After the attacks on the US Capitol, don’t talk patriotism — live it.

By: Isaac Eagan, Truman National Security Project Defense Council
This piece was repurposed from a social media post by the author

I spent a considerable amount of time in Georgia over the past month, first in Augusta and then in Atlanta, serving as a poll watcher alongside courageous election officials to help ensure every eligible voter — regardless of their background or party affiliation — could cast their ballot in the Senate runoff. What I witnessed in Georgia resonated deeply as one of the most powerful, heartening examples of our democracy in action. I saw 60 year-olds compelled to vote for the first time. I saw inner city youth collect their peers and shepherd them to the polling stations, ensuring they brought the right identification to legally cast their ballots. I saw old and young, black and white, rich and poor, Republican and Democrat, all exercising their right as Americans. This experience stood in stark contrast to Wednesday’s tragedy, serving as a powerful reminder that we can and must do better as a nation.

I returned to DC on the afternoon of January 6, 2021, to one of the saddest, darkest episodes in America’s history. Right-wing domestic terrorists, driven by baseless conspiracy theories advanced by the President of the United States and his entourage, stormed the seat of American government, the first time our Capitol was breached by enemies of the Republic since 1814. Every single citizen of this nation should be heartbroken and outraged by this blatant act of sedition.

However, we should not be surprised, for this senseless act of violence did not spring up out of nowhere. If there’s one thing that can be said about the President, he’s always been transparent about his intentions. We have always known exactly what he stood for. In November, 74 million Americans — after Charlottesville, after Lafayette Square, after “very fine people on both sides”, after “Proud Boys, stand back and stand by”, and on and on — made a conscious decision to vote for a second Trump term. Those 74 million are complicit in yesterday’s criminal act, having either tacitly or directly enabled and abetted the President’s lies, racism, bigotry, self-aggrandizement, and incitements to violence.

Spare me your tough guy antics, your “All Lives Matter” and “Law and Order” nonsense, your ridiculous claims of voter fraud (thoroughly debunked by Republican officials, among many others), your “But what about antifa?!?” false equivalency (on that last note, come talk to me when left-wing domestic terrorists are egged on by the President of the United States). Do some soul searching. Get off Facebook, Fox News, OANN, and Newsmax. Ignore the demagogues and sycophants seeking to divide the country for personal gain. Read some history. Seek out facts. Conduct basic analysis of the information in front of you. Engage someone who doesn’t look like you. Be curious.

Don’t talk patriotism — live it.

Do it for your country. Do it for your children. Do it for yourselves.

We can be better than this, if we so choose. Wednesday’s horror doesn’t have to happen again.