Here and police at the ready to finish a job ready to hold the line for as long as we need to MIKE Tobin, live in Washington thanks so much. We are still waiting to hear if the leader of the United States Senate Mitch Mcconnell is close to getting to the floor and, of course we will have more in what is happening bombarded with images. What took place in Washington, too little has been spent on why anyone trying to understand significance ought to watch the video of the woman who was shot inside the? U dot s capitol this afternoon, in the footage which you can find on the internet. The woman is standing in a hallway off the house floor. She appears to be in her 20s shes got an american flag tied around her neck. The scene around her is chaotic. People are bumping into each other trying to get into the Senate Chamber with no warning. There is gunfire, you hear a shot and the woman falls. Shes been hit with a bullet. It

seems like the neck could be. The chest apparently was fired by someone in law enforcement. If people in the hallway screamed the camera closes in on the Womans face, she looks stunned. She is staring straight ahead, unblinking in her eyes. You can see she knows she is about to die which, in the end she did, she died a couple hours ago at a local hospital. What can we learn from this? Its not enough to call it a tragedy? Imagine for a second getting a call and learning that was your daughter. The last time she spoke to her, she was heading to Washington for a political rally. Now shes dead, Phil never talked to her again. Imagine that if you have children, it will put you in the right frame of mind. We will be watching a lot more of it in the coming days. Political violence begets political violence. That is always true. It is an iron law and never changes. We have to be against that, no matter who commits the violence or under what pretext, no matter how many self

interested demagogues assure us violence is justified as they have been assuring us lying to us for the past six months. We have a duty to oppose all of this, not simply because political violence kills other peoples, children which it does, but in the end it doesnt work. No good person will live a happier life because that girl was killed in the hallway of the capital. Today, our only option as a practical matter is to fix what is causing this. In the first place, we dont have a choice. You may have nothing in common with the people on the other side of the country, increasing we probably dont, but youre stuck with them. The idea that groups of Americans will break off into separate peaceful nations of like minded citizens thats a fantasy. That will not happen. There is no such thing as a peaceful separation. There never has been, and there wont be. The two hemispheres of this country are separately

intertwined cojoined. The twins neither can leave without killing the other thats. The first thing to know as horrifying as this moment is: we have no option but to make it better got it out. The second thing to consider and its related to the first is why the woman who was killed today went to the rally in the first place. We dont know about her, but she didnt look radical. She bore no resemblance to the angry children, weve seen again and again, wrecking our cities, setting fire and scraping slogans on statues. She didnt look like that. The woman in the capital hallway looked like everyone else, so why was she there on a Wednesday? Why were any of them there? Today? We ought to think about that. If you want to fix it, you have to think about that. The only reason this country is rich and successful is for hundreds of years weve enjoyed a stable political system and the only reason that system is

stable is because its a democracy. Democracy is our pressure release valve as long as people sincerely believe she can change things by voting. They stay calm, they dont storm the Bastille, they dont burst into the house chamber, they talk and they organize and they vote. The opposite is also true. If people begin to believe that there democracy is fraudulent if they concluded that voting is a charade, the system is rigged and its run in secret by a small group of powerful dishonest people. Then God knows what could happen? Actually, we do know what could happen its happening right now now its happening in countless other countries over centuries and the cycle is the same because human nature, doesnt change, listen to us shut up and do what youre told reply. The leaders, the first instinct of illegitimate leadership, is to crack down on the population.

Crackdowns, never make it better. Instead, they always make the country more volatile and more dangerous. The people in charge dont care to learn or listen, because all of this conversation is a referendum on them and their leadership, so they clamp down harder obey. I tell you obey. It ends badly every single time that doesnt mean they wont, try it again. Of course they will because its their nature its how we got here in the first place, millions of American sincerely believe the last election was fake. You can dismiss them as crazy call them conspiracy, theorists, kick them off twitter that wont change their minds rather than try to change their minds to convince them and reassure them. The system is real. Democracy works, as he would do. If you cared about the country, our new leaders will try to silence them. What happened today will be used by people taking power to

justify stripping you with the rights were born with as Un American, your right to speak without being censored your right to assemble, to not be spied upon to make a living to defend your family most critically. These are the most basic and ancient freedoms we have. They are why we live here in the first place, why we are proud to be Americans. They are what make us different and they are all now in peril. When thousands of your countrymen storm the capitol building you dont have to like it, we dont you can be horrified by the violence and, as we said, and we will say it again- we are horrified.