After the coup attempt, lawless mob must be held accountable
Donald Trump declined to agree when first asked last year to a peaceful transfer of power should he be defeated for a second term. Under intense criticism, he later said he would. His first answer was the authentic one, and he proved it Wednesday.
So many, so often, for so long have refused to believe the common meaning of Trump’s calamitous intentions. Wednesday brought a reckoning that will reverberate through the ages. A mob incited by a lawless president of the United States attempted to destroy a democratically elected government and replace it with an authoritarian regime.
The mob gathered in Washington were not strangers to Trump. These are the people Trump’s political and White House advisers believe are the slice of America that sustains them. The perpetually aggrieved are as much a part of the Trump brand as vulgar decorations, bankrupt casinos, and a shuttered university. Trump addressed the Wednesday rally to exhort his friends to disrupt the centuries old ceremony of counting electoral votes in the Capitol.
We need not rely on anonymous reports of Trump’s satisfaction as he watched on television his insurrectionists’ invasion of the Capitol. Hours of silence from the White House told the tale. There is little distance on the spectrum of corruption between Trump’s weekend phone call badgering Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to “recalculate” the Republican’s November loss of that state and Wednesday’s violence.
Freedom’s friends here and around the world may take some solace in the knowledge that Wednesday’s outrage was inspired by an idiot and carried out by cretins. The mayhem a more organized and armed force would have inflicted in the face of the inadequate security provided at the Capitol building Wednesday might have changed the face of the world.
Ivanka Trump, the president’s eldest daughter and close adviser, called the mob “American Patriots” on social media. As she or someone close to her recognized the unfolding catastrophe, Trump deleted her ill-judged tribute. The members of the mob would no doubt agree with her description of them, declaring their patriotism as they spew hatred for our democratic institutions and traditions.
Members of Congress, elected in free and fair elections, suddenly became the hunted. Reinforcements were slow to appear to defeat the terrorists. It was, in retrospect, the most frightening moment. Then President-elect Joe Biden spoke from Delaware. Resolute and coherent, Biden declared the outrage would not stand. He reminded us that the rabble seeking to execute a coup did not represent the nation.
Biden demanded Trump speak and call on his marauders to leave and disperse. At 4:17 p.m., the White House released a video recording of the defeated Trump repeating his false claims that he was reelected by a landslide denied him by unspecified fraudulent acts. Trump’s own shifting cartel of lawyers has often admitted in its scores of court challenges that they have no proof of fraud. Eventually, Trump told his cohort of terrorists, “You have to go home now.” He ended by telling his enraged and destructive cohort of true believers, “We love you. You’re very special.”
The cabal of handlers and lickspittles around Trump must have known that they dare not let the 45th president of the United States address a massive worldwide audience at a perilous moment he had created. The message was recorded and only witnesses will be able to tell us one day what Trump had to be argued out of saying.
When House and Senate members were liberated from their undisclosed locations, they returned to their task of certifying November’s election results. In the White House, Trump’s enablers suddenly found this last act too much for their sensibilities and ambition. Resignations from a few and thoughts of resigning from others made their way into news accounts. Talk of removing Trump and Twitter shutting off his account appear to have caused him to abandon his infamy for the night and announce that there will be a peaceful transition of power on Jan. 20.
An insurrection requires a prolonged response and reckoning. Those officeholders who enabled it with their support of Trump, stunts to overturn the election, or timid response to our national peril must be held to account. This did not end Wednesday.