When politics is your religion and government is your God, a public building is your church.
The four-hour disturbance at the U.S. Capitol building on January 6, according to Beltway aristocracy and the media, wasn’t a legitimate protest that turned violent in some areas—it was a sacrilege. Never mind that the building itself sustained minimal damage—early reports estimated $30 million for repairs but the actual figure is around $1 million—the real vandalism occurred when thousands of Americans wearing MAGA hats invaded the cathedral of government power occupied by America’s political deity.
And the alleged apostates are paying a dear price.
Since January 6, lawmakers, judges, and federal prosecutors have routinely described the Capitol building as holy ground. “To those who engaged in the gleeful desecration of this, our temple of democracy, American democracy, justice will be done,” Pelosi said after the breach. Representative Mario Díaz-Balart (R-Fla.) tweeted on January 6 that “the Capitol building is the center and sacred symbol of democracy.”
After the joint session reconvened later that evening, Senator Richard Durbin (D-Ill.) mourned how “this sacred place was desecrated by a mob today, on our watch. This temple to democracy was defiled by thugs who roamed the halls.” Senator Ed Markey (D-Mass.) thanked the first responders who protected “this sacred Chamber.”
Here is how Joe Biden’s Justice Department recently described the actions of Robert Reeder, a Maryland man whose life has been ruined since he was charged with four misdemeanors related to his participation in the January 6 protest: “The attack on the U.S. Capitol . . . was one of the only times in our history when the building was literally occupied by hostile participants,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Joshua Rothstein wrote in an August filing. “The Defendant chose to be a part of the desecration of the Capitol rotunda. The Defendant stood in the center of the rotunda, where Ruther (sic) Bader Ginsburg, John Lewis, Ronald Reagan, Dwight Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, and Abraham Lincoln, among others, lied in state. What the Defendant chose to record and celebrate at that place, at that time, was antithetical to the events that most Americans associate with the Capitol rotunda.”
“Indeed, his very presence in the Capitol rotunda that day was a desecration of hallowed ground.” (emphasis added)
Now, for credentialed D.C. insiders like Joshua Rothstein, that undoubtedly is true. After all, Reeder, unlike Joshua Rothstein, did not attend Columbia Law School. Reeder was a FedEx truck driver until the company fired him after his arrest and now he can’t find another job. As he said during his sentencing hearing last Friday, he is “radioactive”—so he cannot afford to throw himself a 40th birthday party like Joshua Rothstein just did. Rothstein’s party, held at a rented-out D.C. restaurant, was complete with truffles and monogrammed cookies and attended by former Homeland Security director Jeh Johnson and other Beltway bigwigs, Politico reported.
In fact, Robert Reeder, thanks to people like Josua Rothstein and his journo pals, doesn’t have many friends any more. Reeder’s teenage son, who shares his father’s name, doesn’t want to go to school; he’s bullied because of his father’s involvement on January 6, even though Reeder didn’t attack anyone or vandalize any property.
Reeder’s family and neighbors have abandoned him, too. As Reeder tearfully explained to a federal judge on Friday, even his church told him to stop coming because he was a distraction. “That’s tough because it was my support group,” Reeder told Judge Thomas Hogan, who ignored Reeder’s desperate plea for compassion and sentenced him to three months in prison for pleading guilty to one count of “parading” in the Capitol building—a place Hogan described as “sacrosanct.”
Rothstein, who wanted Reeder in jail for six months, told the court Reeder walked around like “he was a congressman” on January 6.
While it’s true Reeder did enter the Capitol building twice, he acted nothing like a United States congressman.
Reeder didn’t vote to add trillions to the national debt in the name of COVID relief, climate change, or infrastructure. He didn’t put his legislative imprimatur on COVID tyranny such as lockdowns, mask requirements, and vaccine mandates or cower to the teachers’ unions random demand of $640 billion to open schools this fall.
The official congressional record does not show Reeder as a co-sponsor of Joe Biden’s $3.5 trillion boondoggle—a figure closer to $5 trillion according to some analyses—that will raise at least $2 trillion in new taxes and redistribute the windfall to Democrats’ pet projects including paid family leave, child tax credits, free college, expanded health care coverage, and “clean energy.”
Robert Reeder isn’t responsible for a wide open southern border that threatens our safety and our sovereignty. There’s no evidence he consented to deploy millions of U.S. troops and spend trillions of U.S. tax dollars on failed foreign wars that culminated with a humiliating exit from Afghanistan resuling in the murder of 13 American servicemembers while leaving behind $80 billion in weaponry and artillery.
He didn’t participate in two preposterous impeachment trials against Donald Trump, one of which was a ruse to cover-up the Biden family overseas racket before the 2020 primaries, or the vile character assasination of a Supreme Court justice nominee.
He didn’t marry his brother to commit immigration fraud, repeatedly lie to the American public about an “abundance of evidence” to prove Trump-Russia election collusion, scream “we’re gonna impeach the motherfucker” after being sworn-in to Congress, encourage people to publicly harass Trump officials, or bend a knee in the “sacred” Capitol building to honor George Floyd. There is no statement from Reeder condemning America as systemically racist and supporting a new federal holiday to collectively repent for George Floyd’s death.
Reeder never made empty promises to hold Big Tech, the FBI, and China accountable. Nor is he responsible for skyrocketing consumer prices, a stagnant national economy, a looming supply chain crisis, or the fact that public approval ratings for everyone from Joe Biden to congressional leaders of both parties are tanking.
Joshua Rothstein was wrong when he claimed that January 6 was the first time the Capitol had been invaded by “hostile participants.” With the exception of a handful of decent lawmakers, the “sacred” ground of the Capitol building is occupied by “hostile participants” every day—congressmen of both political parties, who hold American citizens such as Robert Reeder and the other 630-plus January 6 defendants in open contempt. Those representatives have done far more irreversible damage to the country than a few thousand Trump supporters could ever do—and, unlike January 6, their rampage is ongoing.
But the real heretics continue to rule while Robert Reeder, who told the court last week he “is a good man” despite how his government portrayed him, is off to jail. My guess, however, is that our country would be much better off if it were run by men like Reeder rather than the people in charge right now.
