We've Had Insurrections Before

It's Been a Minute

NPR

News, News Commentary, Society & Culture, Spirituality, Religion & Spirituality

4.7 • 9.2K Ratings

🗓️ 12 January 2021

⏱️ 23 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

History has a way of repeating itself. Last week's storming of the U.S. Capitol has parallels to an incident dating back to 1874, when a paramilitary force of ex-Confederates seized control of the Louisiana state house. Their goal? To depose a governor who won the election and replace him with his opponent. Sam revisits this history with Jamelle Bouie, columnist at The New York Times. They explore why the path toward political unity in our time might actually be through division.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey y'all, you're listening to It's Been A Minute from NPR.
0:06.6	I'm Sam Sanders.
0:08.6	So this episode is dropping almost a week after the insurrection at the Capitol.
0:13.4	And you know, personally, I'm still going back and forth between feeling deeply dismayed
0:18.1	about America itself and laughing at some of what I saw last week.
0:23.7	Last Wednesday we all saw the goofy looking guy and body paint and horns looking foolish.
0:28.6	We all saw the grandma protester who looked like she was lost in the Capitol.
0:32.1	We all saw the insurrectionist smiling and taking selfies like tourists.
0:39.1	Some of that stuff seems totally absurd and ridiculous.
0:43.4	But if you dig deeper, what happened last Wednesday was also very terrifying.
0:47.2	You can juxtapose those images with other photos in video from that day.
0:52.6	People in tactical gear with zip ties, people with bright pipe bombs and guns and ammo
0:58.2	and Molotov cocktails to watch it in DC.
1:03.2	Memes aside, what really could have happened that day, it could have been a lot worse than
1:07.8	what we saw.
1:08.8	Yes, and I'll say even the images of the kind of goofy silly people, I don't think people
1:14.1	should take those as diminishing the seriousness and the degree to which this is all quite sinister.
1:21.6	That is Jamel Buie, he's a colonist at the New York Times.
1:24.8	We have more and more information that we shouldn't take the most benign view of this.
1:29.0	There are people in the crowd who had some level of organization in planning and who intended
1:35.0	to commit serious violence.
1:37.3	They broke the glass.
	...

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