Editor’s Note on January 6th’s Events

Firstly, you may have noticed that we’re now sending out the XRPDX newsletter on Thursday mornings instead of Monday mornings. There are some other cool changes coming soon, but this one arrived early!

That said, in light of last Wednesday’s events, we’re light on content this week while we take stock of what’s going on. Democrats picking up both Senate seats in Georgia is huge, since it means we’ll get to have an actual administrative branch. But that was definitely overshadowed by the right wing extremists storming the halls of Congress. It’s a lot to take in.

But there is one important thing I’d like to share:

Tweet from Sophia Scmidth (@tough_schmidt_): I just asked Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.) about this:  “The idea of taking the time to try to impeach him, the idea of trying to expel members of the House of Senate for their efforts to protect the President and continue this fiction ... I just think we need to turn the page."

Mere hours after an unprecedented challenge to the stability of American government and their own physical safety, we have some of the most powerful Democrats in the country wanting to “turn the page”. Impeachment isn’t the real issue here. It’s the total lack of interest in understanding why this happened or how to prevent it from happening again.

When these same people respond to unprecedented hurricanes and wildfires with bizarre excuses about balancing the budget or getting Republican votes, please remember this moment. When they seem unable to care that they’re destroying their children’s and grandchildren’s world with their inaction on climate change, this might be why.

Fossil fuel money in politics is a problem. But this absence of any sense of self-preservation? It might be much, much worse.

About Austen Lethbridge-Scarl

Austen Lethbridge-Scarl (he/him) is the editor of the XRPDX newsletter. Besides climate issues, he focuses on racial justice, police abolition and antifascism.

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