The 5th of November

VIEWPOINT

By RALPH HARDIN

Evening Times Editor

A small spoiler from the “Today in History” article, but 419 years ago today, way back in 1605, Guy Fawkes attempted to blow up the English Parliament building in what became known as The 'Gunpowder Plot' and made the wearing of Guy Fawkes masks a universal symbol of rebellion (as popularized by the movie “V for Vendetta”).

Fawkes failed when he was captured before he could carry out his plot, and to this day, Guy Fawkes Day is celebrated every November 5th in Britain to celebrate his failure, which would have likely resulted in the deaths of pretty much all of the members of Parliament as well as King James I (you know, the guy who wrote the Bible).

An interesting coincidence, indeed, that today is also Election Day here in the good old U.S. of A., which was still nearly 200

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years away from existing when Guy and his treasonous machinations were uncovered. I say that because there are plenty of folks who are dissatisfied with our elected leaders today, and we have the opportunity today to “blow up” our own status quo — not via some gundpowder-based retribution (please don’t do that), but at the ballot box.

Yes, in theory, we could actually vote out every single member of the U.S. House of Representatives today. Every incumbent is up for re-election (contrast that with the U.S. Senate that has six-year terms staggered in such a way that only a third of the Senate is up for re-election in any given election cycle).

We won’t, of course, because we just don’t do that. It is quite uncommon for an incumbent Congressman to lose his or her re-election bid, despite the fact that we are constantly complaining about Congress. Weird, huh?

Things are also potentially explosive with the presidential election. No matter who wins, basically half of the country will be upset. Hopefully, we won’t see a repeat of the violence we saw on Jan. 6, 2021, when angry Trump supporters attempted to stop the official certification of the 2020 election. Like Fawkes, those traitors were foiled in their attempts.

Fun fact: Fawkes and his coconspirators were eventually hanged for their crimes, so those folks who broke into the Capitol got off pretty easy — and will all presumably be pardoned if Trump is reelected today. But either way, we would all do well to “Remember, remember, the 5th of November”… and the 6th of January.