In an epic display of the divide between red and blue America, House Republican Mo Brooks (AL-5) has posted an image of himself speaking at the January 6th “Stop the steal” rally (the appearance where Brooks has admitted he was wearing body armor underneath his clothes) to his Senate election website. 

The fact that Brooks chose to use that particular image is telling. It suggests that he’s not only proud of his participation in Trump’s attempt to overthrow our government and declare himself dictator, but it suggests an intent on Brooks’s part to abuse the authority of his office in any way possible to try to subvert normal government function, and pave the way for Trump, or one of his acolytes like Ron DeSantis, to take over and run the United States as a Putin-style dictatorship.

This kind of behavior should not be disregarded as a simple mistake, or a casual campaign choice that was made without consideration. Brooks is on record as saying that he would be “proud if his staff helped plan January 6th“, and the strategic use of January 6th imagery should be regarded as a conscious choice made by his campaign.

This kind of expression makes clear that Rick Wilson’s warning that “a coup that goes unpunished is a training exercise” was entirely valid, and that if we want to preserve our Democracy, then the January 6th Committee and the Justice Department need to find some way to accelerate the investigations of January 6th participants, because it appears absolutely certain that the events of January 6th were not a one-time occurrence, and although an actual storming of the Capitol building isn’t likely to happen again, those same individuals are busy scheming away, trying to find any loophole they can leverage to try to overthrow our Democracy.