Yesterday Felt Like a Funeral for a Friend I Thought Would Live Forever

Sorry for the delayed opening of the shebeen. I was up late at a funeral for a friend I thought would live forever, or that certainly would outlive me. I stayed until the final funerary rights were complete. I stayed until the last dog died, and the last dog was Rep. Louie Gohmert, Padishah Emperor of the Crazy People, who, a little after 3:30 a.m., objected to the counting of the electors from Wisconsin. Not even Senator Josh Hawley had enough sedition left in him to join Gohmert in his objection, so it fell to earth right there at the feet of Mike Pence who, it should be said, presided over the obsequies with as much dignity as any vice president can reasonably be expected to muster. He laid constitutional government to rest with all the respect due, while all over Washington, its murderers toasted themselves as they blew town with its remains.

Of all the rituals of American democracy, this one, which was heretofore a charmingly formalized one rooted in an obsolete compromise with the slave power, never will wipe the blood off its bunting. Four people died in the attempt to stop it, the same number of people who died at Kent State. The slave power reasserted itself with a vengeance. Confederate battle flags flew in the national Capitol, a victory that the Army of Northern Virginia never achieved. Of course, the ANV didn’t have the Capitol’s putative defenders opening the barricades for it.

Our columns passed through the gate of Fort Stevens, and on the parapet I saw President Lincoln standing looking at the troops. Mrs. Lincoln and other ladies were sitting in a carriage behind the earthworks. We marched in line of battle into a peach orchard in front of Fort Stevens, and here the fight began. For a short time it was warm work, but as the President and many ladies were looking at us every man tried to do his best. Just at dark I was ordered to take my Regiment to the right of the line which I did at a double quick. I never saw the 2nd R.I. behave better. An old gentleman, a citizen in a black silk hat with a gun in his hand, went with us and taking a position behind a stump fired as cool as a veteran. The Rebels at first supposing us to be Penn. Militia stood their ground, but prisoners told me when they saw our lines advance without a break they knew we were veterans. … The Rebels broke and fled. I lost three men wounded. It was a fine little fight but did not last long. A surgeon standing on the fort beside President Lincoln was wounded. We slept upon the field, glad that we had saved Washington from capture.

—Elisha Hunt Rhodes,”All For The Union.”

I attended a funeral yesterday.

Win McNameeGetty Images

We have entered the realm beyond conventional politics now. We are in some primal place, perhaps even that “state of nature” where Enlightenment philosophes, many of whom were fatheads, believed was the place that people were truly free, and from which our natural rights are derived. But if the state of nature is a place where a goon can sit at Nancy Pelosi’s desk with his feet out and share pictures of himself with millions of people, and do so without apparent consequences, then Rousseau and all the rest of them can take a flying leap. This is no place for someone with plans for the future.

The resignations are piling up. Most of the party planners at Camp Runamuck have hit the silk. Elaine Chao, the Secretary of Transportation and wife of Mitch McConnell, has resigned, possibly as an alternative to doing her duty under the 25th Amendment, but also likely because she has other problems. Mick Mulvaney, who I believe at one point held every appointive office in the Executive branch, also has quit. There’s nothing noble about any of these people. They served the mob, not America. The Amish have the right idea. They all need to be shunned, cast out of political society forever, forced to live among the triumphant infidels whom they helped inspire.

Self-government died undefended on Wednesday. Sorry I was late. The funeral ran long.

Charles P. Pierce Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976.

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