Alan S. Austin
Arizona Playwright • Writer • Poet
  

Evil in Support of Tyranny (1/18)

When I look at the faces of the rioters breaking into Congress and attacking the heart of our democracy, I remind myself that they all sat in someone's classroom. What did they learn? I am sure most of them are normal people in their everyday lives, perhaps with wives and children and decent paying jobs. I am sure they love their parents and perhaps hope to go to Disneyland or for a holiday in Hawaii. They are not monsters, but like the female guards at Ravensbrook Concentration camp capable of monstrous acts given the right circumstances and the right encouragement. What would have happened had they got hold of our representatives? Would they have hung Mike Pence as they threatened, taken Pelosi and disemboweled her on the Capital steps, executed AOC after raping her for good measure to demonstrate their love of Trump? It is horrific just to think about what might have happened. It didn't and the thin blue line of outnumbered policemen heroically managed somehow. The rioters went home to their families, watched themselves on TV, pointed themselves out and wondered whether they did enough to get themselves arrested or not. Evil in support of tyranny is banal and ordinary.