Home Invasion
Scene from a January 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol by a pro-Trump mob. (Photo by Samuel Corum/Getty Images)
Large-scale violence is disorienting. The sheer magnitude can be a hall of mirrors, obscuring the core. Especially when it involves political figures, who are somehow thought to exist beyond the social norms that dictate our humdrum lives.
The waters get even muddier when we throw our personal biases into the mix.
So I suggest a thought experiment. Remove identifying factors from large-scale event. Reframe them within everyday life, to make them more familiar, easier to grasp. (Empathy cosplay, if you will.) Sometimes there’s a direct analogy, but even when there isn’t, apples to oranges is better than apples to nothing.
In the case of the attack on the US Capitol, set aside for a moment political ideological/party, race and gender. More importantly, reduce the scale.
To a home invasion. Your home. Overrun by dozens of intruders as you hide, terrified, in a secret room in the basement.
They’re there precisely because they knew your entire family would be home. They tear the place apart, they post videos of themselves in your bed, screaming and laughing and threatening to kill you.
You watch the videos in real time from the basement. Alongside your cousins, who hours earlier told the strangers upstairs that the best way to settle grievances real or imagined is to go after you, directly.
Imagine one of the 50 intruders is shot to death by police in your kitchen. And that one of the five police officers on the scene is fatally beaten with your fire extinguisher.
Yes, the above scenario alters, even dilutes, some key elements of the Capitol attack. That is intentional, to hone in on the violence.
Because when someone breaks into your home (or workplace), not to steal from you but to terrorize you, to threaten death, we call it a violent crime, regardless of their politics. Or yours. And we know that perpetrators of violent crimes have a history of unresolved trauma and emotional problems.
Does that mean their psychological needs should be more important to you than the unlawfulness of their actions, or your terror? Is it up to you – rather than attorneys and judges – to ensure they don’t come back? Do you press charges only against those who don’t vote like you do?
As for your cousins. Even if they were to apologize, instead of just insisting that the best way to heal from the trauma is for the family to stick together, do you still want them at Sunday dinners?
And when they speak to you as if you were a victim of domestic abuse, telling you that demanding justice for the violence you suffered will only bring more violence, how does that make you feel?