White Supremacists came to Washington in broad daylight, rioting in the Capitol at Trump’s instigation. The country watched, terrified and helpless. We saw smashed glass, the destruction of the people’s property, the terrorizing of those who were there to work and heard cries for help that did not come. Trump refused to stop the insurrection, enjoying the sight of a mob acting out his/their rage.

We have known that white supremacists have been part of our history, and solidified into endemic racism. Yet we chose to avert eyes. Last Wednesday we were forced as a nation to confront our truth as white supremacists came to the Hill with fascist ideologies using violence and terror tactics. 147 House Republicans who refused to confirm the people’s vote infused the rioters’ shouts of “stolen election.” Senators Hawley and Cruz supported the lie, and an autocratic unhinged president told the mob, “We love you, you’re very special.”

It was chilling to see how American white supremacists got what fascists always covet, infiltrating the highest echelons of politics and ultimately get a democratically elected president who would be their Fuehrer, a dictator who would carry out their fascist ideology. In Trump they found a man who used his elected position to promote nationalist racism, anti-Semitism, xenophobia and use of violence. In their aim to terrorize they are no different than any other terrorist group, except that white supremacists are homegrown domestic terrorists who found a leader in the highest seat of political power. They came to Washington, at Trump’s invitation, armed fascist-style, raging with anti-Semitic and racist trappings, Auschwitz shirts and lynching gallows.

Many of us are still numb with details of the brutality of the insurgency, the enormous security failure and the culpability of those who betrayed their oath of office. We are facing the shocking truth that Trump became the president of white supremacist with support from Congressional Republicans. They aided, abetted, and coddled him, debased themselves and made him invincible and vindictive. When he falsely claimed that he won the election, that it was stolen from him, Republicans supported his outlandish lie and gave comfort to the rioters in refusing to confirm the vote of the people.

A week after the insurrection the House voted to impeach Trump a second time. The charge is “incitement of insurrection.” Even those of us who are not lawyers could see the merit of the charge and understand that accountability is of the essence and that no one is above the law. Yet Trump is not the only one in the lineup of those who must be held accountable. Republicans who protected him and were co-conspirators of the rioters in the lie of “stolen election,” must now do the right thing and state publicly that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris won in one of the fairest elections.

Now after the insurrection, rather than tell the truth, the House Republicans, with the exception of ten members, voted against impeachment. Instead they stood up and called for unity and healing. In the absence of accountability this would amount to deny what we saw and heard.

If we want to claim that we are better than the insurrection on the Hill, we must confront, with all the legal means, white supremacists groups that have spread so wide and high. We can heal if we stand in the truth that we do have an enemy within, domestic terrorists that espouse “Aryan Master Race” war.

The Republicans who are calling for healing now are asking this country to ignore the fact that they could have stopped an unhinged and cruel president leading dangerous white supremacists. They could have called for healing when Trump separated children from parents, when he lied about desperate asylum seekers, when white supremacists terrorized in Charlottesville, and when in front of our eyes George Floyd was killed by a white policeman. Republicans chose to be on the wrong side of history.

As we continue to get more details of the insurrection we realize just how fragile democracy is and that if we want to keep it, we have to repair it. To move forward and be a more perfect union we must insist on truth and accountability. As Rev. Warnock, the new senator from Georgia said in his sermon last Sunday, “There is no transformation without truth. That applies to individuals, that applies to institutions, that applies to nations.”