January 6th "Insurrection Day"

Just as July 4th is Independence Day, January 6th will be forever known "Insurrection Day", a day on which Trump's final coup de grace, a coup d'etat, was to incite a mob he had called on to come to Washington D.C. and then told them to go to the Capitol and "show strength", "be strong". 

Unsurprisingly, they took this, as he intended but will never admit, to mean using force to get him what he (and they) wanted which was to disrupt the certification of Biden's victory.  

It is tempting to dismiss this as just another Trumpian episode, particularity since Congress did finally complete its certification in the early hours of Thursday morning. But that would be a mistake.  

First of all, one person was shot trying to break into the House chamber. Second, it is the tip of the iceberg and speaks to a much more enduring social problem that will outlast Trump but not his ilk. 

Jamie Dimon, JPMorgan Chase's CEO used the banal and hackneyed aphorism “This is not who we are as a people or a country. We are better than this". But all the evidence suggests his statement is at best aspirational, if not delusional. It is precisely who seventy one million Americans have said quite clearly that they indeed are; after 5 years of Trump's lies, broken promises, bullying, and general misbehavior, not to mention absurd incompetence, they voted to reelect him. And, according to polling, a large majority of them truly believe the election was rigged and voter fraud was widespread. That puts the "Great American Experiment" at considerable risk.