By temperament, I am more comfortable asking questions than making pronouncements. My perspective is undoubtedly influenced by the fact that my mother was born in Germany in June 1932. Ten years and three months later her grandparents, one of whom was Jewish, and both of whom were about the age I am now, together took their own lives on the day before they were to be loaded onto a boxcar and sent off to a death camp.
Events build on one another and can all too easily spiral out of control.
Among the questions that haunt me now are the “What ifs” of the Capitol insurrection of Jan. 6. Forgive me if I am painting troubling pictures. Trigger warning, I guess.
What if members of the mob had grabbed that mahogany box containing the ballots and burned them beyond recognition? Would the Senate have been in a, “Drat! Foiled again!”-type situation? Would that have prompted more senators to declare the election invalid? Might Vice President Mike Pence have felt it is duty to postpone the counting until reliable facsimiles of the original ballots had been produced and certified by the states? Could we still be waiting?
Sound crazy? I agree. But no crazier than a horned shaman facing 15 years in prison asking President Donald Trump for a pardon based on … choose your own cray. That is information I gleaned from sources ranging from our papers of record to the right-wing YouTube channels I visit from time to time.
Crazier still. What if a few men had grabbed Vice President Pence, marched him out to the gallows erected in front of the Capitol and publicly executed him? What if President Trump promptly pulled up in his motorcade, protected by his Secret Service detail, and issued pardons to the executioners and … I don’t know, given his favorite senator the Medal of Freedom? For good measure, he could use the opportunity to say words of comfort and compassion to the grieving Pence family, darkly inviting them to be honored guests at his upcoming inauguration.
Sound crazy? The first time I saw the gallows in a news photo, I thought, papier-mache. Street theater. It is now clear that this was a real gallows constructed with 4x4s arched over steps leading up to a real platform and that at least one man armed with zip ties was intent on … choose your own ending. Of course, if anyone had seized the vice president, it would have been a colossal mission failure for his Secret Service detail. Shoot out?
Minus Vice President Pence, could the vote be certified? As horrifying, had a handful of lawmakers been murdered, could President Trump declare that the heroes who voted to nullify the election had won the day, ordering the “Biden-Harris” bunting on the inaugural platform across the street from the White House be removed?
At that point, would we all be consigned to wait until noon on Jan. 20 to see who the generals decided to salute? Could we assume that the officer corps would follow their lead? Could we assume that the troops would obey their commanding officers?
Here I am starting to scare myself with this rabbit hole. And I haven’t even tried to imagine what would be happening in cities, towns and villages across the country. Somehow, I don’t think I’d be sitting behind my keyboard contemplating alternate realities. Unfortunately, I need not go beyond my family history to know that horrible things can and do happen. Good things happen too.
Jan. 6 has come and gone. The vote was certified. I have reason to believe that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell will accept his new role as leader of the minority. There are more elections on the horizon.
Are there reasons for optimism? Many. At the same time, one person’s optimistic aspiration is another’s nightmare scenario. What can we do about that? It’s a question I can’t answer. It is also one of many I can’t help but ask.
Eric Goldscheider is translating his grandmother’s memoirs which include surviving 12 years of a fascist dictatorship in Germany and Czechoslovakia, raising a daughter and losing her parents along the way. Learn more at: www.BertaLandre.org. He lives in Amherst.