Republicans are going out of their way to take the minds of their base away from the events of January 6. Republican leaders and those in the media have all of a sudden stopped talking about the attempted government takeover by people who looked at and followed Donald Trump’s every move. Republicans feel that the less they even remotely mention January 6, the less their base will focus on the event. January 6 is a date that should be mentioned in the same breath as 9/11. However, Republicans don’t even mention 9/11 anymore because there is nothing to be gained from a political standpoint anymore. A foreign group attacked the nation on 9/11, and the nation went to war. A domestic group attacks the U.S. government, and Republicans treat it as a Sunday walk in the park.

Want evidence? Republican senator Ron Johnson from Wisconsin may have said what other Republican leaders may have on their mind but won’t say for fear that some in their base might see as being taboo. According to reports, Johnson said he “wasn’t frightened” by what the White insurrectionists did on January 6, but he “might have been concerned” had those people been Black. Throw in the fact that the insurrectionists were White, some armed and engaged in violence with law enforcement officers. Johnson said he “never felt threatened”.

Johnson continued by saying, had Trump been reelected, there would be tens of thousands of Black Lives Matter protesters outside and that he might have been a little concerned. If that doesn’t bring solace to his base and give Republicans an escape hatch, then what will? That not only changes the narrative of what happened on January 6, but it also reinforces Republicans who voted against impeachment removal in the Senate as validation that Trump supporters were not the “bad guys”.

If one didn’t know exactly what happened January 6, it would make separating fact from fiction the more difficult because someone is telling the truth and someone is lying.

The truth is that those people who stormed the Capitol were White, not Black. By saying that those insurrectionists were people “who love their country”, respect law enforcement, and would never break any laws is denying the facts of what really happened. Republicans like to always define what they believe the facts are because they know that there are those in right-wing media who will repeat what Johnson said with an even bigger spin. Johnson is playing the race card by insinuating that. Forget the fact that white people caused the death and destruction at the Capitol, but instead, imagine what COULD have happened if those protesters had been Black. Black people, Johnson might say, hated Trump and wanted him to lose and that if he had won, that would have had him concerned. Johnson wants to shift the blame on Black people for something that he knows that they didn’t do, despite the fact that Black people are protesting over police brutality, not over an election. They didn’t storm the Capitol when Trump won in 2016. Republicans can’t defend themselves for denying millions of Americans aid when it is needed, but they will always go back to the race card. Johnson almost sounds like he would have welcomed the insurrectionists as patriots for “righting” an election wrong.

As far as elections go, Republicans do not want the Black vote. Don’t be fooled. Republicans across the nation are writing legislation to make it even harder for Black people to vote. Black people need to ask themselves, why support Republicans when they want to take away their most basic right as an American. What is it that they fear about Black voting power? They would have had to vote for President Joe Biden’s American Rescue Plan passed by Democrats, something that they couldn’t satisfactorily explain to their base. The shadow of Trump over them would make that impossible. So, they want to blame Black people for something that they know Black people did not do and, by extension, come up with more ways to take away their voting power. What Republicans are doing is not rocket science, as they keep going back to the same playbook. It is all out in the open, what Republicans will say/do to stay in power.

No matter how powerful a nation may become, the old “divide and conquer” move has proven to be a winning combination. Read the scriptures. In the end, no one wins. Not even Republicans. Remember, the world is watching. So is God.