“This is our country!” they screamed.

“USA! USA!” they chanted as insurrection consumed the U.S. Capitol and gripped the heart of American democracy in a seditious seizure.

Unwilling to accept a free and fair vote that U.S. election officials have called the “most secure in American history,” and inflamed by a president unwilling to accept a landslide defeat, a riotous mob attacked the Capitol in a treasonous assault last Wednesday that left five people dead.

“We want our country back.”

To those who have used this belief to justify a violent overthrow of our government — this is not your country.

To those who wish to wipe out the millions and millions of legally cast votes that decided this election, including claims without evidence that mail-in voting is inherently unfair and corrupt and unlawful — this is not your country.

To those who say they stand for the rule of law in word but not in deed, this is not your country.

To those who would raise one branch of government above all others, to dismiss the crucial role of the Judicial Branch, and to ignore the reasoned and just decisions of more than 60 courts that have rejected frivolous lawsuits that contested election processes approved by state legislatures — this is not your country.

To those who seek to subvert constitutional provisions for certifying the Electoral College vote, and replace that vote with one based not on ballots cast but the volume of angry grievances — this is not your country.

To those who would carry a Confederate flag through the Capitol, a hateful symbol of our divided past — this is not your country.

To those who once served in this nation’s military, and took an oath to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic” and to “bear true faith and allegiance to the same,” but joined the mob in attacking the Capitol and our democracy — you have violated that oath and stained your branch of service — this is not your country.

To those who stand in solidarity opposed to threats against our union, against domestic terrorism, against the wholesale disenfranchisement of entire states or classes of voters, against white supremacy and institutional racism, against the willful ignorance abetted by social media and the current occupant of the White House, this is your country.