God, I hate that phrase—stick to your guns! —because it represents everything that triggered the Capitol breach on Wednesday: Intransigence. The false glory of never yielding, even when your case is weak or based on falsehoods. Violence as means of accruing power.
In the past two days, as conversations sprang up and grew heated on social media, our new town square, a friend (a moderate Republican I’ve known for 15 years, through education channels) posted this:
Heartbreaking to see violent crowds breaking into US capitol. Reminds me of Vietnam protests and Kent State.
More than enough people immediately countered this—the two are nowhere close to comparable—but there were also several commenters who noted that the vast majority of Republicans are good people, appalled by low-rent protestors, who don’t represent the modern Republican party. This isn’t the party my father taught me to love, back in the day. Tsk, tsk.
I pushed back: The time for Republicans to redeem themselves was years ago. With the CONTINUE READING: Sticking to My Guns | Teacher in a strange land