Remarks of the Day

Jan 4, 2026

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Today we commemorate January 6, 2021, when the outgoing president incited a crowd to storm the US Capitol to violently prevent the peaceful transfer of power. We gather today to remember this assault on democracy, and to pledge not to let it happen again.

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But is that what we’ve been doing? When you think about it, our enduring shock at January 6 is rather quaint. How about memorializing the third week in October 2025, when Trump took a wrecking ball to another icon of American democracy, another people’s house, the entire east wing of the White House?

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And shouldn’t we solemnly commemorate the weeks between November 2025 and the night of January 2, 2026, during which the US military committed extrajudicial killings of a hundred people on small boats off the Venezuelan coast, and then killed at least eighty more in their raid on Caracas to abduct Venezuela’s president? On January 6, 2021, only a few people died –broken windows here, some human feces and urine there, dirt from boots on Nancy Pelosi’s desk…

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How about commemorating March 12, 2025, the day of the arrest of Kilmar Albrego Garcia, whom the government--in error--whisked off in chains to El Salvador’s notorious CECOT prison, and did not ultimately set free, until they released him from American detention a couple of weeks ago? Albrego Garcia stands for the brutal treatment of all immigrants: currently, ICE holds over 68,000 in custody and has deported 600,000; another million have “self-deported” to escape the constant fear and persecution. So every March 12 let’s gather to mark the indiscriminate, illegal cruelty of Trump’s army of masked thugs.

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And perhaps we should meet right here again this February 1st, to remember a year ago when Musk’s cynically named Department of Government Efficiency began dismantling USAID, shutting down its website and locking out its staff without notice? Again, not a whole lot of people died in the January 6 Capitol attack, while the shuttering of USAID, according to estimates by the Center for Global Development, has already led to 500,000 to 1 million deaths.

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Or how about in just a couple of weeks, taking January 24th to mark the Senate’s confirmation of Fox weekend host Pete Hegseth as the Secretary of Defense, who’s now calling himself the Secretary of War and very excited about his new military initiatives in Venezuela, Nigeria, Iran, Yemen, Somalia, and Syria, and possibly in Cuba, Panama, and Colombia, as next steps in Trump’s unhinged display of despotic power?

Then could we show up here yet again for February 13, to salute the anniversary of the Senate’s confirmation of a man with a worm in his brain, a man with no medical training, as the US Secretary of Health.

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Please, let’s not forget July 4, too: instead of having picnics, we’ll observe the anniversary of Trump signing the Big Ugly Bill, which mandated the most massive transfer of wealth in history from the poor to the very rich, as well as catastrophic cuts to Medicaid and ACA subsidies, a bill that allocated over $170 billion for the arrest and detention of immigrants, building of new prisons, and deportation of our brown brothers and sisters.

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We could continue to suggest other significant dates, marking actions that we should not and must not forget, actions that should remain as shocking as January 6, and that are now graven into a shameful historical record. You get the picture: any one of them would forever sully any other presidency. But now, Trump himself has celebrated January 6--a little early--by striking and decapitating Venezuela four days ago, beginning in earnest his fascist military domination of the entire western hemisphere and Greenland.  

BUT this is also a time of action by the people, sending the message that we stand united against fascism. Just as folks in Chicago came out in their pajamas and blew whistles to drive ICE out of their neighborhoods, just as Jack Smith and Zohran Mamdani stand up to political bullying, the people will keep showing up, loudly and nonviolently, in inflatable frog suits and chanting and carrying signs, demanding accountability and calling for impeachment.

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Yes, the assaults on decency and sanity occur every single day, not just on January 6. Grab ‘em by the pussy. They’re eating the pets, they’re eating the cats and dogs. Very fine people on both sides. We’re going to run Venezuela. Shithole countries. Quiet, Piggy.

Well, here’s one crowd of piggies who are not going to be quiet!

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There will be no toxic military operation in the middle of the night to rescue our raggedy democracy: It’s up to the people to bring down the dictatorship.

And we will!

And we’ll put it back together the way it should be, not just the way it was.
This time, with honesty, humility, and hearts big enough to hold ALL of us and Mother Earth in dignity, justice, compassion, and truly equal rights for ALL.
As Joyce Vance said yesterday, you can’t do democracy from the sidelines.

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Show me what democracy looks like!