The Resistance & Me: Complicity

One way or another, Donald Trump will face a reckoning for his part in the mob attack on the Capital on January 6th. In a House vote that included ten Republicans voting for impeachment, the Article of Impeachment, entitled Incitement to Insurrection, states that “Donald John Trump engaged in high crimes and Misdemeanors by inciting violence against the Government of the United States.” He is the only president to be impeached twice. Whether there is a conviction in a Senate trial or not, this becomes part of the official legacy of Trump’s presidency. Already, the brand of his name has suffered with businesses withdrawing their association with him. He is banned for life from Twitter and Facebook. Corporations are announcing they will no longer give political donations to politicians who fanned the flames of the insurrection. January 6th and the riot he incited with his big lie that the election was stolen from him, will be added to the pantheon of dates that live in infamy in American history. And it will always have his name on it.

Those of us in the anti-Trump Resistance have been warning about the danger to our democracy from a craven and immoral president for four years, a danger that was compounded exponentially by the Republican Party and right-wing media. It all came to a head in an explosion of hate and violence that was both surprising but also tragically inevitable.

And yet, the insurrection left us stunned and in shock. The first few days after the riot, I was overcome by a deep sense of paralysis. Some of that came from the whiplash of careening from joy to despair in less than 24 hours. In the early hours of January 6^th, we celebrated the projected Democratic wins in the Georgia runoff. Then the same day, we mourned the death and destruction at the Capital.

Over time, as more videos were made public, the murderous intent of many of the rioters Trump exhorted to “fight like hell” came into sharper focus. Shock gave way to anger and demands for accountability. As the House Democrats go forward with impeachment, the FBI is arresting rioters around the country and investigations are underway for the massive security failure. This is a fast-moving story, with updates by the hour.

But what of the other insurrectionists, those Republican Party members not named Trump who also incited the rioters by promoting the lie of a stolen election? If not for them using the pro forma event of certifying the electoral college vote as a platform to object to the Biden-Harris win, the “Stop the Steal” rally turned riot probably would not have happened. His GOP enablers gave the lie a legitimacy. Their complicity made it real. Where is the accountability for them?

When I began my journey with the anti-Trump Resistance, after the 2017 Women’s March four years ago – with not one incidence of violence – I learned from Indivisible to … [more].

SHDEMS member Barbara Weber-Floyd is an experienced journalist and the author of The Resistance and Me: An Insider’s Account of the Two-Year Mission to Stop the Trump Agenda and Take Back the House.  A unique work of history, it chronicles the rise of the anti-Trump Resistance by introducing the reader to the amazing women of the SHDEMS and the grassroots who powered this movement in our district. Barbara continues to cover how politics and the issues of the day impact our district through her blog, www.theresistanceandme.com.  She is also working on a second book about the women of the Resistance and how, despite the constraints of the pandemic, they helped elect Joe Biden and Kamala Harris in the 2020 presidential election.