What’s next is way bigger than Trump
We all saw what happened: The president of the United States lost a fair election and responded by gathering a mob of his angry loser supporters who then stormed the Capitol building.
What happens next is bigger than Donald Trump, and it creates a huge opportunity for anti-racists and criminal justice reform advocates to influence the direction of the nation for decades.
The pro-Trump riot was a national security threat in so many ways that it’s impossible to tally them all.
You think North Korea or Iran or Russia or even China didn’t see what
happened and recognize the massive cracks in the foundations of American democracy? All it takes is one well-executed misinformation campaign and tens of thousands of people can seek to undermine the very principles they claim to hold sacred?
The conversation has shifted to how far Republicans can go to repudiate Trump and his unhinged supporters.
Senate Leader Mitch McConnell stepped up to say that “if this election were overturned by mere allegations from the losing side, our democracy would enter a death spiral.”
And several of Trump’s top aides, from Education Secretary Betsy DeVos to economic adviser Tyler Goodspeed, are resigning, saying they can’t stomach working for a man involved in such an unprecedented attack on democracy. Frankly, it doesn’t go far enough. Trump ought to be impeached (again) and removed from power to face trial for sedition along with anyone who raided the Capitol or abdicated a sworn responsibility to defend one of the nation’s most visible seats of power.
But this is on conservatives to police themselves. If they don’t respond forcefully enough, they’ll lose voters on local, state and national levels for a generation.
They made their bed by electing Trump to lie in it — and that’s what he’s been doing for four years.
As this plays out, the focus will shift to President-elect Joe Biden and his first 100 days in office.
He’ll have rare opportunity, with his party in control of the House and Senate. He also shouldn’t have to face the blatant obstructionism from McConnell that defined so much of President Barack Obama’s tenure.
(McConnell once said, “The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president.” McConnell is saying now that “we cannot keep drifting apart into two separate tribes … with nothing in common except hostility.”)
Biden’s ear should be especially attuned to the people and issues that allowed for his rise, and that means paying attention to minority voters in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
They’re concerned with the glaring disparity they saw in how Black protesters were treated over the summer compared to how the violent mob of looters were treated at the Capitol.
It started off as buzz on social media that Biden, himself, elevated.
Biden said his granddaughter told him, “‘Pop, this isn’t fair. No one can tell me if it had been a group of Black Lives Matter protesting … they wouldn’t have been treated very, very differently than the mob of thugs that stormed the Capitol.’ We all know that’s true. And it is unacceptable. Totally unacceptable. The American people saw it in plain view. And I hope it’s sensitized them to what we have to do.”
To be clear, no one is calling for violence against anyone.
But if a Black man can be killed over a potentially counterfeit $20 bill, it sends a powerful message that white looters felt emboldened to steal computers, files and even a podium from the Capitol after terrorizing lawmakers’ offices.
Biden has signaled that this will be a priority by nominating Merrick Garland to run the Justice Department, a division that was formed “in 1870,” the president-elect said, “to enforce the civil rights amendments that grew out of the Civil War – the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments, to stand up to the Klan, to stand up to racism, to take on domestic terrorism.”
(The 13th amendment abolishes slavery. The 14th established birthright citizenship for slaves and their descendants. The 15th protects voting rights for people of all races.)
If Biden, Vice President-elect Kamala Harris and the Democrats in the House and Senate move swiftly and deliberately toward racial equity, potentially addressing imbalances in sentencing disparities, conviction rates and law enforcement practices, including use of force, it will reshape the scope and perception of opportunity for minorities decades to come.
That’s the kind of work that could give rise a more egalitarian society that would have prevented Trump’s rise in the first place.
We all saw what happened when he was elected.
What happens next is way bigger.