Talking to Myself, #4: Quid Pro Quo

Every so often in this uniquely strange country, an event occurs that peels back the onion of American society with exacting precision. You may even find that the part of the onion you thought you occupied, or the contingent of people you thought occupied it alongside you, isn’t quite as comfortable or clearly delineated as you once convinced yourself.

The storming of the Capitol building on Wednesday is one of those events. It asks us to reflect on the nature of not just their grievances, but our own. It asks us to wonder what the nature is of our own anger at Washington — or lack thereof, for some — and how we choose to express it. And, it asks us to question how we view the sanctity of these institutions.

Wednesday and the days since have revealed the following four basic layers of American societal response:

Layer 1: People who agreed with the sentiment and agreed with the tactic.

Layer 2: People who agreed with the sentiment and disagreed with the tactic.

Layer 3: People who disagreed with the sentiment and agreed with the tactic.

Layer 4: People who disagreed with the sentiment and disagreed with the tactic.

No doubt, these layers fall along class lines, ethnic lines, geographic lines, and generational lines. A legitimate country with a legitimate interest in that whole “We the People” sentiment would seek a holistic understanding of political grievance as defined by those lines. Rising tides, lifting boats, that sort of thing.

Yet, the national media conversation has limited itself to discussing only Layers 1 & 4. Either you’re a violent insurrectionist or a peaceful patriot. Either you are against democracy or for it. Either you respect American institutions or you don’t. It’s a binary necessarily created to tell significantly easier stories to create significantly easier clickbait with which to maximize coveted ad revenue.

Were they to include Layers 2 & 3, they’d have themselves a conversation that they are ill-equipped to spin into dollars. And, let’s be honest, it would make for an awkward stop-and-chat at the next big gala, the likes of which would make Larry David lose the rest of his hair. Mr./Ms. Media bumps into Mr./Ms. Senator and hostile hilarity ensues. It writes itself.

So, why not talk about the people that feel so left behind by Washington that they developed a constant state of corrosive traumatic distrust that turned itself loose on their brains? What about those people that view the Capitol building as more of a home to lobbyists than public interests? Or the people that were never made to feel part of this country to begin with and don’t view the Capitol building or any other government landmark with as rosy a glow?

Well, all that talk is counterproductive. After all, how do you shut down resistance movements if you humanize them? Whether you agree with a movement or not, if it represents a challenge to an established way of doing things (read: jeopardizes the flow of money to shareholders), the claws come out.

This is of course the playbook used with resistance movements on the Left, whether it be Black Lives Matter, Occupy, the antiwar movement, the fight against climate change, etc. Shattered windows, cars engulfed in flames, scary-looking people dressed in all black, clashes with police, and out-of-context inflammatory soundbytes provide an endless sugar high for a media ecosystem that lathers itself in high fructose corn syrup — I mean how else do you get invited to the glitzy ConAgra parties?

Far be it for major media to actually talk about the one glaringly obvious thing that has only been further revealed by the unholy unity of Donald Trump, COVID-19, neoliberalism, and the wildly unfettered flow of money:

The U.S. Congress is fundamentally sociopathic.

Only a sociopathic institution could look upon a country whose citizens’ basic economic well-being has been torn apart from limb to limb and instead cast votes that do literally everything other than mend those limbs. But hey, at least they’ll give you a back rub and tell you you’re a good hardworking American who will pull through as long as you keep your head down.

Because as long as your head is down, you can’t see what’s being done right in front of you.

Done to you.

You may not agree with the people that stormed the Capitol or the way they did it, but the idea that the Capitol building is an innocent party in the American institutional landscape is a rhetorical bridge I refuse to cross.

I’ll be upset that the Capitol got stormed when the Capitol is upset that the lives of average people have been absolutely systematically shredded, piece by piece, by the people working within that very building.

Quid pro quo.