EDITORIAL: Democrats strain to harden the U.S. Capitol

OPINION:

Fear is the bitter fruit of the 2020 presidential election. It drove Donald Trump’s supporters, afraid of losing their country, to march on the U.S. Capitol “peacefully and patriotically,” until rioters hijacked their gathering. Just as the Jan. 6 violence was un-American, so is the ongoing attempt by disturbed Democrats to harden “the people’s house.”

At the urging of Democratic Speaker Nancy Pelosi, The U.S. House of Representatives passed a $1.9 billion Capitol security funding bill last week by the narrowest of margins, 213-212. Even some majority-party Democrats blanched at the prospect of turning the Capitol complex into a high-tech fort. The legislation faces more uncertainty in the Senate, where Republicans stand in the way of a 60-vote minimum for passage.

The bill would pay for a retractable fence, thankfully nixing the notion of erecting a permanent, fortified barricade. Additional security measures would include reinforced doors and windows, cameras, upgraded security for lawmakers while in Washington and at home, and a rapid-response force to defend the Capitol grounds.

A military-grade barricade rimmed with razor wire surrounded the Capitol grounds for 77 days following the Jan. 6 demonstration-turned-riot, and a slightly less imposing version has been in place ever since. Only this week have the remainder of 25,000 National Guard troops mustered to defend the fence — albeit with unloaded firearms — been allowed to return home.

Mrs. Pelosi and her Democratic colleagues are clearly frightened of Americans’ reaction to their party’s brand of governance. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez confided to “Latino USA” radio on Friday that she is undergoing therapy to help her cope with the “extraordinarily traumatizing” aftereffects of the January upheaval. She may have been heartened to learn that a U.S. Capitol Police officer attempted to equally jar her Republican colleagues, hectoring them by anonymous letter to back a Democrat-controlled investigation of the Jan. 6 furor.

Mrs. Pelosi’s fortification legislation is laced with irony in light of the dread Americans harbor owing to the crumbling security they witness along the streets of their communities. With the one-year anniversary of the George Floyd death now passed, major cities that have since taken steps to defund the police include New York City, Chicago, Portland, Minneapolis, Los Angeles and Baltimore. Defenseless citizens have suffered a 25 percent surge in murders, according to 2020 preliminary FBI data.

Just as jarring to civic life is Democrats’ near-unanimous support for de facto open borders. Party leader President Biden has instituted policies allowing illegal immigrants by the hundreds of thousands some carrying the COVID-19 virus — to pour across the southern border and fan out across the nation. With 178,000 border arrests in April, a 21-year high, Americans are witnessing their homeland morph into a foreboding habitat.

Rather than pause to ponder the shock their policies are visiting upon their people, Democrats intend to crouch behind a hardened U.S. Capitol until the smoke clears. “Security for me, but not for thee,” is the hallmark of authoritarians throughout history. “Fort Pelosi” has no place on American soil.