THE TRUTH IS NOT NOISY

When he was falsely accused of covering up Cardinal McCarrick's decades-ago abuse of seminarians and minors, Pope Francis told reporters at his first press availability after the charge that he would have nothing to say about it.  He told them they were all "responsible journalists" who could make their own judgments based on the facts and that, at some point in the future, he might comment.  

In the months that followed, the truth came out.  The Pope had not known of McCarrick's crimes, had immediately started the investigative process that led to McCarrick's laicization -- or removal from the priesthood -- once he was told of them, and also had not refused to enforce prior penalties against McCarrick (which had been privately requested by Pope Benedict XVI but ignored by McCarrick and unknown to Francis).

In his morning homilies shortly after the false charge had been made, the Pope embraced the notion of discernment.  "The truth is meek. The truth is silent.  The truth is not noisy," he said, and "lies . . . destroy the unity of a family, of a people."  The antidote is often silence. This is not to be confused with passivity or cynicism.  Years before, in a 1990 essay, a then Father Bergoglio explained, in the words of Austin Ivereigh, that "silence allows the different spirits to be revealed.  In a time of tribulation, that is never easy: in the electric storm of claims and counterclaims, truth and lies get fused, and everyone claims noble motives."  

Eventually, however, truth outs.  

Lies refute themselves.

But we have to let them do so.

The truth can be preached or revealed. 

But it cannot be forced on anyone

It has to come to them.

Wednesday afternoon, as a joint session of Congress began the largely ceremonial task of counting the electoral college votes for President and Vice-President that had been previously delivered to it  by the states, thousands of angry Trump supporters descended upon the Capitol, breached rather flimsy security barriers and a not particularly well organized police response, and then proceeded to vandalize offices and terrorize legislators in a ginned up effort to either stop the vote count or otherwise deliver to Donald Trump the second term he lost but has insisted -- now for months  and without any evidence whatsoever -- was stolen from him.  

Since November 3, Trump has insanely but repeatedly asserted that he won the election "in a landslide" despite having lost the popular count by more than seven million votes and not having come remotely close in the electoral college.  

He has invented claims that hundreds of thousands of illegal votes were cast for his opponent by dead people, non-registered citizens from other states and imposters; that digital technology was manipulated to count ballots for Biden; that poll workers triple-counted and otherwise created phony Biden ballots; and that legislative and administrative changes making it easier to vote by mail in this year of pandemic were themselves illegal.  

As to the first three of these claims, Trump and his attorneys have offered no persuasive evidence at all to support them and neither the courts which have heard them nor the state election officials forced to investigate them have found any.  As to the last, the legislated and administrative changes were legal and upheld by the courts.

During this entire period, Trump's tactics have become increasingly more unhinged. 

And dangerous. 

In November and early December, he lobbied Wayne County officials in Michigan to not certify Biden-heavy vote precincts and later asked state legislators to appoint his electors instead of the actual winners.  On December 20, he discussed imposing martial law in order to have the election re-run in selective states he lost.  Last week, he spent an hour on the phone with Georgia's Secretary of State asking that official to find the 11,780 votes needed to overtake Biden in that state.   And yesterday, at a rally with thousands of MAGA-hatted, Trump-flag waving supporters he had begged to show up in Washington DC on the day of the official electoral vote count, Proud Boys, neo-Nazis and QAnon conspiracists among them, he told them to march on the Capitol.  

"We will never give up," he said at the rally. Milking the lies he has told for months, he claimed “You don't concede when there's theft involved."  He asserted -- again falsely -- that "All Vice-President Pence has to do is send it back to the States to recertify, and we become president"; in fact, Pence had no authority to do any such thing. And then he told them to "walk down" to the Capitol "to cheer on our brave senators, and congressmen and women,” the ones willing to do his bidding.  For the others unwilling to do his bidding, he had different advice. "You have to show strength," he said, "and you have to be strong."

So they marched to the Capitol.

Breached the barricades.

And went inside.

Though for most it probably counted more as a show of feral idiocy than strength, a pipe bomb was later found in the Capitol (as were pipe bombs outside both the Republican and Democratic National Committee offices in the Capitol neighborhood), windows and furniture were smashed, and both the Speaker's and others' offices were ransacked.  For the first time ever, a Confederate flag flew in the Rotunda.  Or at least "through" it, the flag carried casually like a cheerleader's half-time totem. A cocky, middle-aged poseur later identified as Richard Barnett was photographed boots up on one of the Speaker's desks.  Others were photographed loitering in the Speaker's chair in the House chamber and in the presiding officer's chair in the Senate.

As with Trump himself, much of the activity inside the Capitol was bravado and performance.  

The halls rang with deafening shouts of "Stop the Steal", the mob's go-to lie that was created and has been flamed by Trump for the past three months. At other times they yelled "Our House", an ironic claim of ownership in view of the fact that they were pretty much trashing the place. Later in the day, as the Capitol was emptied and order restored, one obnoxious trespasser told cameras that the "Capitol police did not take back the Capitol.  We gave it back."  Another announced that they had "stopped the vote".  

Much of the activity, however, was more serious. 

Apart from the property destruction and sheer terror created as they tried to breach interior space, the mob included leaders from the Proud Boys, one of whom is part of a group called "Murder the Media"; members of the National Socialist Club, a neo-Nazi group; and QAnon supporters, a conspiracist sect that claims the Democrats worship Satan and abuse children.  Journalists who remained inside reported at least one part of the mob looking for Vice President Pence in order to kill him.  Others reported blood and feces on statues and vile epithets uttered against Speaker Pelosi and Sen. Schumer.  One guy was wearing a "Camp Auschwitz" sweatshirt.

Over eighty were arrested.  Five people died.

Though Trump himself issued two statements while the Capitol was under siege, neither condemned the lawbreakers.

In the aftermath, there were some truth tellers but also a lot of "noble" claimants fusing "truth and lies" in the "electric storm of claims and counterclaims" that a handful of Trumpists had turned the pro forma vote count into at Trump's or his putative base's (and all of the nutjobs who had earlier trashed the place's) insistence.  

Of the former, Mitt Romney continued to shine.  Addressing the Senate after it returned to debate objections to the vote count, he berated Trump.  "What happened at the U.S.Capitol today was an insurrection," he said, "incited by the President of the United States."  Earlier, seething with anger in the secure location to which Senators had been removed when the Capitol was breached, he yelled at the Republicans advancing Trump's electoral lies -- "This is what you've gotten, guys."  

Back on the floor, Romney punctured whatever was left of the claim only six Senators remained willing to support.  As he put it, pointing out the silliness of Sen. Cruz's ten-day audit demand to satisfy the disaffected, "No Congressional led audit will ever convince those voters [who believe the election was stolen], particularly when the President will continue to claim that the election was stolen.  The best way we can show respect for the voters who are upset is by telling them the truth. The truth is that President-elect Biden won this election.  President Trump lost."

Because, however, truth is not, as the Pope put it, noisy, the nobility caucus also had its say.  

Opposing an objection to Pennslyvania's vote, Sen. Pat Toomey said "We witnessed today the damage that can result when men in power and responsibility refuse to acknowledge the truth. We saw bloodshed because a demagogue chose to spread falsehoods and sow distrust of his own fellow Americans."  At the same time, Toomey admitted he had voted for the demagogue.  

Which begs a host of questions . . .

About Sen. Toomey.

He can ask them.

The rest of us should leave him alone.

For his part, a folksy Lindsey Graham said "Enough is enough," placing himself among the judges and elections officials who have ruled the election legitimate.  One of those rulings, by the Wisconsin Supreme Court, came in a 4-3 decision that the challenges in that state to absentee and early voting had come too late. Lindsey was OK with that: "If Al Gore could accept five-four he's not president," said Graham, "I can accept Wisconsin four to three."  

All fine.  

And noble.

But he also said that he and Trump had had "a helluva a journey . . . From my point of view, he's been a consequential president."

Unfortunately, Graham was right.

One of those consequences was a woman shot that afternoon in the Capitol.  

She later died.

Another was a Capitol Police Department officer who died Thursday evening from injuries sustained during the attack.

A little before 4 am on Thursday morning, Vice-President Pence announced the final electoral vote -- 306-232 in favor of Biden/Harris.  Joe Biden officially became President-Elect and Kamala Harris Vice President- Elect.  Immediately thereafter, Trump's press office tweeted out a statement (the President's own Twitter account had been suspended by the company because it thought, correctly, that he had incited violence).  The statement read "Even though I totally disagree with the outcome of the election, and the facts bear me out, nevertheless there will be an orderly transition on January 20th".

This, of course, is just another lie.

The facts do not bear him out.

Later on Thursday, the noise continued.  

Former Attorney General Barr said that "orchestrating a mob to pressure Congress is inexcusable," and that Trump had "betray[ed] his office and supporters."  Former Chief of Staff and Secretary of Homeland Security John Kelly said that the Cabinet should exercise its right to remove Trump pursuant to the 25th Amendment.  Secretary of Transportation Elaine Chao, Trump's longest serving Cabinet member, resigned effective next Monday.  She called the assault on the Capitol by Trump's supporters "entirely avoidable."  

Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, Deputy National Security Adviser Matt Pottinger, and the former Chief of Staff and current envoy to Northern Ireland, Mick Mulvaney, resigned immediately, as did the First Lady's Chief of Staff and the White House's social secretary.  For his part, Mulvaney said that Trump had had a "long list of successes" but that "all of that went away yesterday".  Meanwhile, potential resignations were reported involving other national security officials, including National Security Adviser Robert O'Brien.

Throughout the day on Thursday, there were calls for Trump's removal pursuant to the 25th Amendment. Speaker Pelosi said that if the Vice President and Cabinet were not willing to take this step, her caucus was prepared to impeach Trump again.  The Wall Street Journal issued an evening editorial calling on the President to resign.  Around 7 pm, Trump issued a video statement.  In it, he for the first time condemned the mob, promised they would be held accountable, called for healing, acknowledged he would no longer be President come noon on January 20, and said he would work to insure a peaceful and orderly transition over the next thirteen days.  

David Gergen, who has over the years advised four presidents (from both parties), was appearing on CNN at the time the statement was broadcast.

When it was over, Gergen marveled at its sheer "chutzpah".

John Donvan is a college friend of mine.  He is also an ABC news journalist and over the course of a forty plus year career has been stationed at and covered the news from capitals around the world.  On Wednesday on Facebook, he posted video footage that came over his desk in London in 1981 of a coup attempt in Spain, where armed military had burst into Spain's newly created parliament, the Chamber of Deputies, and tried to stop it from voting to elect a new prime minister.  In recounting his reaction to the video at that time, he remembered feeling "so glad that [he] lived in a country where something crazy like that could never happen."

He then said no more.

Just arched his brow.

On the post, he wrote "In the end, no words".

The truth is not noisy.