I have a friend who works in our city hall, in a average-sized city on the WC. I called her yesterday to ask if she was going to work on the 19th or 20th. Tho she telecommutes most of the time (covid) she said she planned on stopping in for some work on one of those days. I asked her about what the security was for city hall.
She, thinking I was asking about the continuing seige of the town hall grounds by surly and trash-tossing homeless people (who want the city to give them every thing they want free w/ no obligations on their part), said the unwashed were going to be moved out in a day or two, but I said, “No, I meant about the possible Trump rioters.”
She took a second or two to reply. “Oh .. I didn’t think about that.”
What it’s like to live in America today. Terrible and history-forging events both good and bad of monumental import keep happening. And we’re still living with a mindset of a vanished society. Can you imagine, if you told somebody in 1979 that the day was coming when nobody would be allowed to wave goodbye to their people leaving on a jet, homeless hordes would be roaming the country by the tens of thousands, every citizen was supposed to wear a mask at all times, and our buildings holding the seats of government would be under the threat of attack by violent armed mobs, what their reaction would be?
Yeah. Nowadays our repeated answer to every never-heard-of-before threat emerging in our new uncertain reality is “I didn’t think about that.”
Note: my friend now plans to avoid city hall for most of the week, and is going to check with the administration on security measures.