In a scene about 35 minutes into the documentary, “All In: The Fight for Democracy,” some people are moving down steps into the sunlight when a white police officer reaches across the group to grab an American flag attached to a little pole that is held by a little Black boy who is, at most, 5.
In a swift move to his right, the officer tries to yank the flag from the boy’s hands, but the little boy hangs on for dear life, and so the officer finds himself in the uncomfortable position of lifting the little boy — still hanging on and swept out of sight of the camera. The officer then sweeps the pole back and forth until the little boy cannot hold on any longer, and he is flung into the arms of a woman — his mother? — who comforts him and walks him down the stairs, his mouth open to cry.
I do not presume the little boy held onto the flag because he was patriotic — though that might have been the case. I’m going to guess that, as would happen with most children, if you try to snatch something out of a little boy’s hands, he’s going to resist. This is specifically true in families with more than one child. You learn early what is “mine” or you risk watching your toys pile up behind your grabby siblings.
I don’t know the names of that little boy or woman who was maybe his mother or that cruel police officer, but the little guy’s insistence that no one would take his flag — not even a big uniformed man with a gun and a club — is inspiring. Aloft and swung far from safety, he held on.
Out of an abundance of caution — a phrase one usually applies to something about to be postponed by the pandemic — soldiers and law enforcement officials have turned capitals across the country into occupied camps as they prepare for rioters or worse come tomorrow, Inauguration Day.
Armed insurrection has a way of making one cautious.
This past weekend, though, most of the insurrectionists were no-shows. The more vocal and visible of them might have been tied up in court, or they were busy finding lawyers. Here in Connecticut, a planned drive up I-91 from New Haven to the capitol in Hartford fizzled out, as did a similar drive planned from Manchester, a town just east of Hartford.
New Haven-area election-deniers had planned to recon in an IKEA parking lot before the 40-mile ride, but in a statement, the company said:
We’re aware that our New Haven (CT) store parking lot is being promoted as a meeting location for a MAGA event this Saturday. We ask those who plan to gather at IKEA New Haven to understand they are not authorized to use the property as a meeting location.
The non-event was covered by local media, both its announcement, and its lack of participants.
The people who’d planned to drag (that’s what they called it) for Trump have repeated the lie that the November election was fraudulent so often they’ve come to believe it. Then they stormed the U.S. Capitol. Then they planned local protests. Then they stayed home.
Part of me wants to believe they’re taking a page out of the Book of Awfulness written by the Westboro Church, which isn’t a church, but an anti-LGBTQ organization lousy with lawyers who know their First Amendment rights. Westboro stages their vicious demonstrations only a fraction of the times they threaten to do so. Their announcements get press, and then the Westboro troupe doesn’t show. (I also want to believe that Westboro is — any day now — going to announce they have been creating street theater to show us how ignorant is hatred, but the joke’s gone on too long for that.)
We the weary are told to be wary. We are told to stay away from state capitals, to enjoy the Inauguration on television, and wait for the big party on July 4, when we hope the pandemic will have abated, and that Trump-supporting people and organizations that claim Christianity but fund idiocy have had an honest come-to-Jesus moment.
But if insurrectionists do show, I want to be that little Black boy. Not to sound militaristic — at all — but I’ll hang onto that flag. It’s mine.
Evidence is mounting that January 6th was an inside job, organized by people on the payroll of the T**** administration, or the T**** Famiglia organization. These "grassroots" events at the state capitols don't seem to have the same level of coordination behind them.