Note: Stephen H. Provost is the author of the three-book series, Trumpism on Trial.

After the U.S. Capitol was cleared of domestic terrorists on Jan. 6, lawmakers returned and ratified Joe Biden’s victory in the Electoral College. As they did so, they tried to reassure the American people that the insurrection had failed.

In the words of Republican leader Mitch McConnell, “They tried to disrupt our democracy. They failed.”

No, they didn’t.

They didn’t stop lawmakers from affirming Biden’s victory, but that was never their objective. And yes, they DID disrupt our democracy. What else would you call breaking into the Capitol and forcing lawmakers to adjourn — even temporarily — as they grabbed gas masks, hunkered down on the floor, and were whisked away to undisclosed locations?

“Disrupt” is putting it mildly.

McConnell called it an insurrection, and that’s exactly what it was. But it wasn’t an insurrection in the sense that we usually understand it.

Fear factor

What we all must remember is that Donald Trump is a bully. Bullies don’t usually take and hold power through force, but through fear. And Wednesday’s invasion wasn’t an insurrection in itself, it was the most brazen act yet in an insurrection that’s been going on for four years now.

Trump has been bullying people on Twitter for years. He’s been cowing lawmakers in submission by threatening to “primary” them. He’s been goading his supporters into targeting his political opponents — even, and especially, fellow Republicans who refuse to do his bidding, because infidels and heretics are far worse than unbelievers.

That targeting, in some cases, has taken the form of death threats.

Trump has held Republican lawmakers and the nation, hostage, politically, for the past four years. On Wednesday, his minions held those same lawmakers and the symbol of our nation hostage LITERALLY.

The invasion of the Capitol didn’t fail. It exactly what it was supposed to do.

It sent a signal that the U.S. Capitol isn’t safe. That extremists can mount an assault on the American seat of government at will, and that they can do it again. Security may be tightened. The Capitol police force may be beefed up, but it scarcely matters because the damage is done. Mission accomplished. The time to have prepared for this was when Trump called upon his supporters to descend on Washington for a rally he promised “will be wild.”

Ineptitude or complicity?

The fact that the police were woefully unprepared for what happened raises a number of questions. Were some of them actually complicit? It’s a question worth asking after photos surfaced of officers opening the doors to the Capitol and letting the invaders in, even taking selfies with some of them.

Where were the heavily armed militarized forces that appeared at a moment’s notice to assault peaceful protesters in Lafayette Square — so Trump could hold a Bible up in front of a church where he wasn’t wanted? Why did they take THREE HOURS to show up and protect the Capitol? And why weren’t they there beforehand, when it was clear that extremist militia groups planned to descend upon Washington for Trump’s “rally”?

This was either the most incompetent police response in the history of our nation, or it was — at least among some members of the force — a means of enabling Trump’s orchestrated siege of the Capitol.

And yes, a siege is exactly what he had in mind. If there’s any doubt, listen to his words: At Wednesday’s rally, he called upon his mob to “get rid of the weak Congress people” because “this is the time for strength.”

“We are going to walk down to the Capitol... because you will never take back our country with weakness,” he told them.

Home invasion

Yes, the damage is done, because we don’t feel safe anymore. How could we?

Our nation has become like a victim being stalked by an abuser, who’s told to seek “protection” by taking out a restraining order. As if a piece of paper will protect anyone from someone holding a gun.

The police presence at the Capitol on Wednesday was as effective as a piece of paper. They were as effective as the cops who show up after your home’s been burglarized and say they’ll “look into it,” even though you know they’ll never find out who was responsible, and you’ll never get your stuff back.

If you’ve ever had your home burglarized (I have), you know what that feels like. You feel vulnerable and traumatized and sick to your stomach. You feel like the one place where you’re supposed to feel safe has been compromised: your house.

Now the People’s House has been compromised, has been invaded. And all our enemies — the Russians, the Chinese, the Iranians — saw exactly how easy it was.

We as a nation are shaken. We feel vulnerable. The ones who were supposed to the people who REPRESENT US either failed spectacularly or enabled the invaders. If they can’t or won’t protect the most important people in our country, how are WE supposed to feel safe? In attacking lawmakers, they attacked us by proxy. They sought to cow us, to make us fear for our safety, the same way Al-Qaida sought to paralyze us in fear with the terrorist strikes of September 11, 2001.

Donald Trump and his sycophantic foot soldiers sought the exact same result.

Inside job

But here’s the truly scary part: The sympathetic cops who were seen opening doors and taking selfies weren’t the only ones complicit here, nor were they the most dangerous plants. The larger threat lies with those politicians who persisted in their attempts to nullify a fair and legal election even after the invaders were finally expelled.

Make no mistake: These lawmakers and the domestic terrorists at the Capitol share exactly the same purpose. They all seek to castrate, to strangle, to obliterate our democracy by substituting their own will for the will of the people. The fact that they continued to do so after the invasion showed they’re more concerned about power than protecting the people’s house or the people themselves.

They say they just want an investigation. That’s bullshit. There have been investigations, recounts, and lawsuits, and they all came to the same conclusion: There’s nothing to investigate.

Sens. Josh Hawley, Ted Cruz, Tommy Tuberville, Rick Scott, Cindy Hyde-Smith, Cynthia Lummis, and Roger Marshall joined more than 120 House members in supporting the insurrection. Oh, they won’t tell you they supported the invasion of the Capitol. But remember, that invasion just one aspect of Trump’s insurrection. The other element, infiltration of Congress itself by would-be autocrats, is even more dangerous, and even scarier.

It isn’t over

Trump’s insurrection hasn’t failed, because it isn’t over. He’s vowed to never stop fighting, to never back down from what his shameless lackey Rudy Giuliani called “trial by combat.” Trump and his fellow travelers didn’t view Wednesday as their endgame, but as just the latest nail in the coffin of our Republic, the most brazen way yet of instilling fear into their targets.

“This morning we can report that the insurrection failed,” Alysin Camerota reported on CNN on the morning after the Capitol invasion.

But that’s the most dangerous thing we can say, because it simply isn’t true.

We would do far better to recall that eternal vigilance is the price of liberty. We failed miserably in that vigilance Wednesday and, indeed, we have failed over the past four years. We’ve become the proverbial boiling frog, and the water around us is boiling over. If we don’t become vigilant now, this insurrection of fear will become a tyranny in fact.  

If it’s not already too late.

Featured photo: Pro-Trump rally in Washington, D.C., 2017, by Ted Eytan, Creative Commons 2.0