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With proud red hats — as Arnold Schwarzenegger describes the analogous brownshirts at Kristallnacht — they storm the citadel of Democracy, confident of the approval of their Commander-in-Chief. 

Liz Cheney sayeth, ’he summoned the mob, he assembled the mob, and lit the flame of the attack.’ The STOP-THE-STEAL was a completely fraudulent, psychotic vision, hypnotically entrancing the mob. The chant reverberating in the halls of the Citadel, but only temporarily disrupting the affirmation of the electoral procedure.  

Even Mitch McConnell sayeth, ’this wasn’t a particularly close election.’

Moscow, Beijing cheer. All of Europe and other democracies mourn. Five people die. Bill, a true ‘Patriot,’ refuses to further sully a congressional medal — now handed out like candy.

And finally, the failed leader has to have his megaphone taken away and ignominiously be shown out, with a fresh impeachment and perhaps a Nixonian departure. He declines to participate in our sacrosanct peaceful transition of power. George Bush and Mike Pence will be there. 

We must unite once again around our fairly elected new leader. This is what we do. The very essence of our democracy is a sometimes-tortuous, self-correcting mechanism, which depends on a lead party and a competent opposition party to keep it in check.  But the rules of voting and transition of power, all derive from that bedrock concept. Working thus, we have the ‘Shining City on the Hill’ alluded to by Ronald Reagan, and before him, John F. Kennedy. 

For me, a humble civil servant, a new lead executive — but with fealty always to the Constitution and Country. Let’s all hope for a better year and new beginning. Let’s work to that bipartisan ‘Shining City on the Hill.’

M.S.Murbach has deep local roots. He now resides in California, where he works for the aerospace arm of the U.S. government.  He also teaches at San Jose State and Stanford Universities.