Brace for non-stop Trump trauma

The shocking thing about the storming of the ramparts in Washington this week was that it didn’t happen sooner.

Yes, the images themselves were shocking, jarring and like nothing we’ve seen before in America. It felt like we were witnessing the American Revolution 2.0 or a Civil War 2.0.

Time will tell if we weren’t. But was I shocked that proTrump supporters busted into the Capitol building while lawmakers were certifying election results?

No.

There were enough red flags — and I’m hardly an intelligence gatherer for an American domestic antiterrorism agency.

Those flags have been right there, in our faces: the MAGA banners, Trump’s refusal to concede the election, his claims the election was stolen, his bullying of election officials to harvest more votes, his incitement of his followers to march to the Capitol and fight to the end.

For months now, Trump has been priming his people, warning them the election could be rigged. Since his loss, this rhetoric has spiked to a blue shriek. There he was this week, whipping up his horde just before they marched.

Those MAGA folks are boiling with grievances, seething with fury, and raring for a fight with their guns and pipe bombs. They are white supremacists, NeoNazis, Proud Boys, Q-anon disciples, members of private militias and, yes, regular Americans who feel disenfranchised.

Disbelief? How can anyone be in a state of disbelief after witnessing all of this?

If you want to feel shock and disbelief, look at how woefully unprepared the Washington, D.C. police were for this so-called protest. How were rioters able to breach the barricades and get into the Capitol Building so easily?

The police knew this march was going to happen. What did they think these so-called protesters were going do? Sit cross-legged in little campfire circles with flowers in their hair, holding hands, burning incense sticks and singing Michael Row the Boat Ashore?

Leaders of the Black Lives Matter movement have correctly observed that if those rioters had been Black or marching on behalf of their cause, police would have been riot-ready with tear gas, flash grenades and weapons. It would have been a massacre.

Five lives were lost. It could have been worse.

And the claims that “This isn’t America?”

Isn’t it?

I’m afraid this has been America for the past four years — not all of America, of course, but that nation has been tearing itself to shreds. Trump and his allies online and in certain media outlets have normalized extreme ideologies.

This particular mob got attention with its assault on this citadel of democracy in a symbolic moment of election certification, but there have been other rallies of extremists which had the tacit support of Donald Trump. Remember Charlottesville in 2017?

Don’t be fooled into thinking this is over. Trump’s presidential ship may be sinking and the rats are scurrying away, but make no mistake, he will remain the leader of a revolutionary populist movement with millions of followers.

And don’t think that he will be muted just because

Twitter and Facebook gave him the boot. There are multitudes of channels, media and echo chambers available to him and his followers. If anything, the punitive acts by these platforms will boost his martyrdom narrative in some people’s eyes.

This coming week will be a dangerous time for democracy in America. If Trump is not removed as president, he is in a position to call out the military and deploy it on the domestic front. Smart people have been modelling this very scenario.the commander-in-chief has access to nuclear launch codes.

We can hope and pray it doesn’t get to this, and hold our breath for the day he is deposed or relieved of duty by president-elect Joe Biden, but Trump is not going away.

Once he is stripped of presidential power, it’ll be game on. He’ll be free and clear to stoke his revolution however he wishes.

And if tradition holds, he’ll still be called “President Trump.”

And the claims that “This isn’t America?” Isn’t it?