Last Wednesday afternoon a mob of Trump supporters, many of them armed, was roaming about the Senate floor and the Capitol Rotunda looking for souvenirs and a spot of bother, having recently stormed past “security” guards and police on the east and west sides of the building.
The mob was met with armed if underwhelming resistance, but not before a nation watching on television gasped in horror at the morass of marble, gilt, and pomposity on frightening display inside the 228-year-old Capitol—so frightening that most news outlets running footage of the scene preceded it with a stern, not-for-the-faint-of-heart warning. All that unrestrained opulence could turn a person into a roseate pillar of marble with fruity flutes and folderol.
“Holy shit,” one protester shouted. “Fuckin’ place looks like a whore house. I wonder what all this marble’s worth?”
Squinting to get a better view through the smoke and shouting inside the ornate, gay building, viewers at home were stunned at the marbled magnificence of the Capitol.
“Looks like my grandmother’s living room in South Philly,” laughed one man with a Jim Croce mustache. “We always called it ‘guinea gauche.’”
