Torches, Pitchforks, Smartphones, and Mass Delusion

On January 6, 2021, the nation, and indeed the world, witnessed a violent political spectacle that was both mortally serious yet ludicrous, and we have been left to process the ambiguity however we can. The immediate, honest reaction of some among the pundit class to the “attack on democracy” was to announce how hurt they were by what they witnessed. David Brooks choked back tears as he reported his reaction to seeing the sacred halls of the Capitol that so inspired him as a youth defaced by the unruly rabble. At one point, the PBS reporter Lisa Desjardins, who was covering the scene from within the building, reported that one among the angry (yet somehow itinerant) mob paused to ask her where the restroom was. One could easily imagine Brooks retorting in outrage, “Restroom? Who needs that when you can just evacuate your bowels on the floor of the Rotunda?“

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