That appellation was originally given by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt to the December 7, 1941, attack on Pearl Harbor. But the horrific event that brought the United States into World War II was planned and executed by an enemy force . . . not by our own citizens, aided, encouraged and supported by our own president.

Today is the fifth anniversary of the insurrectionist attack on the United States Capitol by mobs of violent, mindless brutes and thugs seeking to overthrow the 2020 election of Joe Biden to the presidency, in order to continue the authoritarian regime of Donald Trump.

That attempted coup failed. But Trump never acknowledges defeat. Four years later, he slithered his way back into the White House by a slim plurality of the vote, where he has continued — and accelerated — his coordinated assault on our 250-year-old democracy . . . not to mention his personal attacks against anyone and everyone who has ever dared to criticize him.

It is certainly not necessary to detail, yet again, Trump’s criminal acts of the past year, or his increasingly deranged behavior and obvious physical decline; that is being done on a minute-to-minute basis by the news outlets and social media. And the American people are all too aware of the personal effect his administration’s actions are having on their daily lives.

But beyond our individual problems, what is most concerning is the domino effect of his actions: the weakening of our country’s relations with our traditional allies, the reduction of our status in the eyes of the rest of the world, and, most frightening of all, the opportunities he has provided to the world’s most tyrannical governments — Russia, China, North Korea, Iran, etc. — to step in and fill the void.

In the days since Trump’s shocking invasion of Venezuela, the prevailing attitude among those other authoritarians has been, “If the U.S. can do it, why can’t we?” And they have a point. If Donald Trump can send his troops to kidnap the president of another sovereign nation, doesn’t that justify what Russia is doing to Ukraine? Doesn’t it give tacit permission to Xi Jinping to go after Taiwan? Or Netanyahu to fully occupy Gaza and the West Bank?

Even before Venezuela, Vladimir Putin had accurately assessed the possibilities presented by Trump’s political stupidity. A week after their meeting in Alaska in August of 2025, which was supposed to have been focused on settling the conflict in Ukraine, this is what Putin had to say in a speech back home in Russia:

“With the arrival of President Trump [in the White House], I think that a light at the end of the tunnel has finally loomed. And now we had a very good, meaningful and frank meeting in Alaska.

“The next steps now depend on the leadership of the United States, but I am confident that the leadership qualities of the current president, President Trump, are a good guarantee that relations will be restored.” [Reuters, August 22, 2025.]

Under this administration, our country has well and truly been sold out in exchange for the personal power of one man and the enrichment of his evil oligarchy. And it began just two weeks before he was due to leave office, when he addressed that rally on the National Mall and encouraged the crowds to march to the Capitol . . .

. . . and when he called the violent attack on that institution a “peaceful” gathering.

And it has continued since then, as he has pardoned the most violent of the convicted criminals who participated in that attack, and repeatedly declared the 2020 election to have been “stolen.”

So yes . . . January 6, 2021, is a day that lives in infamy within the history of the United States. Only this time — unlike that day in December of 1941 — the rest of the free world is not rushing to our aid; and our own people, rather than uniting in defense of our great nation, are divided as they have not been since the end of the Civil War in 1865.

And I am sore afraid.

Just sayin’ . . .

Brendochka
1/6/26