At least on Jan. 6, 2021, the insurrectionists on Capitol Hill had to push aside some flimsy metal barricades before they could carry out their assault on the seat of U.S. governance. Nearly two years later, the 20 or so GOP heirs to the toxic legacy of their patron saint, Donald Trump, didn’t even have to pass through metal detectors to bring the U.S. House of Representatives to a longer and probably more damaging shutdown than Trump’s failed coup.
It’s way too fitting that — in a moment of a historic leadership vacuum — no one even knows exactly who ordered this week’s removal of the magnetometers meant to provide an added layer of security in the days after 2021′s violent assault, which left scores of wounded cops and resulted in at least five deaths. For now, the only harm is symbolic. Metal detectors, after all, might catch the flagpoles or fire extinguishers that disorganized yahoos used to shut down Congress for 10 hours in that first uprising. But we don’t yet have the technology to detect what has now paralyzed Washington for three days and counting in 2023: toxic narcissism.
In an alternate timeline, the news in this foggy first week of the new year might be dominated by anniversary journalism, about what we’ve learned since the shock of Jan. 6, 2021, to prevent something like that from ever happening again. Instead, America is again transfixed by utter chaos echoing across those exact same marble corridors of the U.S. Capitol. The only difference is that in this new national horror show, the calls are coming from inside the House. We can’t move on, let alone learn, from 2021′s insurrection when that uprising — crippling our government in the name of celebrity fascism — never ended.
