Like many (hopefully most) of you, I’m appalled at what happened in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 6 when, at the behest and with the encouragement of Donald Trump and a few of his allies, several thousand rioters occupied the Capitol building, temporarily forcing Congress to suspend the process of approving the Electoral College vote affirming Joe Biden as our next president. I don’t know if this is the worst moment of American history in my life, but it’s in the running.

I want to get something straight about all of this right off the bat. It’s the same message I’ve broadcast on social media since this happened. If you in any way, shape, form, manner or style approve of this action, or if you think this was a false flag operation by antifa or BLM, please forget that you know me. You can take that “blood of tyrants” nonsense and stick it where the sun don’t shine.

I am extremely fortunate to have a great many friends in the world. Because of the value I place in those friendships, I try as hard as I can to be tolerant of a lot of things that I don’t agree with. But this particular issue is simply a bridge too far.

My friendship has a price, and part of that price is your ability to recognize absurd and massively toxic bullshit when you see it. No ifs, ands or buts. If you embrace any of this we have to part company. Have a nice life.

There are about 330 million of us in this country. It’s a shame that the actions of just a minute fraction of us — perhaps tens of thousands, are giving the entire nation a black eye. Not only here, but in Portland, Seattle, Milwaukee and other places in our nation over the past year.

As appalling as the actions of the knuckleheads who rioted in the Capitol, or took over portions of Seattle and Portland last summer, or burned parts of other cities recently, have been, they pale in comparison to the actions of those who’ve enabled and encouraged all of this. What was going on inside the Capitol at the time of the riot was arguably much more of an affront to our democracy than the riot itself.

The objections raised by some congressional Republicans to the Electoral College vote are just plain stupid, and if you embrace them, you are stupid, too. There’s just not a diplomatic way to put this that adequately gets the point across.

Despite ample opportunity to litigate his defeat, in courts all over the country, Trump has prevailed exactly nowhere. That’s because there is zero evidence to support anything approaching malfeasance on a scale necessary to have changed the outcome of the election in Trump’s favor. Even Republican election officials and Republican members of judiciary, some appointed by Trump himself, have examined his claims of election fraud, multiple times, and found them wanting. There is simply no there there.

You tell me who has more blood on their hands — the motley collection of idiots who rioted at the Capitol, or the big chunk of the 535 members of Congress who’ve been egging this stuff on? The way this nonsense about election fraud goes back to the dark corners of the internet, where it belongs, is when more than a handful of Republicans stand up and call it out for the nonsense that it is. That’s beginning to happen, but it should have happened much earlier.

Sens. Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz, the two members of the Senate most associated with this lunacy, are both Ivy League-educated lawyers. The both know that all of this is complete and utter stupidity. Both are blatantly pushing this for their own political gain. That’s the antonym of patriotism. On account of this, these two should be forced to wear a scarlet letter the remainder of their days in politics.

It’s the same in the House, where Matt Gaetz and others are pounding on tables insisting that the riot was real but that it was an antifa and BLM false flag operation. They all know this isn’t true. But they are counting on the fact that some do not. It’s very easy to fundraise on the backs of the gullible and angry.

While this latest episode is squarely on Trump and his allies, the other side of the aisle is just as guilty of winding up knuckleheads to do their bidding. There is, as it turns out, plenty of shame to go around.

I suppose that that the thing about all of this that bothers me the most is that it was completely predictable. The people who show up for things like the Capitol riot, or to torch or occupy cities, are not in much danger of being mistaken for a Mensa convention. When political leaders, instead of offering hope, spend years and years stoking fears among people who don’t have a lot going for them, the result should come as a surprise to no one.

But back to the issue at hand. Perhaps the worst invective I can hurl at Trump, Cruz, Hawley, Gaetz, et al., is that of enablers of media miracles. All of these yahoos set into motion a series of events that reduced the hyperbole in even CNN’s reporting to actual fact for about four hours one day last week. That’s something that I didn’t think was possible.

Associated Press and Idaho Press Club award-winning columnist Martin Hackworth of Pocatello is a physicist, writer, consultant and retired Idaho State University faculty member who now spends his time raising children, llama farming, riding mountain bikes and motorcycles and playing guitars. His video blog, “Howlin’ at the Moon in ii-V-I,” may be found at facebook.com/HowlinattheMoonin251 and on YouTube at bit.ly/2SN745k.