I completely agree with you that both sides are a mess and that we are totally polarized. Civil war is a distinct possibility, perhaps inevitable. I truly hope that our polarization is not fatal.

I do agree with you that January 6th was perpetrated by a relatively small group of right wing extremists. But that's not the real problem.

The real problem now is the refusal of the current President, Republican senators and Republican congressman to acknowledge that January 6th was even an insurrection, or condemn the pardoning of the insurrectionists. This refusal is a huge, huge problem. And this refusal to acknowledge is wholly Republican. It is the official position of the President who is the leader of the Republican Party. And it has become the official position of many elected Republican senators and congressmen. They say so on TV every day.

There can be no national healing as long as the Republican Party and its leaders refuse to acknowledge what happened, and forsake it and the insurrectionists with finality.

I get that their "base" demands that they don't. And that may be even worse.

So I think that perhaps where you and I disagree (and I hope I'm wrong), is that I believe that yes, the refusal to acknowledge January 6th as a very real insurrection, not a "patriotic protest", instigated by a sitting president who is now sitting in office again, has indeed become representative of the entire Republican Party. Those officials within the Republican Party who did not share that view have been purged by the Republican Party leadership and voters (Cheney, Kinzinger, etc.). Those persons are now subject to serious and threatening investigation by Republican Party leadership (Comer et al) and law enforcement agencies led by persons appointed by the Republican Party's leader. The January 6th event has been so minimized, so normalized, and its investigations to be so attacked as illegitimate by the Republican Party as a whole as to make the event itself acceptable to the Party as a whole. January 6th has become officially nothing more than a "patriotic protest" as evidenced by the presidential pardons which followed, and then by the refusal to condemn the pardons by Republican Party leadership including sitting Republican senators and the current Republican Speaker of the House. The leader of the Republican Party was reelected by Republican voters and others after promising to pardon the insurrections. This tends to indicate that pardons for the insurrectionists are acceptable to the Republican electorate. Republican Party leadership has simply, successfully and acceptably, washed away the violent crimes we all watched play out on TV before us. This is simply appalling.

We do agree that yes, there is much trouble with Democrats, too. No doubt about it. Hands down circus, weak and ineffectual, and with shady money dealings. Big trouble, deep trouble. And they earn our disgust every day. But that trouble, all of it, pales in sharp comparison to January 6th being falsely, officially portrayed as nothing more than an acceptable "patriotic protest" by the Republican Party as a whole.

And we are all the losers for it. And we're likely going to keep losing until something far worse happens.

The present situation is nothing short of terrifying.

Just my 2 cents.