Anger, frustration no excuse for attacking Capitol
Forget everything else. If President Donald Trump is ousted for anything, it should be for inciting a riot. But it may be too late for that.
His term is up next week. And he doesn’t have to go home, but he can’t stay here.
But he is leaving under a cloud. His remarks to thousands of supporters outside the White House led to the mob storming the Capitol and shutting down Congress
After members of the House and Senate fled, the rioters trashed the place. Others roamed the corridors of the building trashing democracy. People died.
One rioter posed in House Speaker Nancy’s Pelosi’s office chair, his feet up on her desk. Another defiantly raised raise his fist from the rostrum in the House chamber where shortly before Vice President Mike Pence had begun deliberations over the Electoral College vote.
The thousands of proTrump rioters turned Washington into a banana republic.
“I have not felt this sad for our county since President Kennedy was killed,” one longtime politico said to me.
Trump not only instigated the riot but watched it as well. He did not call for any restraint until the siege was practically over. Then, in his brief remarks, he still complained about a rigged election, which helped start the riot in the first place.
And after the siege was over, and the damage done to the country, Trump announced that he was in favor of a peaceful transition of power.
It was too little too late. Trump ruined his presidency. His accomplishments — and there were many — will be forgotten. He will be remembered largely for two things — the surprising way he won the White House and the shameful way he left it.
It is true that Trump was frequently and unscrupulously hounded by Democrats, Speaker Pelosi and a corrupt media for four long years. It is also true that they looked upon Trump supporters with disdain.
Also, it is the same media, now demanding Trump’s resignation, that looked the other way when antifa and BLM looters and arsonists wrecked Democratic-run cities.
While an angry Trump and his supporters were incensed over the media double standard and with the outcome of the election they claim was rigged, there still was no excuse for attacking the heart of democracy.
Meanwhile, the country is lucky that no foreign power took advantage of the chaos and disarray that Trump created. Think what would have happened if a handful of bomb-carrying ISIS terrorists had breached the Capitol along with the mob.
America is most vulnerable to aggression, foreign or domestic, during the transition of power from one president to the next. This is especially true now, when the incoming president is replacing the incumbent he just defeated in a bitter and controversial election.
Terrorists and other enemies of the United States will no doubt be studying how easy it was for rioters to breach security, take over the Capitol and shut democracy down.
Trump’s delusional performance was so bad that he nearly accomplished the impossible — and that was to make Joe Biden look presidential.
Speaking of delusion, Biden did not do much better when he played the race card. Biden said that if the rioters were BLM rioters rather than Trump’s “mob of thugs” they would have been treated differently, presumably more harshly.
This is a big moment for Biden. Biden needs to drop his attacks and reach out to the millions of law-abiding Trump supporters. They may be opponents, but they are not enemies. They are Americans, and they love America, too.
Correction: In the Jan. 9 column “Job #1 for Speaker Mariano: Nix Legislature’s pay raise,” Sen William Brownsberger of Belmont is Senate pro tempore and paid a $50,000 stipend and not Sen. Mark Pacheco of Taunton. The Herald regrets the error.