“This Is Your Brain on Patriotism”

Five million reasons why reason is dead and sedition is just another customer service complaint.

With assistance from Raoul Duke (Dispatch from the Kingdom of Hypocrisy)

 There are moments in American life when you look around and realize the circus tent has collapsed. The elephants are dead, the clowns are armed, and the ringmaster sells autographed gallows on eBay. We are living through that moment now — and nothing underscores it more grotesquely than the five-million-dollar payout to the family of Ashli Babbitt.

 Yes, five million U.S. tax dollars, handed to the estate of a woman who died while breaking into the House of Representatives during a live insurrection. She wasn’t pushed. She wasn’t caught in the crossfire. She was at the front, climbing through broken glass toward a locked room filled with lawmakers who were quite literally hiding from people who wanted to hang the Vice President of the United States

This is not satire. This is not some warped B-movie script about a Banana Republic in decline. This is Washington, D.C., baby — 2025 — and the Department of Justice just cut a deal with Babbitt’s lawyers, coughing up a cool $5 million to settle a “wrongful death” claim from the family of a woman who died trying to climb through a shattered door into a room full of terrified lawmakers.

She wasn’t armed? Neither is a battering ram. Intent matters. Context matters. And the context here was open insurrection.

And for this, she is a martyr. A symbol. A golden calf carved out of the foam and rage of the MAGA movement. She is hailed by the president, venerated by online mouth-breathers, and now — thanks to our spooked, spineless institutions — rewarded with a multimillion-dollar government check.

This is where we are.

This is who we are.

Because this story isn’t just about Babbitt. It’s about us — the American people — and the ugly, snarling, selfie-twitching animals so many of us have become.

THE GREAT UNGLUING

 We used to have disagreements in this country. We had debates, elections, protest songs, op-eds, and dueling cable news channels with smug anchors in expensive ties. It was ridiculous — sure — but it was a system. Now? Now we live in two entirely separate realities with nothing but a shared Amazon Prime account between us.

 In one reality, Ashli Babbitt is what she was: a radicalized woman charging into the seat of government as part of a mob — a mob that beat cops, smashed windows, smeared feces on the wall, and hunted human beings through marble halls like it was some warped colonial foxhunt. A mob that screamed “Hang Mike Pence” while waving flags that said “Jesus is My Savior, Trump is My President.”

Officer Byrd, the man who fired the shot, was cleared — by multiple investigations. Self-defense. Protective action. They said he helped prevent a massacre. And now? He gets vilified in silence, while the check gets signed in triplicate.

Even the Capitol Police Chief, Tom Manger, couldn’t stomach it. He called it “extremely disappointing.” That’s diplomacy-speak for “Are you out of your goddamn minds?”

This isn’t just about one payment. It’s about the message: storm the halls of Congress, trample cops, shriek for blood, and if you die in the process, your family gets a big check.

In the other reality — the one piped into millions of living rooms through Facebook memes and dollar-store documentaries — she is Joan of Arc in a Trump hat. A patriot. A victim of tyranny. A sacred symbol of the movement. They put her face on flags, murals, T-shirts. Trump himself said, “She was innocently standing there.” Standing. As if she were window shopping at Target and not climbing into the last line of defense between democracy and a gallows crew.

They don’t believe the video. They don’t believe the police. They don’t believe anything that doesn’t come with a watermark from “Patriot Eagle Alert” or “@GodGunsFreedom1488.” They believe Trump — a man whose relationship with the truth is like a fish’s relationship with a bicycle.

And now, these delusions come with a price tag. Five million dollars’ worth.

INSTITUTIONAL COWARDICE

The Justice Department didn’t lose this case. They settled. Preemptively. Quietly. Without the mess of a trial, without cross-examination, without facts laid bare. Why? Because a trial would have been a public bonfire. MAGA world would’ve turned it into a crusade, a holy war, a media circus with gold-plated gallows and slogans printed by the metric ton. The feds blinked. They threw money at the problem. They paid off the ghost. 

Meanwhile, Capitol Police Chief  Manger issued a lukewarm condemnation of the settlement. He said it sends a “chilling message.” He’s wrong. It sends a clear message: If your ideology is loud enough, and your delusion firm enough, and your lawyer armed with enough right-wing cash, you too can rewrite your place in history and get a check in the mail.

 This country used to revere sacrifice. Now we revere grievance. We reward rage. We hand out trophies for defiance and checks for destruction. This isn’t justice — it’s hush money in a powdered wig.

WHO’S GETTING PAID?

Let’s talk numbers. There are over 1,500 people charged in connection with January 6. That’s not a protest — it’s a military-age mob with matching T-shirts. Many of them are in prison. Some got pardons. Some are running for Congress. Some are now selling merch with slogans like “Political Prisoner” and “Free the J6 Patriots” — as if they were caught planting tulips and not bear spray.

And the movement rolls on. Trump, the once-and-future chaos merchant, has made it clear: if he returns, the mob comes with him. He has already promised to pardon every last one. He called the insurrectionists “hostages.” He called Ashli Babbitt “a really good person.” This is not fringe anymore. This is policy.

And while the rest of us are choking on overpriced eggs and drowning in student debt, our tax dollars are being siphoned off to pay for the sins of people who think democracy is something you can smash through with a flagpole.

THE UGLY ONES

Look around. Listen carefully. The ugly ones are winning. The ones who cheer when people suffer. The ones who see violence as righteousness. The ones who call the truth a conspiracy and the mob “tourists.” They’re loud. They’re organized. And they’ve figured out how to weaponize grievance into currency.

They don’t want justice. They want spectacle. They want martyrdom. They want to see their faces on bumper stickers and their lies repeated on cable news. And now they want cash settlements, too.

Ashli Babbitt’s story should have been a cautionary tale — a tragic consequence of brainwashing and blind faith. Instead, it’s a payday.

What does it say about a country that rewards people for attacking it?

What does it say about a culture that canonizes delusion and bankrupts decency?

What does it say about us?

I’ll tell you what it says:

We are not the shining city on the hill anymore.

 We’re the flaming double-wide at the edge of the swamp, and the porch light’s broken.