American democracy is enduring an unprecedented test. An American president, Donald Trump, capped off months of denying the reality that he had lost the 2020 election by inciting his followers to rise up and vent their rage against a co-equal branch of government, the U.S. Congress, and Vice President Mike Pence, who certified the result. Thousands of Trump supporters, mostly angry white men, mounted a violent insurrection and laid siege to the U.S. Capitol in an effort to stop the counting of electoral votes to certify the election of Joe Biden.

These American terrorists parroted Trump’s exhortations that something had been stolen from them. Symbols of the confederacy and white nationalism were everywhere in the insurrectionist mob. This was Trump’s last stand, and its racist underpinnings were on full and ugly display. To get some perspective on the insurrection, the enduring scourge of white supremacy, and the 92nd birthday of Rev. Martin Luther King, we turned to Rev. Dr. Arnold Isidore Thomas, pastor of Good Shepherd Lutheran Church in Jericho. Rev. Thomas is moderator of the Racism in America Forums and former conference minister of the Vermont Conference of the United Church of Christ. He is the first black denominational leader in the state.

“I believe America is in the midst of a political war,” says Rev. Thomas. “We as a nation are not far removed from the civil unrest that sparked the war between the states back in 1861.”