Government

A Day Like No Other

Keep those insurrectionist, maskless bodies out of Southern California.

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The U.S. Capitol (photo by David Lat).

I had a draft of my column that I was to submit Wednesday night for Thursday publication, but I advised my editor, Staci Zaretsky, that after seeing Wednesday’s events, I was shelving the column until I was in a better mood and would not have anything for this week. Everything seemed so inconsequential considering those events in D.C. as well as the incredibly horrible conditions here in SoCal as the virus runs rampant. Was I watching two forms of death? Both the virus spreading uncontrolled, at least here in SoCal, and the death of democracy as we have known it?

Hopefully, democracy will continue, bruised, battered, and bleeding as it is. The virus? There are now vaccines and if everyone gets vaccinated, we will eventually be okay. But is there a vaccine for the virus that has infected our body politic? I wish I knew.

I think that Wednesday was a turning point for us. Watching the videos, trying to wrap my head around what happened. Whether the turning point will be good or bad is to be determined. For the dinosaurs among us, remember when President John F. Kennedy was assassinated? We remember vividly where we were when we got the news that he had been shot. To this day, I can see Walter Cronkite of CBS News announcing Kennedy’s death and wiping his eyes. The nation was stunned, shocked, horrified. The nation would never be the same, and it wasn’t.

I may still have the Chicago Sun-Times newspaper that published Bill Mauldin’s “cartoon” of the Lincoln memorial with Lincoln, head in his hands.   It is still heart-wrenching, almost sixty years later.

So, almost 60 years later, and if Bill Mauldin were still alive, I think that he would tell his editorial page editor to run that same image again, today, now.

Many people are stunned, horrified, and shocked. I am heartsick, heartbroken, and fearful. Had the riot yesterday been a Black Lives Matter protest, police would have been out in force from the get-go. Not so yesterday. Racial double standard? You think?

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This is not my country, the country whose constitution I have sworn to protect and defend. I haven’t been this fearful about our country since the Kennedy assassination. Is it time for me to say kaddish, the mourner’s prayer?

But there are several things to be hopeful about: Congress did its job and certified the winner, showing that it was not going to be bullied, as so many have been during the past four years. Twitter blocked President Trump’s account, ditto Facebook, for the remainder of his term, but why weren’t those steps taken previously? Social media is unsocial media, and there should be limits on what can be said. Yes, I know First Amendment rights and all, but is it okay to yell “fire” in a crowded theater? Not that there are crowded theaters anywhere these days. Let’s stipulate that social media, in all its various platforms, contributed to what unfolded. Shame on them.

Please excuse the “coming together” mediator speak, but I think that is exactly what we need to do, to tamp the fires of incitement and hopefully return to a more rational environment of thoughtful disagreement, no more yelling, no more in your face, no more bearing arms to a rally.  We need to turn down the volume if we are going to survive.

“Only connect.” That’s the epigraph in E.M. Forster’s novel “Howard’s End.” Those two words say it best. We need to connect with each other in positive ways, even when we disagree, and we are not a nation of sheep, nor should we be. But, as we have seen, brooking no disagreement, bullying, and trash talking lead to unwanted and unintended consequences.

I had advised Staci that I would not be writing this week because of how I was feeling while watching events unfold, and that as much as I loved snark, that this was not the week for it.

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However, I just can’t help myself as I love snark. Two senators with pedigrees from Harvard and Yale law schools must have snored their way through Con Law. I went to an “untiered,” now-closed law school, but I understand Con Law.

And while the virus runs amok here, I couldn’t help noticing how many of the people storming the Capitol were maskless, but no surprise there. Superspreader event? What do you think?

Keep those insurrectionist, maskless bodies out of Southern California. We’re starting to ration care here. I’d put those thugs who participated in Washington’s chaos on Wednesday at the bottom of the triage list.

Jill Switzer has been an active member of the State Bar of California for over 40 years. She remembers practicing law in a kinder, gentler time. She’s had a diverse legal career, including stints as a deputy district attorney, a solo practice, and several senior in-house gigs. She now mediates full-time, which gives her the opportunity to see dinosaurs, millennials, and those in-between interact — it’s not always civil. You can reach her by email at oldladylawyer@gmail.com.

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