Trump has disqualified himself from future office

Wednesday’s incursion on the Capitol by rioters seeking to stop the counting of electoral votes for President-elect Joe Biden was awful. So was the incitement of the mob by President Trump, a move that stains his presidency and should disqualify him from holding future office. But the insurrection wasn’t a coup — and it can’t be understood in isolation.

Many of those who insist on calling the protest an attempted coup have been accusing Trump of staging or planning a coup for months, and they are determined to be right.

But that description simply doesn’t apply. Trump is already president. No matter what he does, he will no longer be president at noon on Jan. 20. A more accurate portrayal is that he has led an effort to disrupt or delay the constitutionally mandated acts necessary to declare Biden the next president. That’s damning enough.

Ever since Biden was declared the winner of November’s election, I’ve expressed the hope that Trump would concede and emulate the actions of his predecessors by participating in the peaceful transfer of power. For the sake of his legacy, Trump would have been well served to demonstrate some grace in exiting the White House. He has chosen otherwise.

His statement in the wee hours Thursday promising an “orderly transition” is too little, too late.

Ari Fleischer, who served as press secretary under President George W. Bush, onWednesday tweeted during the protests but before the siege, “If you don’t like what’s happening today, maybe you should go back four years, look in the mirror and ask if it was a good idea to declare #NotMyPresident, declare yourself the Resistance, and boycott an Inaugural.”

We all know the third law of physics and the unending cycle of actions and reactions. Anyone who has encouraged confrontations with Trump administration officials, supported endless investigations and impeachment, and applauded the despicable spectacle of the House speaker ripping up the president’s State of the Union address has been guilty of raising the temperature of our partisan fever.

But at the end of the day, no one has more power to determine the national mood — and more responsibility to rise above the fray — than the president.

On that front, Trump has failed miserably.

I’ll always be glad that Trump, rather than Hillary Clinton, was president over the past four years. He was the most consequential president of my lifetime, which is different than being the best. The squandering of his legacy by his own actions is what makes his final act so frustrating.

He will, by his own choice, be remembered as the president who refused to accept defeat, urged endless and fruitless challenges to a free and honest election, and recklessly incited an attack on our U.S. Capitol and his own vice president. He has earned the enmity of all patriotic Americans and disqualified himself from ever seeking office again.

But anyone who thinks the nation will be mended by Trump’s departure misses the point of the forces and grievances that led to his manifestation, and which will endure beyond his exit. This moment will be an easy opportunity for lecturing and moralizing by Trump’s longtime adversaries. Healing, which is more important, will begin when we pause at the mirror and recognize where the change needs to begin.