A pair of "insurrections"

Seems like January 6 is a tough day for establishment Washington.

All week the nation’s been captivated by two stories. One, the saga of Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin, had the side benefit of bringing the country together in prayer and seems to have a happy ending, as yesterday we learned that Hamlin was awake, alert, and talking to his teammates and family. His toy charity has raised over $7 million on an initial goal of $25,000.

The other major ongoing story was the mounting number of ballots necessary to elect a Speaker of the House. It seemed to be a fait accompli that Kevin McCarthy of California, the erstwhile Minority Leader, would be elected Speaker since the GOP took over the House in November, but enough Republicans believed in the thought that a change was necessary that McCarthy hadn’t had the 218 votes he needed to win. In fact, for several ballots the top votegetter was Hakeem Jeffries, the Democrats’ nominee and election denier for whom they voted in lockstep. (Fortunately, the post doesn’t go to the plurality winner.) It had been a full century since the House needed more than one ballot to pick a Speaker; early this morning Kevin McCarthy won on ballot number 15.

Of course, the House couldn’t do business until a Speaker was selected, and everyone blamed the Republicans, particularly the twenty who originally voted against McCarthy - that number was slowly whittled down to just a few holdouts as some switched to McCarthy after extracting concessions from the McCarthy camp. Those final holdouts eventually voted “present.”

Democrats never fail to make hay while the sun shines, and having this spill over into January 6 gave them a perfect excuse to bring up what they claim is another example of Republican dysfunction, the J6 Capitol riot. It’s an event that aggrieved the Biden administration so much that they’re still arresting people for associated misdemeanors months later.

On the other hand, the Left has had a litany of these events, and mostly got away with them: we had the temper tantrum in 2020 with the George Floyd riots, the unrest at the Trump inauguration in 2017 - remember all the arrests from that? They got a settlement after the charges were dropped for most of them - and the Occupy Wall Street movement of a decade ago. Most of these perpetrators got off scot-free, but those on the other side of the political fence have had their lives turned upside down and the book thrown at them for lesser offenses.

It’s shameful how the system only works one way, but that’s what we have to resolve to change. We’ll see how politician promises hold up in the coming weeks and months, but in the meantime we can work to change things for the better where we are through the rightsizing of government. Perhaps these January 6 events are a foretaste of life to come.

Now that Hamlin seems to be out of the woods, let’s keep that praying up but this time beseech our Lord for the wisdom to promote a revival and another Great Awakening in our nation. They’ve worked pretty well so far.