Editorial

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Truth and Reconciliation

By Jennifer Fumiko Cahill and Thadeus Greenson and Kimberly Wear

jennifer@northcoastjournal.com, thad@northcoastjournal.com, kim@northcoastjournal.com

There’s no escaping the fact that supporters clashed violently with police, on Jan. 6 five people died over a leading to five deaths, he rebu ed pleas lie. This is indisputable. to make a statement calling for peace and

The president of the United instead phoned friendly senators, urging States spawned the first lie, in- them to prevent Congress from certifying sisting falsely that it was only widespread the Electoral College results. fraud and theft that kept him from a land- Plenty of questions remain about the slide election victory on Nov. 3. Others security failures and specific plots at play repeated it. The next lie came when the on Jan. 6, but we know what happened: A president told his supporters repeatedly group of Trump supporters motivated by that Congress or the vice president could the president’s lies mounted an unpreceoverturn the will of voters even though dented insurrection in the U.S. Capitol. they are constitutionally bound to certify So where do we go from here, amid states’ Electoral College results. Again, the dueling appeals for unity and accountabillie was repeated by those angling for the ity? This is not only a question Congress president’s favor, fearful of his wrath or must grapple with in the days and weeks just angling for political advantage. to come, but one we as a community also

So it was that thousands of people need to face. After all, the Humboldt GOP descended on Washington, D.C., on Jan. held repeated “stop the steal” rallies in the 6 certain that the future of the presiden- lead-up to the carnage of Jan. 6, fanning cy and fair elections somehow rested in the flames that erupted in the Capitol, their hands, that if they only protested and some of its members traveled to D.C. loud enough or fought hard enough the for the Jan. 6 protests, though there’s no indisputable facts would somehow bend indication any participated in the violence to their will. there. And the president’s repeated lies

Then the president lied again, telling have penetrated our local discourse with his supporters at the end of a rambling, the falsehoods that COVID-19 is a hoax, grievance-laden call to arms at the Na- the election was stolen and other such tional Mall that “we’re going to walk down nonsense regularly entering the fray. Pennsylvania Avenue … to the Capitol.” Of And the real truth is Trump isn’t the course, the president didn’t go with the cause of this pervasive peddling of lies and crowd, nor did he appear to care much disinformation — its roots stretch back to what happened to it. Instead, he went birtherism and death panels, if not much back to the safety of the White House further. Trump was simply the accelerant and, according to news reports, watched at the scene of the arson that ultimately as an insurrection broke out and his desecrated our Capitol and threatens to set our democracy ablaze, as politicians have increasingly used lies and fear to stoke divisions, distrust and hate.

So here’s how we go forward as a local community: We value facts, evidence and experts, and condemn those who do not. We tell the truth and respect those who do the same. We value all people and don’t tolerate dehumanizing rhetoric or politics built on fear.

To the 21,770 Humboldt County residents who voted for Donald Trump, please know this is not a condemnation of conservative principles. If you want to have fact-based conversations about the tax code, immigration reform, COVID restrictions, election security, the defense budget or whatever else, we welcome that. And fortunately for you, recent history has shown that honest, realistic people on the losing side of an election have recourse in this democracy. After all, when Democrats lost the presidency in 2016 they didn’t insist it was stolen or stage an armed insurrection, they licked their wounds, knitted hats, marched peacefully, organized and went on to retake the Senate, House and White House.

If, however, you hold your allegiance to Donald Trump, perceived grievances and a fact-free, discourse above the basic principles that hold honesty and objective truths as the bedrock of a functioning democracy, we’re done. If your response to the wreckage in the Capitol is to talk about Black Lives Matter protests, if you insist COVID-19 is a media hoax or a bad flu, if you spout state’s rights in one breath only to push to overturn the election’s results approved by state legislatures in the next because of some imaginary fraud, well, we’re done trying to reason with you or valuing your opinions.

It’s time for the rest of us to rebuild a discourse in this nation that centers around objective facts, common decency and mutual respect. We’ve now seen exactly where the alternative leads. l Jennifer Fumiko Cahill (she/her) is the Journal’s arts and features editor.

Reach her at 442-1400, extension 320, or Jennifer@northcoastjournal.com.

Follower her on Twitter @JFumikoCahill.

Thadeus Greenson (he/him) is the Journal’s news editor. Reach him at 442-1400, extension 321, or thad@ northcoastjournal.com. Follow him on Twitter @thadeusgreenson.

Kimberly Wear (she/her) is the Journal’s digital editor. Reach her at 442-1400, extention 323, or kim@ northcoastjournal.com Follow her on Twitter @kimberly_wear.