THENEWYORKER,JANUARY18, 2021 11
COMMENT
THEFINALDAYS
O
n March 4, 1861, Abraham Lin
coln arrived at the East Portico
of the Capitol to deliver his first Inau
gural Address. The nation was collaps
ing, the Southern slave states seceding.
Word of an assassination conspiracy
forced Lincoln to travel to the event
under military guard. The Capitol build
ing itself, sheathed in scaffolding, pro
vided an easy metaphor for an unfin
ished republic. The immense bronze
sculpture known as the Statue of Free
dom had not yet been placed on the
dome. It was still being cast on the out
skirts of Washington.
Lincoln posed a direct question to
the riven union. “Before entering upon
so grave a matter as the destruction of
our national fabric,” he said, “with all
its benefits, its memories and its hopes,
would it not be wise to ascertain pre
cisely why we do it?” The South, in its
drive to preserve chattel slavery, replied
the following month, when Confeder
ate batteries opened fire on Fort Sum
ter. Even as the Civil War death toll
mounted, Lincoln ordered work to con
tinue on the dome. “If people see the
Capitol going on,” he said, “it is a sign
we intend the Union shall go on.”
That was the first Republican Pres
ident. The most recent one woke up last
Wednesday in a rage, his powers reced
ing, his psyche unravelling. Donald
Trump had already lost the White
House. Now, despite his best demagogic
efforts in Georgia, he had failed to res
cue the Senate for the Republican Party.
Georgia would be represented by two
Democrats: the Reverend Raphael War
nock and Jon Ossoff, the first Afri
canAmerican and the first Jew, respec
tively, to be elected to the chamber by
that state’s citizens.
At midday, Trump went to the El
lipse and spoke at a rally of maga sup
porters whom he had called on to help
overturn the outcome of a free and fair
election. From the podium, he said that
the vote against him was “a criminal en
terprise.” He told the crowd, “If you
don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to
have a country anymore.” He raged on
like a wounded beast for about an hour,
thanking his supporters for their “extra
ordinary love” and urging them to march
to the Capitol: “I’ll be there with you.”
Trump, of course, would not be there
with them. Cincinnatus went home and
watched the ensuing riot on television.
One vacanteyed insurrectionist had on
a hoodie with “Camp Auschwitz” writ
ILLUSTRATIONS BY JOÃO FAZENDA
THE TALK OF THE TOWN
ten across the chest; another wore what
the Times fashion critic described as “a
sphagnumcovered ghillie suit.” Then
came the results of Trump’s vile incite
ment: the broken windows and the as
sault on a pitifully small police force;
the brandishing of the Confederate flag;
the smug seizure of the Speaker’s office.
A rioter scrawled “Murder the Media”
on a door.
The insurrection lasted four hours.
(As of Friday, there were five dead.)
Once the Capitol was cleared, the sol
emn assurances that “this is not who
we are” began. The attempt at selfsooth
ing after such a traumatic event is un
derstandable, but it is delusional. Was
Charlottesville not who we are? Did
more than seventy million people not
vote for the InciterinChief? Surely,
these events are part of who we are, part
of the American picture. To ignore those
parts, those features of our national land
scape, is to fail to confront them.
Meanwhile, with less than two weeks
left in Trump’s Presidency, some of his
most ardent supporters are undergoing
a moral awakening. An instinct for
selfpreservation has taken hold. A few
Cabinet members and White House
officials have resigned. Former associ
ates, once obsequious in their service to
the President, have issued rueful denun
ciations. The editors of the Wall Street
Journal ’s editorial page determined that,
while removal under the Twentyfifth
Amendment, as demanded by the Dem
ocratic congressional leadership, is “un
wise,” the President should resign.
The millions of Americans who un
derstood this Presidency from its first
day as a national emergency, a threat to
