Still, hold him accountable
The impeachment trial of Donald Trump made crystal clear his guilt in inciting the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol and violating his oath to protect and defend the Constitution. Sadly for our nation, Saturday’s verdict made it equally clear that 43 Republican senators were willing to violate their oath, too, in order to instead protect and defend the leader of the insurrection.
This cannot be the end of the matter. Mr. Trump will surely take this acquittal as vindication of his reckless, incendiary, divisive and dangerous brand of politics. He will see it as a signal that as long as there are enough senators too craven to stand up to him, the republic he and his mob attacked will be too weak to stop his quest to regain power by any means.
Congress still can — and must — at the very least take steps to ensure that he cannot run for office again.
House impeachment managers laid out a devastating case against Mr. Trump, drawing a bright line from his months of treacherous, untruthful rhetoric — both before and after the election — to the riot that left five dead, including a police officer in the Capitol.
They showed that Mr. Trump fueled a volatile situation by relentlessly promulgating the lie that the 2020 election was rigged and stolen from him.
They showed that his disinformation campaign inspired militia members, white supremacists and conspiracy theorists to plot violence.
They showed that when more than 60 courts rejected a slew of frivolous lawsuits, he turned to illegal means, trying to strong arm Georgia officials to change the results.
They showed that he assembled thousands of supporters in Washington, D.C., for a “Stop the Steal” rally Jan. 6; that he provoked them to try to stop Congress from certifying Joe Biden’s Electoral College victory, and to pressure Vice President Mike Pence to somehow block the vote using powers the Constitution did not afford him.
And as if all that were not incriminating enough, the House managers showed that Mr. Trump stood by for hours, as live television showed his loyalists overrunning barricades, attacking police, breaking windows, and rampaging through the Capitol, while lawmakers, staffers, family members and Mr. Pence scrambled for their lives. They showed that he ignored pleas for intervention, instead watching the insurrection as an arsonist would relish the flames of a blaze he had set.
And when Mr. Trump finally did communicate publicly, it was to attack Mr. Pence — even as the mob was chanting threats to hang him. He praised the demonstrators, declared his love for them, and repeated the big lie of the stolen election that had enraged them, then belatedly told them to go home in peace. That evening, he tweeted an inspiration to supporters: “Remember this day forever!”
His defense? He has a right to free speech. He’s a private citizen and can’t be touched by Congress. He wasn’t responsible for the mob he assembled, inflamed, and sicced on the Capitol. He has said he stands for law and order, so he couldn’t possibly do something contrary to that. Didn’t he (eventually) call for peace? Oh, and other politicians have used violent language and imagery, too. Not to defend such talk, but that argument ignores, of course, the critical context: Other politicians didn’t precipitate an insurrection by launching a concerted campaign of lies, as the president did — which everyone could see was rousing radicalized right-wing fringe groups, known by federal authorities to be violence-prone, to plan violent action. And why? Because he wanted what all autocrats crave: to hold power, even if it requires illegitimate acts. He sought to undo an election acknowledged by every state and by election officials on both sides of the aisle to be secure and fair. He precipitated a coup attempt that he then took no steps for hours to stop, and people died for his wanton ambition. He not only betrayed his oath to uphold and defend the Constitution, he attacked it.
And in the end, he got off. Now, 245 years after this nation’s founders pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor to this country, 43 Republican senators showed us where their loyalty lies — not with the nation, not with the Constitution, but with a dangerous demagogue.
To let Mr. Trump get away with this would invite him to run again and do whatever he wishes in his quest for power. It would tell his most radical followers that those 43 cowards are allies in their treasonous cause, their condemnations of violence mere obligatory tut-tutting for the cameras. It would pave the way for the next demagogue — perhaps one with a bigger, better armed and organized mob — to try to succeed where Mr. Trump and his mob failed.
Mr. Trump’s acquittal has put our nation in new peril. It does not, however, have to be the end of this.
The case has been made and affirmed by a majority of senators that Mr. Trump incited an insurrection. Congress can retake that vote to apply the 14th Amendment, which bars anyone who engages in or provides aid and comfort to an insurrection, after previously taking an oath to support the Constitution, from holding any federal or state office office again. They need only the simple majority they already have. And it would take an unlikely two-thirds vote of each house of Congress to restore his access to the ballot.
Donald Trump betrayed the nation and his oath. He should never be given the chance to do it again. As for the 43 senators who gave him a pass on this act of treason, voters, and history, should see them for what they are.
For many within the Christian traditions, Jan. 6 marks the festival of Epiphany. Epiphany is about an illuminating discovery or realization. Truly, Jan. 6, 2021 illuminated hard truths about our American citizenry. Many of us knew these emotions and behaviors existed in our society, but the insurrection laid them bare in the starkest of tones. It will take time to fully appraise the effects of what occurred at the U.S. Capitol.
On the same day, Georgia elected two new senators, Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock. In a speech not long after winning his election, Warnock asked the question, “Will we love our neighbors as we love ourselves?” This is a fair question rooted in his biblical tradition as a person of faith. A deeper question for many of us is do we love ourselves at all?
I believe no one in their right mind or best sense of self acts as the mob acted Jan. 6. Their actions revealed a collective frustration and self-loathing incited by a now-former president with those same qualities.
Hatred and negativity have existed as long as the human species. Neither are new problems. What is new is how we can create circular narratives of hate and negativity by virtue of our media devices and subscriptions. We can willfully isolate ourselves within these narratives, creating insular communities of like-minds. Individuals actively reflecting on love and positive values feel compelled to spread both. Individuals prone to reaction rather than reflection often unwittingly induce a chronic stressful state easily stoked but difficult to alleviate. Are we collectively digging ourselves into a hole we can’t escape?
Psychologist John Gottman pioneered research on the “magic ratio,” for every negative interaction during conflict a healthy relationship has five or more positive interactions. While the research was related to healthy marriages it does not need to be limited to these alone. For any relationship, including democracy, if the negative interactions exceed positive ones it is easy to see how we continually find
ourselves in a hole much of our own making.
Research by John Cacioppo, a co-founder of the field of social neuroscience, demonstrated that our brains possess a “negativity bias.” Our attitudes are more heavily influenced by bad news than good news. If we are not practicing self-awareness to the extent that we acknowledge the types of information we are regularly consuming our brains will naturally fixate on negative experiences and interactions.
Negativity bias is informed by traumatic experience, too. Regardless of the form, everyone has experienced trauma in one way or another. By definition, trauma is a negative experience or interaction and always unique to the individual. In other words, one person’s trauma is another person’s nonissue. Rather than dismissing or downplaying a traumatic experience they should be recognized and conciliated. When this does not happen, we’re left with individuals who struggle to love self and others. Add this to the complexities of daily life and the likelihood of streams of negative information and it is not surprising to find our society collectively overwhelmed.
There is still good news in the aftermath of trauma. We each have the potential to begin each day affirming things of personal value in each of us. If we begin to recognize specific things that we personally value about ourselves, we prime our brains for positive cognition and positive actions. Once primed, we can begin to address the 5-to-1 ratio. This does not mean our negativity bias disappears. It is precisely in beginning to practice something positive that we can effectively live within the tension of a negativity bias.
Neurologist-psychiatrist philosopher Viktor Fran kl wrote, “And in spite of our belief in the potential humanness of man we must not close our eyes to the fact that humane humans are, and probably will always remain, a minority. But it is precisely for this reason that each of us is challenged to join the minority. Things are bad. But unless we do our best to improve them, everything will become worse.”
People like author David Hamilton have been talking about the merits of practicing kindness for a long time. They are right; kindness is good for us. People who practice kindness don’t feel the need to react in hostility. If we can begin to be a bit kinder in our personal thoughts and actions toward others, we may begin to dig ourselves out of this societal hole we find ourselves in today and begin to love others as we love ourselves.