100 Words Per Mile: People Need Meaning

After watching a pro-Trump mob storm the Capitol, my instinct is to rehabilitate them.

January 6, 2021
6.00 miles
44:51

I returned home from my run today to learn that a pro-Trump mob had stormed the Capitol Building in Washington DC. I had opened up the website for The New York Times because I liked to read their real-time election analysis. What was supposed to be a conversation about the two runoffs in Georgia and the certification of the election results quickly became a live look into disbelief and panic.

Anyone paying attention could have told you this was coming.

What’s more remarkable is the conversation around these events seems to be missing something. Sure, there was a storm of white fragility operating underneath the surface. These people had been lied to, made fools of, and exploited because they believed in a certain kind of American ideal (white, individualistic, and unburdened by the needs of others). But even more so, I think this was really just about a sense of purpose—or, more specifically, a lack of one.

Why would anyone humor the conspiracy theories of Q Anon?

Why would anyone think hanging the vice president was an act of patriotism?

Racism, sure. Bigotry, yeah.

But also because these people must feel completely and utterly useless. They feel not only forgotten, but like any human, existentially lost. The most bitter and angry people I’ve met in my life are those who don’t have that sense of purpose, or what others call a “passion.” These people need a civil war, because these people need to feel like their lives mean something. In the end, the side they’ve chosen was the result of their own shortcomings. But the fact that they felt they need to choose sides at all is extremely concerning to me.

Like anybody lost, my instinct is to rehabilitate them. I’m afraid it might not be possible.