There’s a direct line between what went on since the November elections, and the political violence that shook Washington, D.C. on January 6
(Photo: AP Images)
There’s 9/11, and now there’s 1/6.
Yesterday’s scenes of lawlessness in the US Capitol, with lawmakers sheltering in Congress’s plenum, anarchists posing beneath the Senate rotunda, and one protester glassy-eyed as she died in a corridor, will scar a generation of Americans.
The display of mob rule in the beating heart of US democracy gladdened America’s foes from Beijing to Tehran, gave Democrats a sense of vindication, and left millions of Trump supporters — including in our own community — shaken and speechless.
But we don’t need the op-ed pages to explain what went wrong; the words we’re looking for were uttered thousands of years ago. “Ilmalei mora’ah shel malchus” Chazal said. “Were it not for the fear of authority, a man would devour his fellow” (Avos 3:2).
These timeless words should be a wake-up call, both for parts of our world, and wider America, to step back from the brink of lawlessness. Because there’s a direct line between what went on since the November elections, and the political violence that shook Washington, D.C. yesterday.
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