so unqualified that they may not have the votes to be confirmed, even in a Republican-led Senate. One of them, the former Representative Matt Gaetz of Florida, has already dropped out of contention for the role of attorney general in the wake of new evidence of sexual misconduct with a minor at a party. Gaetz has denied any wrongdoing, and the Justice Department declined to charge him last year.

Gaetz aside, Trump has let it be known that he would like to adjourn Congress and install his nominees as recess appointments, to avoid the humiliation of losing a confirmation battle and to assert dominance over the Senate. 

To do this, Trump would invoke an unused power found in an obscure provision of Article II, Section 3 of the Constitution, which states that the president may “on extraordinary occasions, convene both Houses, or either of them, and in case of disagreement between them, with respect to the time of adjournment, he may adjourn them to such time as he shall think proper.”

Under one theory of the case, Trump would push the Republican House majority under Speaker Mike Johnson — another loyal ally of the president — to adjourn the House of Representatives. Either the Senate majority would agree to enter recess or it would not, at which point Trump would claim disagreement and adjourn Congress himself.

There are a few good reasons this would not work the way Trump wants. The relevant clause connects the power to adjourn Congress to the power to “convene both Houses, or either of them,” on “extraordinary occasions.” Read as a whole, Section 3 states that the president can only adjourn Congress after calling such a session and when it cannot agree on the time of adjournment. The president, in this reading, has no power to adjourn Congress when it is in regular session.

There is another way to read the text as well. Suppose the president’s power to adjourn is separate from his power to call an extraordinary session. Even then, the power to adjourn Congress activates only when the House and Senate disagree as to the time of adjournment, not whether to adjourn. In which case, neither inaction nor an outright refusal to adjourn triggers the president’s power to act. This, it is interesting to note, was President Andrew Jackson’s understanding of his power to adjourn Congress. As he wrote in an 1836 veto message to the Senate, his power is “confined to fixing the adjournment of Congress whose branches have disagreed. The question of adjournment is obviously to be decided by each Congress for itself.”

It is worth taking a moment to explain why this power even exists. “The power to convene Congress on extraordinary occasions is indispensable to the proper operations, and even safety of the government,” writes Story, who placed the convening power in the context of “vigorous measures to repel foreign aggressions, depredations and direct hostilities; to provide adequate means to mitigate, or overcome unexpected calamities” and to “provide for innumerable other exigencies.” Story then describes the adjournment power as “equally indispensable; since it is the only peaceable way of terminating a controversy, which can lead to nothing but distraction in the public councils.”

But this parsing of the text is almost beside the point. The power to unilaterally adjourn Congress and then govern without its input does not exist in the Constitution, regardless of the wording of Article II, Section 3. This is because that power would be an act of sovereign will. In a republic, the people represented assemble in a legislature and only the people represented can adjourn themselves. The Congress is “self-moving and self-dependent,” William Rawle writes in his 1825 commentary, “A View of the Constitution of the United States.” “Although it may be convened by the executive,” he continues, “it cannot be adjourned or dissolved by it.”

It is the power of a sovereign monarch to call and dissolve a representative body at will. To use an example that would have been relevant to the framers of the Constitution, when Charles I dissolved Parliament in 1629 for a third and decisive time — and imposed personal rule on England — he did so on a claim of royal prerogative, extending from divine right. But our Constitution does not affirm divine right. It does not grant royal prerogative. Donald Trump cannot adjourn Congress like a king because the Constitution does not recognize kings or any sovereignty other than that of the people.

Now, obviously, this will not stop Trump from trying to assert a power to adjourn Congress and appoint his nominees. And while key senators have voiced their intent to fulfill their constitutional duty, there is still some chance that enough Republicans would roll over and grant Trump his recess. Nonetheless, it is still important that opponents of Trump assert that the power Trump is claiming does not exist, that it is an illegitimate and unconstitutional exercise of authority, and that he would be doing it to install loyalists who will act in his interest, and those of his billionaire donors, and no one else.

The reason it is important to make this point gets to a critical fact about the 2024, presidential election. Donald Trump did not win a mandate for autocracy. He hardly won a mandate at all, despite his claims to the contrary. He didn’t win a majority of votes cast, although he came close, and he carried the critical battleground states by slim margins. Overall, Trump won one of the narrowest victories in American political history.

This election was not a grand public affirmation for his most expansive plans and aggressive schemes. The electorate was as close to evenly divided as is possible (Trump is ahead by less than two percentage points in the popular vote) in a system where someone has to win. The marginal Trump voter — that is, the person who put him over the top — wants lower prices and cheaper homes, not chaos, dysfunction and autocratic, strongman government. But there are no real Trump plans to improve life for most Americans.

If there is such a thing as favorable terrain for a fight, this is it. This is the opportunity to weaken Trump and make his administration even less effective than it is already shaping up to be.

The 2024, election was the end of one iteration of the American republic. But the new one is still gestating — still formless, its outlines still unclear. And we, as free and equal citizens, have the capacity to shape it.

Yes, Trump will fight to try to impose his vision of the new world. Yes, he will lay claim to the powers of a monarch. Yes, he will speak as if he has royal prerogative. 

Yes, he will work to undermine our revolutionary heritage. But there is a large gap between a stated intention and an accomplished fact. And it is within that space that politics happens.

Democrats and Republicans must continue to support the Harris-Walz coalition because Trump is incompetent

Echo opinion letter published in The New York Times: To the Editor:

The aftermath of the Trump election reminds me of my breast cancer diagnosis in 1997. I was a divorced mother of three young girls, and friends marveled at my optimism. 

Although I was scared and depressed, I held onto hope — even though I faced surgery, chemotherapy and radiation — because what choice did I have?

In much the same way, today we have no choice but to stay engaged. The events in my lifetime seemed to be insurmountable. I protested against the Vietnam War, for civil rights, for voting rights, for abortion rights and even for the right of girls to wear pants at my high school. Much of what appeared to be unattainable actually came to be.

The world has at times appeared out of control, with progress unattainable and democracy teetering. It is my hope that every sad, disillusioned American out there will hold onto the fact that the Harris-Walz team built a coalition of millions. That coalition is still out there.

But I do fear that people, especially our young people, will become complacent, resigned to what seems overwhelming, and will stop caring. Care we must. We must stay engaged — fight the misinformation that got us here and stay involved.

From Susan Berger in Highland Park, Illinois

Trump's dangerous narcissistic personality disorder is unqualified to be elected to any office

A person with narcissistic personality disorder could destroy democracy if elected president. Echo opinion by Richard C. 'Dick' Hall*, a guest opinion columnist, published in the Oklahoman newspaper.

A democracy begins with a strong sense of purpose, often rooted in spiritual or religious beliefs. People work together, united by common values and a shared vision. As the democracy grows, it faces challenges and threats. During this phase, courage and determination emerge. People come together and fight for their independence while often giving their lives pursuing it.

The struggle pays off with liberty when freedom for all is achieved. Individual rights are respected while institutions are established to protect them. With freedom comes prosperity. The economy flourishes, and people enjoy material abundance while innovation and creativity thrive.

Citizens' complacency spreads over time. People are more focused on their own interests, neglecting society's common good. Corruption and selfishness increase. The population becomes complacent and takes its liberties for granted. People lose interest in public affairs such as voting. Democracy becomes distrusted by many citizens. Apathy sets in and people become indifferent to their civic responsibilities. They rely on others to solve society’s problems. Congressional leadership becomes dysfunctional. As apathy deepens, dependence on government grows. 

Democracy at risk of being undermined in 2024:  Vote Blue!

New generations take on their attitudes about government from the current population. They live their lives without realizing their freedoms are fragile and can easily be taken away. Many citizens become victims of their own apathy and complacency. They want someone to solve all their problems. They look toward an authoritarian figure for the solution. This moves democracy away from its original purpose.

When a democracy reaches this stage, a person often emerges promising to solve all problems. They blame the current government as the problem. This person’s condemning statements drive wedges deeper between citizens and their government that amplifies the unrest. They present their self as saving the nation. Actually, they are feeding their own narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) with the intentions of replacing a democracy with an authoritarian type government. This authority approach is perceived by many citizens as a solution. They are unaware what changes may be dictated.

America’s democracy has reached this point.

Clinical psychologists describe a person with narcissistic personality disorder as having an unreasonably high sense of self-importance and requiring constant admiration. They feel they deserve privileges and special treatment. They demand to be recognized as superior. They belittle other people to make themselves appear superior. They are authoritarian by nature and falsely state their achievements while denying any responsibility for a failure. They are preoccupied with fantasies about success, power and recognition. People with this disorder have trouble handling comments they view as negative criticism. They react with rage when criticized or accused of a failure. They have difficulty managing their emotions and behavior. Under the veneer of leadership they dehumanize people who oppose them. They demean, enslave and exterminate those who oppose them. They take a cruel approach and cast the government as causing the problems in the current democracy.

A democracy is on its “death bed” when a person afflicted with narcissistic personality disorder becomes its leader. Combined with significant resources that include financial and dissident followers the person creates a power platform from which they foster hate against the existing government. They support homegrown terrorist and hate organizations to assist them in overthrowing the current government. Narcissistic rage occurs on a continuum which may range from passive-aggressive aloofness and expressions of irritation or annoyance to serious outbursts including extreme antisocial behavior. Narcissistic rage is the uncontrollable anger that results from a threat to a narcissist's self-esteem. The impact of false, emotional statements by the narcissistic individual become weapons against a democracy.

Throughout history, people afflicted with this disorder who have gained positions of power tended to be precisely the kind of people who should not be entrusted with it. The strongest desire for power is pursued by the most ruthless individuals lacking in compassion and humanitarian skills.

A person who appears to be afflicted with narcissistic personality disorder has been nominated as a U.S. presidential candidate. Those who visibly oppose America’s democracy are following him. If elected, all events leading to democracy failing will have been met. When a democracy fails, individual freedoms and civic governing laws go with it.

Every American must continue the fight to keep our democracy alive and working while making it even stronger. The tools to save America are citizens becoming active, understanding what is at stake and voting to keep our democracy.

*Richard C. "Dick" Hall, of Norman, is an Army veteran who served 30 years in federal civil service.

Donald Trump is mentally decompensating in real time but cult supporters are blind to his distored mind-games

TO THE EDITOR: Echo opinion letter Midland Daily News a daily newspaper which serves Midland County, Michigan.

Former guy Donald J. Trump is not running for president. Rather, he is running for “president for life,” an office that does not exist in our democracy. He did not accept defeat in 2020, and will not accept defeat in 2024, or any subsequent year.

Trumpzi cultism

In his mentally distorted mind-game, he views himself as the unaccountable ruler of this nation. It is apparent from his rhetoric and actions that he believes he has the right to do whatever he chooses, and to make his whims the law, his perceived enemies the nation’s enemies, and our current "rule of law" and systems of checks and balances to be subverted and violated with impunity.

He treats his twisted fantasies as the truth and expects everyone to go along with him no matter how much hurt he does to other persons, our nation or our planet home. He expects us to allow him dictatorial powers to punish anyone who opposes him and tries to deny him his preposterous phantasms of power. He is not a healthy, democratic, Constitution-abiding candidate, and we will demonstrate to the world that we are not healthy if we allow him to run for any office, much less the highest office of our beloved America.

Democracy is about being informed voters who are not taken in by sinister liars who misinform us to the ruin of our own lives. Democracy requires us to understand what democracy is and how its complex system of checks and balances works for the benefit of us all, and to not be taken in by those who would throw out all that we have accomplished in the nearly 250 years since our founding.

Donald Trump is not running for president to enable us to build on what has been accomplished. His dark fantasy 💀would snuff out our shining light of democracy and cast us into a dark age of dictatorial dementia.

Harold Slater in Midland Michigan

QAnon cult and Trumpism

Dear Editor: Donald Trump has embraced evil QAnon cult.
Dangerous Donald Trump has sold his soul to evil.

Echo opinion letter published in The Cap Times, in Madison, Wisconsin.

The conspiracy theories are so ridiculously crazy they would make you laugh if they weren’t so serious. Forty-three percent of this nation is off its rocker and the logical ones better be making a plan to defend our democracy.

Trump knows how to rile up QAnon and will use them again, as in the January 6th insurrectionist crowd, to do his bidding. When this blows up in our faces, and it will, a lot of them will die or be jailed for a lie, and Trump won’t give a rat’s behind about them. They are just pawns to him, and they don’t understand that.

"When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross," quote attributed to Nobel Prize writer Sinclair Lewis.

He said he wants a third world war. How does that make you feel? Voters who want democracy better get out in droves or you will lose more than women’s health rights. Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security will be right behind, then they’re coming for your children’s education.

It is this man’s goal to turn this nation into an S-hole country.

From Kevin Smith Neillsville, Wisconsin 

President Joe Biden Inaugural Address January 20, 2021

THE PRESIDENT Joseph Biden inauguration: 

"The work and prayers of centuries have brought us to this day"

Echo from the White House:

Chief Justice Roberts, Vice President Harris, Speaker Pelosi, Leader Schumer, Leader McConnell, Vice President Pence, distinguished guests, and my fellow Americans.

This is America’s day. This is democracy’s day. A day of history and hope. Of renewal and resolve.

Through a crucible for the ages America has been tested anew and America has risen to the challenge.

Today, we celebrate the triumph not of a candidate, but of a cause, the cause of democracy.

The will of the people has been heard and the will of the people has been heeded.

We have learned again that democracy is precious.

Democracy is fragile.  And, at this hour, my friends, (our) democracy prevailed.

So now, on this hallowed ground where just days ago violence sought to shake this Capitol’s very foundation, we come together as one nation, under God, indivisible, to carry out the peaceful transfer of power as we have for more than two centuries.

We look ahead in our uniquely American way – restless, bold, optimistic – and set our sights on the nation we know we can be and we must be.

I thank my predecessors of both parties for their presence here.

I thank them from the bottom of my heart.

You know the resilience of our Constitution and the strength of our nation.

As does President Carter, who I spoke to last night but who cannot be with us today, but whom we salute for his lifetime of service.

I have just taken the sacred oath each of these patriots took — an oath first sworn by George Washington.

But the American story depends not on any one of us, not on some of us, but on all of us.

On “We the People” who seek a more perfect Union.

This is a great nation and we are a good people.

Over the centuries through storm and strife, in peace and in war, we have come so far. But we still have far to go.

We will press forward with speed and urgency, for we have much to do in this winter of peril and possibility.

Much to repair. Much to restore. Much to heal. Much to build.

And much to gain.

Few periods in our nation’s history have been more challenging or difficult than the one we’re in now.

A once-in-a-century virus silently stalks the country.

It’s taken as many lives in one year as America lost in all of World War II.

Millions of jobs have been lost.

Hundreds of thousands of businesses closed.

A cry for racial justice some 400 years in the making moves us. The dream of justice for all will be deferred no longer.

A cry for survival comes from the planet itself. A cry that can’t be any more desperate or any more clear.

And now, a rise in political extremism, white supremacy, domestic terrorism that we must confront and we will defeat.

To overcome these challenges – to restore the soul and to secure the future of America – requires more than words.

It requires that most elusive of things in a democracy:

Unity.

Unity.

In another January in Washington, on New Year’s Day 1863, Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation.

When he put pen to paper, the President said, “If my name ever goes down into history it will be for this act and my whole soul is in it.”

My whole soul is in it.

Today, on this January day, my whole soul is in this:

Bringing America together.

Uniting our people.

And uniting our nation.

I ask every American to join me in this cause.

Uniting to fight the common foes we face:

Anger, resentment, hatred.

Extremism, lawlessness, violence.

Disease, joblessness, hopelessness.

With unity we can do great things. Important things.

We can right wrongs. We can put people to work in good jobs.

We can teach our children in safe schools.
We can overcome this deadly virus.
We can reward work, rebuild the middle class, and make health care
secure for all.
We can deliver racial justice.

We can make America, once again, the leading force for good in the world.

I know speaking of unity can sound to some like a foolish fantasy.

I know the forces that divide us are deep and they are real.

But I also know they are not new.

Our history has been a constant struggle between the American ideal that we are all created equal and the harsh, ugly reality that racism, nativism, fear, and demonization have long torn us apart.

The battle is perennial.  Victory is never assured.

Through the Civil War, the Great Depression, World War, 9/11, through struggle, sacrifice, and setbacks, our “better angels” have always prevailed.

In each of these moments, enough of us came together to carry all of us forward.

And, we can do so now.
History, faith, and reason show the way, the way of unity.

We can see each other not as adversaries but as neighbors.

We can treat each other with dignity and respect.

We can join forces, stop the shouting, and lower the temperature.

For without unity, there is no peace, only bitterness and fury.

No progress, only exhausting outrage. No nation, only a state of chaos.

This is our historic moment of crisis and challenge, and unity is the path forward.

Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor 

And, we must meet this moment as the United States of America.

If we do that, I guarantee you, we will not fail.

We have never, ever, ever failed in America when we have acted together.

And so today, at this time and in this place, let us start afresh.

All of us.  Let us listen to one another.

Hear one another. See one another. Show respect to one another.

Politics need not be a raging fire destroying everything in its path.

Every disagreement doesn’t have to be a cause for total war.

And, we must reject a culture in which facts themselves are manipulated and even manufactured.

My fellow Americans, we have to be different than this.

America has to be better than this.

And, I believe America is better than this.

Just look around.

Here we stand, in the shadow of a Capitol dome that was completed amid the Civil War, when the Union itself hung in the balance.

Yet we endured and we prevailed.

Here we stand looking out to the great Mall where Dr. King spoke of his dream.

Here we stand, where 108 years ago at another inaugural, thousands of protestors tried to block brave women from marching for the right to vote.

Today, we mark the swearing-in of the first woman in American history elected to national office – Vice President Kamala Harris.

Don’t tell me things can’t change.

Here we stand across the Potomac from Arlington National Cemetery, where heroes who gave the last full measure of devotion rest in eternal peace.

And here we stand, just days after a riotous mob thought they could use violence to silence the will of the people, to stop the work of our democracy, and to drive us from this sacred ground.

That did not happen.

It will never happen. Not today. Not tomorrow. Not ever.

To all those who supported our campaign I am humbled by the faith you have placed in us.

To all those who did not support us, let me say this: Hear me out as we move forward. Take a measure of me and my heart.

And if you still disagree, so be it.

That’s democracy. That’s America. The right to dissent peaceably, within the guardrails of our Republic, is perhaps our nation’s greatest strength.

Yet hear me clearly: Disagreement must not lead to disunion.

And I pledge this to you: I will be a President for all Americans.

I will fight as hard for those who did not support me as for those who did.

Many centuries ago, Saint Augustine, a saint of my church, wrote that a people was a multitude defined by the common objects of their love.

What are the common objects we love that define us as Americans?

I think I know. Opportunity. Security. Liberty. Dignity. Respect.

Honor!

And, yes, the truth.

Recent weeks and months have taught us a painful lesson.

There is truth and there are lies.

Lies told for power and for profit.

And each of us has a duty and responsibility, as citizens, as Americans, and especially as leaders – leaders who have pledged to honor our Constitution and protect our nation — to defend the truth and to defeat the lies.

I understand that many Americans view the future with some fear and trepidation.

I understand they worry about their jobs, about taking care of their families, about what comes next.

I get it.

But the answer is not to turn inward, to retreat into competing factions, distrusting those who don’t look like you do, or worship the way you do, or don’t get their news from the same sources you do.

We must end this uncivil war that pits red against blue, rural versus urban, conservative versus liberal.

We can do this if we open our souls instead of hardening our hearts.

If we show a little tolerance and humility.

If we’re willing to stand in the other person’s shoes just for a moment.  Because, here is the thing about life: There is no accounting for what fate will deal you. 

There are some days when we need a hand.

There are other days when we’re called on to lend one.

That is how we must be with one another.

And, if we are this way, our country will be stronger, more prosperous, more ready for the future.

My fellow Americans, in the work ahead of us, we will need each other.

We will need all our strength to persevere through this dark winter.

We are entering what may well be the toughest and deadliest period of the virus.

We must set aside the politics and finally face this pandemic as one nation.

I promise you this: as the Bible says weeping may endure for a night but joy cometh in the morning.

We will get through this, together

The world is watching today.

So here is my message to those beyond our borders: America has been tested and we have come out stronger for it.

We will repair our alliances and engage with the world once again.

Not to meet yesterday’s challenges, but today’s and tomorrow’s.

We will lead not merely by the example of our power but by the power of our example.

We will be a strong and trusted partner for peace, progress, and security.

We have been through so much in this nation.

And, in my first act as President, I would like to ask you to join me in a moment of silent prayer to remember all those we lost this past year to the pandemic.

To those 400,000 fellow Americans – mothers and fathers, husbands and wives, sons and daughters, friends, neighbors, and co-workers.

We will honor them by becoming the people and nation we know we can and should be.

Let us say a silent prayer for those who lost their lives, for those they left behind, and for our country.

Amen.

This is time for testing. We face an attack on democracy and truth.

A raging virus. Growing inequity. The sting of systemic racism.

A climate in crisis.

America’s role in the world.

Any one of these would be enough to challenge us in profound ways.

But the fact is we face them all at once, presenting this nation with the gravest of responsibilities.

Now we must step up.  All of us!

It is a time for boldness, for there is so much to do.

And, this is certain.

We will be judged, you and I, for how we resolve the cascading crises of our era.

Will we rise to the occasion?

Will we master this rare and difficult hour?

Will we meet our obligations and pass along a new and better world for our children?

I believe we must and I believe we will.

And when we do, we will write the next chapter in the American story.

It’s a story that might sound something like a song that means a lot to me.

It’s called “American Anthem” and there is one verse stands out for me:

“The work and prayers
of centuries have brought us to this day
What shall be our legacy?
What will our children say?…
Let me know in my heart
When my days are through
America
America
I gave my best to you.”

Let us add our own work and prayers to the unfolding story of our nation.

If we do this then when our days are through our children and our children’s children will say of us they gave their best.

They did their duty.

They healed a broken land.

My fellow Americans, I close today where I began, with a sacred oath.

Before God and all of you I give you my word.

I will always level with you.

I will defend the Constitution.

I will defend our democracy.

I will defend America.

I will give my all in your service thinking not of power, but of possibilities.

Not of personal interest, but of the public good.

And together, we shall write an American story of hope, not fear.

Of unity, not division.  Of light, not darkness.

An American story of decency and dignity.

Of love and of healing.  Of greatness and of goodness.

May this be the story that guides us.

The story that inspires us.

The story that tells ages yet to come that we answered the call of history.

We met the moment.

That democracy and hope, truth and justice, did not die on our watch but thrived.

That our America secured liberty at home and stood once again as a beacon to the world.

That is what we owe our forebearers, one another, and generations to follow.

So, with purpose and resolve we turn to the tasks of our time.

Sustained by faith.  Driven by conviction.

And, devoted to one another and to this country we love with all our hearts.

May God bless America and may God protect our troops.

Thank you, America.

This man cannot remain in power- Vladimir Putin must go

Ukraine: The Stakes for Democracy by 
Michael Waldman in Brennan Center for Justice

The World Is Falling In Love With Ukraine. It’s Beautiful—And Painful—To Watch

The war in Ukraine reminds us that our own democracy is worth fighting for. Do not take democracy for granted. 

We are all mesmer­ized, horri­fied, furi­ous about Russi­a’s barbaric attack on Ukraine. The human toll, the wanton viol­ence aimed at civil­ians, the 2 million refugees . . . the inspir­ing sight of ordin­ary people mobil­iz­ing to fight for their homes . . . all impel us to care so deeply.

Some­thing else stirs our hearts, too: Ukraine is a demo­cracy. Russia is a dictat­or­ship. So the battle for Ukraine today is the front­line of the fight for demo­cracy.

This broader conflict has been years in the making, though not always visible. Demo­crat­iz­a­tion swept the world in the late 1980s. In just a few years, East­ern Europe had nonvi­ol­ent pro-demo­cracy revolu­tions, the Soviet Union collapsed, Nelson Mandela was released from prison and elec­ted pres­id­ent of South Africa. Even in China, a massacre in Tianan­men Square was required to preserve the regime. Liberal demo­cracy, accom­pan­ied by free markets, seemed the wave of the future.

Demo­crat­iz­a­tion now faces a global back­lash, a retrench­ment. In Turkey, in India, in the Phil­ip­pines, in Hungary and Poland, lead­ers were elec­ted and revealed them­selves to be auto­crats. In China, Xi Jinping has hoarded the Commun­ist Party’s power into his own hands.

For a decade, we watched Vladi­mir Putin stir trouble. He backed Brexit and threw his weight around in the French pres­id­en­tial elec­tion. And of course, in 2016 he inter­vened in our elec­tion, hack­ing Demo­cratic emails to help elect Donald Trump. The pres­id­ent whom Putin backed, in the end, tried to over­throw Amer­ican demo­cracy.

It long seemed savvy to say that Putin simply wanted to sow chaos. In fact, he invari­ably backed author­it­arian forces. They often spoke in the language of anti-immig­rant nation­al­ism and reli­gious ortho­doxy. Putin wasn’t just making trouble — he was waging an ideo­lo­gical war for right-wing social and polit­ical values.

It’s easy to forget that Putin’s help came as Trump removed support for Ukraine from the Repub­lican plat­form in 2016. His campaign manager, Paul Mana­fort, was being paid by pro-Russian olig­archs. And Trump’s first impeach­ment was promp­ted by his corrupt bid to black­mail Pres­id­ent Vlodymyr Zelensky, threat­en­ing to deny milit­ary aid unless the Ukrain­ian concocted smears against Joe Biden and his family. (I write about it in the journal Demo­cracy in a review of Rep. Adam Schiff’s book.)

Ukraine is far from perfect. It’s corrupt and domin­ated by olig­archs. Like Russia it has a bloody ethnon­a­tion­al­ist history. But when Ukraine — the coun­try from which my family fled after anti-Semitic pogroms that killed tens of thou­sands — elec­ted a Jewish pres­id­ent without batting an eye, it suggests some­thing very differ­ent and very hope­ful lives there.

No illusions: Evil Vladimir Putin will try everything to bomb the Ukraine into submission

If noth­ing else, the emotional outpour­ing for Ukraine can remind us of why we must fight for our own demo­cracy. When Zelensky and his people talk about “free­dom” and “demo­cracy” they aren’t just spout­ing slogans. They are risk­ing their lives. The images from Kyiv display the beauty and the power of a system based on the accu­mu­lated choices of millions of citizens, and why we must fight for it — and that fight is some­thing we must wage here, in our own home, as well.

President Biden identifies "the former president is a defeated president"

Biden’s Jan. 6 speech sets the stage for a battle for truth and democracy: echo opinions*!

HELLO? For the past year, since he was elected in 2019, to be president in 2020, President Biden has tried to be his old, bipartisan, “we can all get along” self.

President Biden ignored his authoritarian predecessor and the lies he continued to spread about the 2020, election. He went out of his way to construct an infrastructure bill that could draw Republican support and hoped to accomplish more in partnership with the opposition. 

Moreover, President Biden desperately wanted the country and Washington DC, to return to being what they were when he was first elected to the Senate, in 1972.

But, finally, all that changed on January 6, 2022:

It has always been clear, but not always clearly stated, that the person responsible for the deadly insurrection at the U.S. Capitol last January 6, was Donald Trump. In his January 6 speech on Thursday, President Biden called Trump out — without once mentioning his name.

Speaking in the Capitol’s historic Statuary Hall, on the first anniversary of the failed coup attempt, Biden minced no words about the man he beat in the 2020 election. “He can’t accept he lost,” Biden said. “He’s not just the former president, he’s the defeated former president. … You can’t love your country only when you win.”

There were no new revelations from Biden and Vice President Harris about the shockingly violent events we all witnessed a year ago. But I did think I was hearing a new tone from an administration that, until now, has tried to look ahead rather than behind and has avoided re-litigating the Trump years. “I did not seek this fight,” Biden said. “But I will not shrink from it either.”

By “this fight,” Biden meant the effort to repair and reinforce our democracy after the brutalization it suffered under Trumpism. But I had to wonder whether the speech might someday be remembered as the opening salvo of a 2024 Biden-Trump rematch.

The quick response Thursday from the defeated former president suggested that Biden’s words had gotten under his skin. In a statement, Trump falsely claimed that Biden “used my name today to try to further divide America.” Since Trump’s lies often map his fears and obsessions, it sounds to me as if it might unnerve him that Biden didn’t say his name at all.

Harris, in her own remarks, set the context for Biden’s speech by putting the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection on par with two other dates that “echo throughout history” — the Dec. 7, 1941, Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor; and the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks at the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. The Capitol riot showed “what our nation would look like if the forces that seek to dismantle our democracy are successful,” she said.

The logical inference is that, like the attack on Pearl Harbor and 9/11, the insurrection sent us into a war. “We are in a battle for the soul of America,” Biden said. This time, though, the enemy is not foreign but domestic. And that enemy of our democracy has a name, even if Biden declined to let it cross his lips.

In brief remarks to reporters after the speech, Biden said that to heal, “you have to recognize the extent of the wound.” 

Last year, in the hours after the insurrection, even some of Trump’s closest political allies saw those wounds clearly and were outraged. Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) said that he was finished with Trump once and for all. Then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) put the blame squarely on Trump. 

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), who had pleaded with Trump to tell the rioters to go home, said Trump was responsible for the insurrection.

What a difference a year makes. On Thursday, Graham attacked Biden — not Trump — for what he called “brazen politicization” of the anniversary. McConnell, too, accused “some Washington Democrats” of trying to “exploit this anniversary.” And McCarthy, like almost all of his fellow Republicans in Congress, was conspicuously absent from the day’s events commemorating the worst assault on the Capitol since British troops burned the building in 1814.

Biden asked, “Are we going to be a nation that lives not by the light of the truth but in the shadow of lies?” The fact that this question had to be raised at all shows what the president is up against: To survive in today’s Republican Party, officials and candidates cannot afford to anger Trump; and to avoid Trump’s wrath, they cannot forcefully reject his lies about the election purportedly having been “stolen.”

President Biden spent much of his speech refuting those lies with facts and logic. I hope he returns to the subject regularly in the weeks and months to come. Largely ignoring Trump hasn’t weakened his hold on the GOP. The defeated former president must be treated like any other bully: You have to stand up to him.

Trump and his allies will continue to claim that telling the truth about Jan. 6 is some kind of partisan political ploy. It is not. More than 140 police officers were injured in the melee. 

Several officers later died. An insurrectionist was shot as the mob breached the Capitol. The nation was traumatized. And none of this would have happened if Trump had not illegally tried to cling to power by overturning the will of 81 million voters.


Biden has to lead the fight for truth and democracy. 

Losing is not an option.

* Opinion by Eugene Robinson, who writes a twice-a-week column on politics and culture.

Failed Trump leadership will require aggressive repairs

#Vote_Blue! 

Hillary Clinton warned us about Trump’s dangerous views on guns.

What Trump is breaking in our hard won democracy will take a long time to repair ~ opinion echo published in the San Antonio Express News by author Eugene Robinson

As the saying goes, you don’t miss the water until the well runs dry. This deeply aberrant presidency threatens to cost the nation much more than even some of Donald Trump’s harshest critics may realize.

From 1988-1992, I was the Washington Post’s correspondent in Buenos Aires, covering all of South America. It was a time when countries such as Argentina, Brazil, Peru and Chile — emerging from years of authoritarian rule — were struggling to re-establish democratic norms, and I learned one important lesson: It’s easy to lose the habits and values of democracy, but incredibly hard to get them back.

Perhaps most difficult of all is to recover lost faith in the rule of law. That is why Trump’s very public desire to use the legal system as a weapon against his political opponents is so damaging. “Lock her up” is more than a call to imprison Hillary Clinton. It is, potentially, a tragic epitaph for the consensus view of our legal system as a disinterested finder of fact and dispenser of justice.

In the countries I covered, military rulers had imprisoned, exiled and assassinated their internal foes. It was understandable that democratically elected governments would struggle — sometimes successfully, sometimes not — to find ways to hold the murderous generals and admirals accountable. Decades later, however, the pattern still persists.

Democratically elected presidents such as Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner of Argentina and Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva of Brazil have been hit with serious criminal charges since leaving office. Alberto Fujimori of Peru was extradited from Chile, tried and imprisoned for years before the current president pardoned him on humanitarian grounds. In the United States, we do not seek to jail our out-of-power leaders. Trump, with his repeated calls for the Justice Department to go after Clinton, is determined to establish the custom.

Those former leaders were charged not just with political offenses but also with corruption — another bad habit that Trump is trying to instill.

In most of the South American countries I covered, transparency was a joke. Public officials were assumed to be in the pocket of some special interest — rewarded not just with campaign donations but with secret offshore bank accounts and the occasional suitcase full of cash. I reported on a coup in Paraguay that was led by a general — a lifelong public servant — who, even before seizing the presidency, had built himself a mansion that looked like a replica of the Petit Trianon palace at Versailles.
Trump and his family have refused to divest themselves of their businesses or even draw more than a flimsy veil between their official actions and the impact those actions have on their personal finances. Does the administration’s policy toward Panama really have nothing to do with a bitter dispute over the Trump-branded hotel in Panama City? Does the administration’s tough new attitude toward Qatar really have nothing to do with that nation’s refusal to invest in Jared Kushner’s debt-laden real estate company?
It’s not the potential answers to those questions that are so corrosive; it’s the questions themselves. 

As in many countries whose governance we scoff at, Americans must now wonder whether policy is being tailored for our leaders’ personal gain.

During my years in Buenos Aires, every once in a while some renegade military officer would make a pathetic attempt to stage a new coup; once, when I called home at the end of a long reporting trip, my wife matter-of-factly advised that from the airport I take the long way to our house because a would-be generalissimo was blocking the shortcut with a bunch of tanks, making traffic simply a mess.

I came to cherish the long American tradition of civilian control of the military. 

Now we are forced to rely on three generals — Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, chief of staff John Kelly and national security adviser H.R. McMaster — to keep an ignorant and impetuous president from rashly triggering Armageddon.

Despite his recent joke about making himself president for life, Trump won’t be around forever. 

But the damage he is doing will remain — and it may take years of hard work to repair.

eugenerobinson@washpost.com