Brian's Song

U.S. Capitol police officer Brian Sicknick lived life to the fullest and loved his job as one of the officers protecting the headquarters of Congress.  Killed during the January 6 insurrection, he was memorialized in the Capitol rotunda when his ashes were brought to lie in honor there.  His remains have been interred in Arlington National Cemetery in recognition of not just his sacrifice at the Capitol but for his service in the Air National Guard.

Officer Sicknick's fate should fire up efforts to punish Donald Trump for inciting a riot against the legislative branch of the federal government, as his impeachment trial begins this coming Tuesday.  But Senate Republicans remain mostly noncommittal to the idea of conviction; an acquittal, now seen as inevitable, will squander Congress's last chance to ensure that Trump can't stand for the Presidency again in 2024.  But more importantly, it means that the Republicans will do nothing in standing up to the extremist, reactionary wing of their party, and the GOP could regain power in the 2022 midterms and the 2024 elections if the vote is close enough, whether Trump runs to get his old job back or not.  And thanks to redistricting and voter suppression, it just might.

Brian Sicknick's memory shouldn't be dishonored like this.  We learn almost every day new facts about how the insurrection came close to mass assassinations of elected officials.  Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D_NY), whatever you think of her politics, deserves sympathy for coming close to death on January 6 and having the relive her experience with sexual assault while the mob went about like the madmen they were to kill whoever was in their path. Ocasio-Cortez heard the cries of "Where is she? Where is she?" whiel in hiding and might very well have been convinced they were coming for her, so much has she become a bogeywoman for the Republican right.  The woman the mob was looking for was, more likely, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and that an institutionalist like Pelosi and a staunch progressive like AOC could inspire the same level of rage among these extremists is one of the most horrific ironies of the Trump base's extent of their hatred.

Yes, it makes no sense to acquit Trump, but we are told that this is inevitable.  News flash: So was a Hillary Clinton Presidency in 2016.  Nothing is really "inevitable." And if even if Trump doesn't get convicted in the Senate, he could still get convicted in a criminal court in New York State.  The state Attorney General's office there may very well see to that.