America is under siege by itself.

Early this afternoon an agitated mob of pro-Trump demonstrators turned domestic insurgents violently stormed the US Capitol Building. Trump supporters broke barricades, overtook the protective units of Capitol Police, and offensively charged the legislative chamber that lawmakers were using to certify electors and congressionally approve President-elect Biden’s Electoral College win.

As of this writing D.C is about to go under a mandated curfew as National Guard troops are activated.

Make no mistake in understanding that the ability of MAGA to overtake the Capitol was very likely on purpose. For such a large gathering of a crowd simmering in absolute rejection of Joe Biden’s win, standing in obvious political battle with an incoming president that they believe is aligned with China and the Deep State, it is quite suspect to have a police guard that looked especially untrained to protect U.S lawmakers as the first line of defense for the Capitol Building .

Back in May of last year, Black Lives Matter protesters were met with Delta Force-like soldiers protecting buildings and monuments. But today, the Trump Administration felt it appropriate to only have a spattering of walk-the-beat- cop presence.

MAGA occupying the Capitol Building and ceasing the certification of the incoming Biden Administration is the best photo-op Trump can have in his waning days of power.

When you view the pictures and videos of what has happened, either you will resonate with the rage seen in the MAGA demonstrators or you will become enraged when you see what they have done. The symbolic power of this moment is grave, as MAGA followers have declared war on their own government. But for anyone who has studied insurgency, it is easy to see that these are the actions of the weak. Climbing up a railing and dangling your body off the walls of Congress is not power, it is a last resort of political expression.

Today, our lawmakers fled to protective chambers to hide from a political opposition whose main goal is to stop the process of the peaceful and democratic transfer of power from one president to another. They are a political opposition whose opinions have been trained and guided by the current sitting president. But their opinions are not a worldview, it is psychological conditioning that is guided by the deepest part of their emotions.

It is clear that we have parallel narratives of not just the historical meaning of America, but of how America is defined culturally, and unfortunately, we have been unable separate the cultural identity that gets attached to ideology and detach it from the bureaucratic underpinnings of power. Whomever wins the presidency has immense cultural power that does not resonate with the other half of the country. This has become a big problem.

Usually when you hear news about an insurgency into Parliament or government chambers, one wonders which nascent underdeveloped democracy has this nuttiness happened to, but today, it wasn’t a foreign country. It was your mom, dad, aunt, uncle, neighbors and friends.

Yes, it was America.

It is time for everyone to understand the nature of the battle taking place in this country, because it will define life in this country for quite some time. Power may be precarious, and especially so when one half of the country has been psychologically conditioned to believe that Washington D.C is an illegitimate power source, but the one thing that can put things back in perspective is that Democrats will control all three chambers of power by January 20, 2021.

In better days this would not induce visceral emotions, but in today’s America politics is not war by other means, war is politics when winning elections becomes the existential being of the country.