History and Accountability

Today was a great day indeed. We watched Joe Biden get sworn in as the 46th president of the United States. We saw Kamala Harris get sworn in as the first woman, first African American and the first South Asian vice president by the first Latina Supreme Court Justice Sonya Sotomayor. Harris then went on to swear in her successor in the senate Alex Padilla, the first Latino senator for the state of California (a state that is as much as 40% Latino) as well as Georgia's two new senators: Jon Ossof, the state's first Jewish senator and Raphael Warnock, the state's first African American senator, thus flipping the senate to a thin Democratic majority. It was a dizzyingly historic day.

Of course this inaugural day was surreal in the sense that many of the norms and traditions we would typically take for granted were not present: such as the presence of the outgoing president - not that he was missed. The fact that we are still in the midst of a deadly pandemic which already saw to it that they crowd in attendance in our nation's capitol today, compounded with the fact that just two weeks ago in the very same place the was a violent insurrection inspired by the hateful lies of the former president gave an otherwise historically optimistic day somewhat of a sobering undertone.

In the days and weeks forthcoming there is without question much work to be done by this new administration as well as the newly sworn in legislators in the Capitol building. Already, President Biden has signed a slew of executive orders reversing some of the disastrous acts put forward by his disastrous predecessor. There is no shortage of calls for unity and bipartisan cooperation; this is in many ways not at all atypical of inaugural day sentiment. Amongst all of this, we mustn't allow our elected leaders and law enforcement officials to cast aside or in any way gloss over the events of the January 6th insurrection and hold accountable all of those responsible.

Impeachment proceedings are underway for the 45th president's undeniable role in inciting the violence, and it remains to be seen what will come from this truly unprecedented act. As long as we are doling out accountability and charging responsibility for the violence, I wonder who is going to hold the Fox News Channel accountable for their part in helping spread the "big lie" that these fascist white supremacist thugs used to justify their actions. Fox has been the president's loudest mouthpiece (next to Twitter) for the past four years, and has been spreading biased and erroneous right-wing propaganda for decades. Their influence is toxic and damaging; they have blood on their hands as far as I'm concerned.

One can easily argue that Twitter and all other social media platforms are nothing but conduits for the messaging that the would-be dictator put forward, and in the end they did the right thing and censured his behavior by suspending his accounts. The powers that be at Fox however haven't relented at all in their support for not only the "big lie" but also the "big liar" himself. They have in fact willingly gone along with all of the lies, all of the cruelty and all of the insanity we have seen emanate from the White House over the last four years. Who will hold them accountable?

There are of course myriad smaller and lesser known media outlets that are far more culpable in spreading toxic disinformation and sowing the seeds of division amongst our citizenry and distrust in our nation's institutions. The sad reality is that Fox News is still the number one rated news network on cable television today, as it has been for the past fifteen years apparently (at least according to an article posted on their own website.) They outrank CNN, MSNBC as well as all other televised news sources. What does this say about the current state of our country? What does this say about millions of our fellow citizens ability to think critically? What kind of information are they getting now and what kind of information will they be receiving as we move forward into this new administration?

One phrase that I have heard continuously throughout the past four years, and even more so under the grip of the pandemic in the last year especially is: "When things get back to normal...." Everyone is longing for the familiar sense of normalcy that we haven't known since 2016. We got a little taste of that today, albeit tinged with an uneasy surreality, as the light flurries of snow gave way to a bright ray of sunshine as our new president, vice president and their historically diverse cabinet took control. Let us not however be pacified by this moment of normalcy, for the normal we'd been living in is no longer sustainable. We can't go back to a "normal" that allows corporate polluters to continue dumping metric tons of carbon into our atmosphere as the icecaps melt and the sea levels rise. We can't go back to a "normal" in which police officers are allowed to murder unarmed African Americans on camera in front of the world and not be made to pay for their crimes. We can't go back to a "normal" under which we allow only the wealthiest and most privileged among us to have access to healthcare while the rest of us are made to fend for ourselves as a deadly pandemic rages out of control. We can't go back to a "normal" in which women are continually denied the ability to earn a wage commensurate with their male counterparts, where essential workers are denied a living wage while being forced to work longer and longer hours.

Unfortunately we can not go back to a "normal" in which we do not live under the threat of a near coup led by fascist insurrectionists with a racist white nationalist agenda. Not today, not now. We can celebrate and be hopeful today, but we must remain vigilant, we must never forget the hell that this country has been through over the last four years, and we absolutely must hold accountable all of those who are responsible for the nightmare we are trying desperately to walk away from.