What drives a person to put their life on hold to board a bus or a plane with total strangers, carpool with friends, or travel alone to our nation’s capital for a protest? On January 6th 2021, what drove 1 million to protest, and hundreds of people to storm our nation’s capital?

No one ever really thought we would see the images of everyday Americans occupying much of the outside area of the capital, while several dozen, carrying American flags, pushed their way inside.

But while much of the political establishment, and mainstream media scoffed in outrage, tens of millions of Americans cheered from their homes at the symbolism of their brothers and sisters breaking through the “Ivory Tower” of Washington D.C.

We are told it’s the “Peoples House”, but over the years as Congress has collectively earned an approval rating hovering in the single digits, our House feels more like hallowed ground for the political elitists to enrich themselves at our expense.

Americans feel the system is broken, or rigged against them. The complaints vary from excessive taxation, reckless spending, endless undeclared wars of aggression, corrupt public servants, and the incremental loss of their civil liberties.

Without a doubt there is an obvious disconnect between the members of the political class and the people they are supposed to serve. People have been given good reason to not trust the information from “public servants” and a “free and open press.” Over the years the anger and resentment has grown and spread like a cancer.

The architects of our republic provided checks and balances, but debate has been all but stifled. At times even the judicial branch feels more like a rubber stamp for the powerful in D.C.

No matter what party you identify with, we were supposed to have a government that defended the rule of law through a strict adherence to our Constitution. The law was to apply equally while defending individual liberty. Instead, partisanship rules the day. Our public servants are more focused on division, granting group privileges and maintain power by manifesting fear.

When our leaders give special favor to some at the expense of others, animosity sets in, which leads to hatred and eventually violence between social groups. Indeed, we witnessed much of that over the summer of 2020 as our cities burned and the livelihood of many people were destroyed.

We ought to contemplate how overreach and the abuse of power led to protests, marches, destruction of property, and loss of life.

Everyday Americans are disgusted at their servant government. And when public servants pick and choose which protests are worthy and which are not, the loss of everyone’s freedom of speech is at risk.

We real point is that, fundamentally, the common thread between all of the protests in 2020 is the distrust in government. Instead, these upset individuals were divided by their own public servants and then pitted against one another.

It’s impossible to deny that the powder keg for many were the results of the 2020 election. Regardless of your stance on the election, it is abundantly clear that millions of American distrust the results and this is what they were protesting.

Politicians have a vested interest in stopping dissenting voices. If they are allowed eo relabel protest as insurection, at will, free speech (a natural right) will be gone. And since there is very little actual journalism these days, Americans are given a steady diet of words like “traitor” and “insurgent.

We do not advocate for violence, no one rational wants to see that. But violence is the predictable result of a nation whose citizens have lost faith in their system of government, those who are supposed to serve them, and now their election process. If we don’t recognize this and have a rational discussion about it, we will see more violence.

So far, the only conversations taking place revolves around preserving our “process”, bringing the “insurgents” to justice, and condemning the violence. But until our public servants and those who provide the public information are willing to have an honest conversation about the real causes, make real changes to how they perform their duties, then the decades of outrage that boiled over on January 6th may well just be the tip of the iceberg.

Excessive taxation, devaluing our currency, reckless spending, endless wars of aggression, corruption, centralized power, lock downs, censorship, misinformation, all of these issues will cause more protests.

—Michigan Campaign for Liberty takes a different approach than most political groups—We do not advocate violence, or even public demonstrations, instead we focus on organizing, mobilizing and training citizens on how to effectively hold their elected servants accountable.