Dahleen Glanton: In today's America, the neighbor next door could be a domestic terrorist
One of the most disturbing revelations from last week’s insurrection at the Capitol is that any of us could be living next door to a domestic terrorist.
We always knew that Donald Trump supporters wore masks. Many of them were too afraid — or ashamed — to let anyone know that they had fallen under the spell of a president who would try to take America down if he were kicked out the door.
Some of these folks seemed so normal on the outside. We didn’t realize that behind the facade was someone so willing to risk his or her good name, societal position, family relationships, job or even go jail in the name of Trump.
We now know is that Trumpism extends way beyond the outspoken strangers we argue with on social media or the absurd characters dressed in a furry Viking costume, handmaid’s outfits, red MAGA caps or T-shirts emblazoned with the slogan “God, Guns and Trump.”
Some of them wear suits. They masquerade as respectable members of our community. They are our neighbors, co-workers and people we might even think are our friends.
We already knew that far too many people believed that the presidential election was stolen from Trump. Though there was no evidence of widespread voter fraud, polls showed that more than three-quarters of Republicans were convinced that the election was rigged.
But we had no idea how easily some of these people could become terrorists who would carry out an attack on the U.S. Capitol — the sacred symbol of American democracy.
The USA Patriot Act defines a domestic terrorist as someone who carries out acts “dangerous to human life” that appear to be intended to “influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion or to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination or kidnapping.”
That’s what this insurrection was about.
FBI officials said the Justice Department is treating this like a significant international counterterrorism or counterintelligence operation that could result in sedition and conspiracy charges. More than 70 people have been charged so far, and more than 170 suspects have been identified. Authorities said the number of arrests could be in the hundreds.
According to an Associated Press review of arrest records, social media posts and public documents, Republican Party officials, GOP political donors, far-right militants, off-duty police and members of the military were among the mob that showed up in Washington in an attempt to overturn a fair and democratic election.
Small-business owners, restaurateurs, corporate CEOs, a tattoo artist, a real estate agent, attorneys, politicians, a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel and the son of a Brooklyn, New York, judge mingled with white supremacists and QAnon conspiracy theorists who believe that the government is controlled by Satan-worshiping pedophile cannibals out to destroy Trump.
According to the AP, some of the rioters were heavily armed and included convicted felons. And some who were considered upstanding citizens stormed the Capitol alongside them.
In his corporate photo, Bradley Rukstales looks exactly like what an executive of a high-tech firm is supposed to look like — dressed in a gray suit jacket and sporting a neatly trimmed salt-and-pepper beard and glasses.
Few, if anyone, in his upscale suburban Chicago village of Inverness, where the average price of a house is more than $700,000, likely would have taken him as someone who would join a mob storming the Capitol.
But according to federal authorities, that’s exactly what the 52-year-old chief executive officer of the tech company Cogensia in suburban Chicago did. He was fired days after his arrest.
Federal officials accused him of “knowingly entering or remaining in any restricted building or grounds without lawful authority; or knowingly, with intent to impede government business or official functions, engaging in disorderly conduct on Capitol grounds; and violent entry and disorderly conduct on Capitol grounds.”
Though Rukstales admits going into the Capitol, he insists that his role in the uprising was more benign.
“I had nothing to do with charging anybody or anything or doing any of that,” he told reporters, while standing in the doorway of his very nice home. “I was in the wrong place at the wrong time and I regret my part in that.”
If you were looking to buy a house in Chicago, it is possible that you might have been shown around the city by 56-year-old Libby Andrews.
The former @properties real estate agent’s picture was taken on the steps of the Capitol near the door, while wearing a Trump knit cap and making a peace sign, but she insists she didn’t go in. That didn’t stop her, however, from posting on social media about “storming the Capitol.”
Andrews hasn’t been charged with a crime, but she was fired from her job. She later told reporters that she thought it was “like a party.”
Adam Christian Johnson, of Florida, was photographed smiling and waving at the cameras as he walked through the Capitol rotunda carrying the house speaker’s lectern. The 36-year-old stay-at-home dad, who cares for his five children while his wife works as a doctor, acted as though he were participating in a fraternity prank.
Now, hit with multiple charges, he must surrender his passport, his travel is restricted and if he is caught outside after 9 p.m., he could be arrested for violating curfew.
These folks miscalculated the severity of their actions. There’s absolutely nothing funny, cute or patriotic about domestic terrorism. They should face serious consequences.
Meanwhile, the rest of us will be looking at some of our neighbors with a suspicious eye, wondering if we really know them at all. Unfortunately, that’s the America we’re living in now.
