In 1968, student radicals took over Columbia, Berkeley and other universities.
But, despite the ambitions of would-be revolutionaries like Abby Hoffman and Jerry Rubin, Vietnam War protesters never breached the U.S. Capitol. That was accomplished by members of Donald Trump's "law and order" party Wednesday as a shocked nation watched. The revolution was televised after all.
Following Donald Trump's exhortation, a group of his armed yahoo followers invaded the capitol with surprising ease, vandalizing the cathedral of American democracy and leaving four dead. The minimal opposition by the Capitol Police raised rumors of collusion.
The New Yorker's Masha Gessen pointed out that more arrests were made during protests of Brett Kavanaugh's confirmation to the Supreme Court. And, women abortion protesters received harsher treatment for shouting from the Capitol gallery several years ago.
After the leering loons were at last cleared from the Capitol, the Congress returned Wednesday night to resume certifying Joe Biden's election as president. Despite billowing outrage against Trump, 121 representatives and six holdout senators voted to support the declining president's baseless claims of a rigged election.
Grabbing dubious mantles of courage, GOP worthies like Lindsey Graham turned away from their Trump sycophancy to support the constitutional process.
The most ludicrous moment came when freshly defeated Georgia Sen. Kelly Loeffler recanted her vow to support Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz's seditious scheme to protest state electoral college results.
Claiming to have rediscovered the conscience she'd abandoned during her scurrilous campaign against Democratic winner Raphael Warnock, Loeffler said that because of the Capitol incursion, she would reverse course on protesting Biden's Georgia victory. Loeffler looked shell-shocked at losing the election, despite spending millions of her own money and that of national GOP power brokers.
After long dreary hours of parliamentary maneuvering, the new day dawned on Joe Biden's confirmation as president.
With impeachment or 25th amendment action unlikely, despite swirling rumors of those possibilities, Trump has another two weeks to generate more mayhem.
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