Discuss any recent civic, national, or world event of your choosing.
I hold very strong personal views on politics, but I do my best to keep quiet and observe. But the greatest mistake made by the Trump administration was the blanket pardoning of the January 6th rioters. Financial arguments come and go year after year, bipartisanship prevents much from getting done. But I was under the impression that surely, there was consensus surrounding the events of the insurrection of the US Capitol.
January 6th, 2021 was a tragic day in the history of the United States. It was a day when some of the worst in our national character shone through. I was 13 years old and more concerned about playing Minecraft. Yet, as the day went on and the crowd started getting closer and closer to the Capitol building, I started to get more and more anxious. All of this led up to the point where the crowd was banging on the windows of the building and breaking in. Eventually, I gave up what I was doing and sat down staring in horror at the events unfolding live on my TV. The historic nature of what was happening didn’t go over my head. For the first time in our nation’s history, Confederate flags were displayed in the US Capitol. 150 years past the Civil War and 50 years past the Civil Rights movement and these signs of our national sin were marched proudly through the greatest symbol of freedom. It was disheartening and saddening, to say the least. However, I figured that despite the past year which had been filled with a global pandemic, one of the most divisive elections in US history, and questions about the role of race in 21st-century America, this moment would be one where the nation would come together. Yet, I was wrong.
Following many of the events of the summer of 2024, I paid less attention to news than I had in a while. I was disenchanted and frustrated with all of the narratives being pushed by both sides of the media. I figured that all of the talk about how awful and detrimental the Trump administration might be was foolish and meant to further divide people. But when Donald Trump signed his presidential pardon and commuted the sentences of the men and women who had broken into the US Capitol, brutalized police, and attempted to overthrow the government of the US, I felt everything I’d come to believe collapsing in front of me. The pardoning of the January 6th rioters is the product of decades of partisanship boiling up to the point where basic ideas are partisan. No matter how extreme the circumstances. The national tragedy is no longer enough to bring a nation together. Conspiracy theorists and fringe pundits will spew to their audiences who will spew their beliefs further and further until their ideas become mainstream. Something systemically needs to change before we can ever hope to accomplish anything without it being undone in 4 years by a different administration.
