We knew that last week was going to be an important week for America.
How important it ultimately becomes in the story of this great country now depends on what we’ve learned from the events of these last few days and how we go forward together to protect the values defined in our Constitution.
Like many of you, I could scarcely believe what I was seeing as rioters and vandals forced their way past police into the U.S. Capitol — a place that should be treated with respect and reverence by every American — that was transformed into a staging ground for violence, destruction, and grandstanding.
What happened on the Capitol grounds was senseless and illegal.
People died.
We must, however, pay attention to the anger even if it was not expressed correctly.
There is a kind of moral relativism that has slowly crept into American life over the last number of years. Big Tech and social media hysteria are partly to blame for stoking this "anything goes" mentality that threatens the rule of law and the societal norms that bind us together.
Huge segments of our population are justifiably feeling disenfranchised, discriminated against and frustrated. There is a spiritual sickness that has swept over the nation.
That’s why you see young, angry white kids throwing bricks through windows.
That’s why politicians ignore the death-toll of urban violence.
That’s why people dance in the streets celebrating their right to kill an unborn child.
That’s why people who view themselves as patriots thought that it was okay to smash windows and break into the U.S. Capitol disrupting the constitutional process inside the Capitol to debate slates of presidential electors.
That’s why smart, ordinarily well-reasoned, well-meaning people are arguing that we should just throw out long-held principles and processes of our justice system because it would help the fortunes of the pitiful Trump legal team.
It’s why people have been arguing that the vice president of the United States could just disenfranchise millions of voters unilaterally without any legal standing to do so and justify calling him a coward for not violating the law even though he’s been perhaps President Trump’s strongest ally.
It’s why people thought that you can tell voters in Georgia that the runoff election was illegal and invalid and it would not play a part in handing the U.S. Senate to the control of Leftists bent on fundamentally changing America.
It’s why the president-elect and his party have used this incident as an opportunity to scream about impeachment again and talk about institutional racism when they should be working to bring the nation together.
For Republicans, conservatives and Americans who are being vilified and disenfranchised by forces more powerful than any domestic threat to freedom we’ve ever faced now isn’t the time for marching.
If you really want to make a difference, take that energy and your ideas to your state capitols. Drive election reforms like Voter ID, an end to the month-long election day and mail-in balloting.
Democrats want non-citizens to vote in local and state elections. We need laws to prevent that too.
Go after these Big Tech or corporate-sponsored drop-box campaigns that skirt election laws to harvest ballots and elect leftists.
Take back control of the schools that are indoctrinating your kids.
Recommit yourselves to local activism and support of non-profits that actually help people.
What happened last week wasn’t Pearl Harbor Senator Schumer.
It wasn’t 9/11.
It wasn’t an attempted coup.
Our institutions are bigger, more stable, more resilient, and more powerful a force than Donald Trump or Joe Biden, any one political party or mob that wants to cause chaos on a street in Seattle or Minneapolis — or even in a building as special as the Capitol.
We are a resilient nation not because our people can march and wave flags but because our people can drive ideas that work to protect the freedoms that are endowed to us by God.
Like the protests we saw over the summer that led to death and destruction on a much larger scale, last Wednesday’s violence only served to hurt and divide this country further.
It wasn’t bold or courageous. It wasn’t in the spirit of the Revolution any more than BLM riots bore any resemblance to the Civil Rights Movement.
When we make our country or a political party about one person or justify lawlessness, it’s dangerous and idolatrous. Make no mistake the only people who win when pro-freedom Americans don’t use common sense, common decency, stand for the rule of law and stand together are the forces of the far Left.
It’s time for Americans who care about America to get serious about changing how we treat each other and choose to make a real difference.
Tom Basile is the host of ‘America Right Now’ on Newsmax Television, Saturday’s from 12pm - 3pm eastern. Basile has been part of the American political landscape from Presidential campaigns to local politics for more than two decades. He has served in government at the local, state and federal level including in the administration of George W. Bush in various capacities. He was an advisor to the provisional government in Iraq from 2003-04. From 2009-2011 he was the Executive Director of the New York State Republican Party. A columnist, commentator and former radio how, his new book "Let it Sink In: The Decade of Obama and Trump" provides a look back at the 2010s to prepare Americans to defend freedom in the 2020s. His critically-acclaimed book, "Tough Sell: Fighting the Media War in Iraq,” chronicled his time in Baghdad fighting media bias and driving coverage of the Iraq war. In 2011, he was featured in Time Magazine's Person of the Year spread about political activism around the world. Basile is an adjunct professor at Fordham University and runs a New York-based strategic communications firm. He is a member of the New York Bar and sits on a number of academic and philanthropic advisory boards. Learn more about him at TomBasile.com or follow him on Twitter @Tom_Basile. Read Tom Basile's Reports — More Here.
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