In a way, the times proved no different from the past, as the rest of the world looked to America for direction, and found, not government institutions built on primary documents steeped in democracy – but a barbaric invitation to mob rule.

It was The Ox Bow Incident all over again, played out not on Boot Hill, but Capitol Hill, and in those countries intent on replicating this grand social experiment otherwise known as the United States.

In Brazil, for example:

“Hundreds of supporters of former leader Jair Bolsonaro stormed government buildings to protest against his successor and rival, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, according to CNN. “The breaches came about a week after the inauguration of Lula da Silva, who returned to power following a 12-year hiatus that ended when he defeated Bolsonaro in a run-off election in October.”

We have met the banana republic – and it is us.

Denied their coveted red wave in the 2022 federal elections and fractured with an albatross of former President Donald J. Trump around their necks, Republicans only picked up nine U.S. House seats, far short of what they hoped would provide U.S. Rep. Kevin McCarthy of California with a comfortable margin in his pursuit of the speakership.  Consequently, it took McCarthy 15 attempts to become speaker, the most ballots since before the Civil War, with former President Donald J. Trump taking an active, real-time role in securing votes for the GOP.

Then former Vice President Dick Nixon told reporters in 1962, “you don’t have Nixon to kick around any more, because, gentlemen, this is my last press conference.” If Trump couldn’t provoke a short-circuiting of his own vice president’s certification of the 2020 election, which he infamously attempted by inciting a 2021 insurrection, he would at least have McCarthy to kick around anew.

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