Lucy: “I’ll hold the ball, Charlie Brown, and you come running up and kick it”…Charlie: “Every year she pulls the same trick on me!”

–from the Peanuts football comic strip (Charles Schulz)

Recent events in Washington, D.C. and Hong Kong compelled me to change today’s post to discuss both.

To see what’s wrong with Washington, D.C., look no further than Congress and its handling of the most recent stimulus bill.

I’m reminded of my high school years when I would be up past midnight sitting at the kitchen table typing a term paper due later that morning. I’d had a few months to write it, but I’d put it off to the penultimate hour and put forth a less than stellar effort, even adding “junk” when necessary. But, c’mon man (or is it “person” now?)…I was only 16 years old!

Congress hemmed and hawed over a stimulus package months ago when everyone acknowledged people were hurting and needed financial assistance. Apropos for the season, it became a political football, and they kicked around various versions of a bill that represented a staggering sum of money. Of course, nothing was settled and, after the election, Speaker Pelosi brazenly announced the stimulus bill could move forward now that we’ll have a new president.

More debate ensued until Congress was up against the holiday recess, at which time the bill became a “Christmas tree,” on which members got to add their own ornaments, disguised as pork and special interest provisions. Americans would get $600 per person, in a way not properly targeted to those most in need, but millions would go to such initiatives as fisheries, gender studies in Pakistan, and two new Smithsonian museums, to name just a few misdirected provisions. We can debate the worthiness of these causes, but it’s hard to understand their relevance to the simple matter that the American economy and the personal economic situation of her citizens are hurting due to a pandemic mismanaged on many levels. Nonetheless, the bill was held hostage by Congress.

The simple fact is that these 535 individuals in Congress are in charge of the lives of over 300 million citizens. I’m all for our system of representative government, but we must hold those who lead us accountable. We complain about Congress but continue to send the same people back to Washington one election after another. With November’s election, there was some change in that regard, and I’m hopeful this will continue.

The reprehensible events of January 6 were a startling embarrassment for our country. An assault on Congress is not how we effect change in our country.

How did we get to that point? There’s plenty of blame to go around. The bonfire-building started 4 years ago. Biased media, journalists harboring agendas, pundits, politicians from both sides spouting vitriol, special interest groups, and the shameful performances of two presidential candidates in something loosely termed a debate all added timber to the pile. While I do not believe he thought people would invade the Capitol, President Trump did light the match when he ginned up his most partisan supporters and encouraged them to peacefully march on the Capitol.

It’s important to remember this: 74 million people voted to re-elect President Trump; only a few thousand criminals breached the Capitol. I can’t imagine what they were thinking, but I suspect they must have believed they had presidential cover for their actions. Some lost their lives and many will lose their freedom for their heinous acts.

President-elect Biden was quick to come to the podium and condemn the thugs who attacked the sacred “people’s house,” and he was right to do so. But his condemnation was conspicuously absent last summer as cities in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Washington, and Oregon sustained similar attacks. I suspect individuals in those cities thought their businesses and homes that were destroyed were every bit as sacred as our nation’s Capitol.

Also, did you notice the duplicitous behavior exhibited by members of Congress who support the defunding of police, but were some of the loudest voices regarding the lack of adequate law enforcement at the Capitol when it was attacked? Progressive ideas don’t always sound so rational when one’s own safety is at stake.

January 6 was a seminal moment for our nation. Hopefully, those who represent us in government will learn that their performance and behavior in part led to the events of the day, and they must desist from crying out that if the other side gets its way, Armageddon will ensue. If both sides treat their work as a zero-sum game, that’s exactly what we’ll get from them: nothing. Their behavior must change. If it doesn’t, in two years we have the opportunity to replace many of them–through an orderly and fair election process, not by an insurrection.

Jimmy Lai is a Hong Kong businessman and the founder of Apple Daily, a newspaper that supports democracy in Hong Kong. For his efforts, he’s been arrested, charged, detained, released on bail, and now detained again until his trial in April. On the now infamous 6th of January, 53 other voices for democracy in Hong Kong, one of whom is an American citizen, were also detained.

We cannot imagine such a thing happening in our country, where the loudest and most hateful voices are allowed to be heard. For that, we can celebrate. There’s still hope. As I’ve said before, most of us are moderates–center-left or center-right–and while we may not endorse their opinions, we tolerate the voices to the far-left and far-right as long as their expressions are made peacefully.

We are a great nation. Despite our divisions, I firmly believe the forces of hope and optimism, and the good they do, will far outweigh those of hatred and evil.