Like most of America, I was sickened at the site of our capital being stormed and desecrated by a riotous mob incited to lynching fever by a sociopathic president so crippled by narcissism he could not admit or accept his own defeat. 

And since that defeat, he has neglected the duties of his office to sing callous lies to his base. “I was cheated,” he wailed repeatedly, like a country western singer bemoaning his woes. “Your vote was stolen,” his sad song continued. “The election was rigged, the country taken over by socialists parading as Democrats.” 

“And it’s time to fight back,” went the final deadly refrain.

All the while, since the election, he’s been backed up in the halls of Congress, the very building his rioters stormed, by sycophants who so fear his power and popularity they’ve turned their backs on everything they once believed in—America, democracy, integrity, perhaps even the teachings of Jesus. 

Yes, Jesus, a man who, just like their president, was crucified unjustly, they would have you believe.  

Most of the crowd that fateful day were out to show their rage. A few, I suspect, had more pernicious aims in mind. Aims like murder, violence, destruction and anarchy.

And now we are left to clean up the mess. Not just the excrement smeared on the walls of the capital, but the excrement smeared on the institutions of our democracy, which I fear has left an indelible stain. 

Trump will be tried for his perfidy. Tried and judged for so trampling the vows he made four years ago, to protect and defend the constitution, that no excuse will be large enough to hide his dishonor, nor any lie strong enough to withstand the truth that American lives were lost because of his actions. 

In pitting his own lust for power against the will of the electorate, he has stained the office of the presidency with the blood of those lives. 

History will so judge him for these crimes, even if his fellow Republicans refuse to do so.

And now we must also look to try and judge those who were swept up in Trump’s lies and who, in their zeal to fight for a phony cause, made a mess of our nation’s capital and of their own lives. 

How should we judge those who were sold a phony cause by a consummate con man? A cause manufactured to manipulate them, to harvest their love of their country, and to use them as instruments of one’s man’s insatiable lust for power? 

I have no doubt about the judgement we should rain upon those who came to the capital to kill, destroy or violently disrupt the nation’s business. There are laws that fittingly apply to their misdeeds.

But for those who were drawn like acolytes to a false prophet, who are still trying to process exactly what they were drawn into, I would like to see leniency and compassion applied to their cases, as I would like to see all victims of con men so tenderly treated.

So many of that riotous crowd were drawn to Washington as victims. Victims of Trump’s lies, victim’s of Trump’s Republican bootlickers who echoed those lies, victim’s of the right-wing media that repeated and validated Trump’s lies.

They are our brothers and sisters who have been led astray. And I pray for the time when we can welcome them back safely to our community and to our humble embrace.

Only then will justice truly prevail.