If I had three hours of unscheduled time I might read a book, watch Lawrence of Arabia, go for a drive (with gas at over $4.00/gallon it better be to someplace good!), or some other enjoyable pursuit.
After inciting a mob to “fight for [their] country,” the 45th President of the United States goes home and watches a riot on television. Based on numerous reports, he cheered the crowd on, expressed that people were fighting for him, and that he thought his Vice President deserved to be hanged.
Cleary someone has to work on his people skills. But to the broader point of who is responsible for the uprising and coup attempted on January 6, 2021, there can be no doubt.
It is Donald John Trump. Clearly there were others who aided and abetted him, but the person at the head of any attempt to overturn a, by all accounts, fair and free election, Donald John Trump is the guy.
Trump went to any - unreasonable - lengths to remain in power. He permitted over 60 baseless frivolous lawsuits to be filed in his name. On social media, he advanced the lie that the election had been stolen from him and through him, from the people. This was a lie that he began to promote months prior to the November 2020, stating that if he lost it could only be because the “radical liberal Democrats” stole the election. Indeed, it was the same canard that he advanced in 2016.
He supported his Big Lie with his own attempted Big Steal in Georgia. All the Georgia Secretary of State, a Republican, had to do is “find” 11,780 “votes” (from the vote fairy?) that would make Trump the victor in that state. This is now the subject of a grand jury investigation.
We’ve had first hand reports that Trump attempted to co-opt the Department of Justice by inserting new “acting” leadership that would support his baseless claims of election fraud. He backed off only when confronted with mass resignations if he followed through with his plan.
We know that Trump and/or his agents tried to subvert the legitimate election results in Arizona.
We know that Trump tried to strong arm his Vice President to throw out the electoral votes from several states. After several days of consulting with several attorneys and at least one jurist, not to mention a former Vice President, Mike Pence determined that he did not have the legal authority to do Trump’s bidding, sending Trump to fits of anger or (to borrow Bob Woodward’s description) rage.
NOTE: a brief word about Pence. White House Counsel Pat Cipollone recently described Pence as a “hero.” This is utter nonsense. Following the law and doing his damn job doesn’t make anyone a hero. Mike Pence is no hero. Frankly, the hero label may be more of a reflection of the overall climate in the Trump administration than it was, after four years of obsequious supplication to Trump, an acknowledgement of Pence as a hero.
We know that Trump collaborated with a variety of legal and political misfits, in and out of government, at all levels of government to subvert the results of a free and fair election. This after he knew or should have known that there was no basis for any legitimate challenge to the results.
And because we heard and saw, we know that in-spite of the failed lawsuits, the failed attempts to pressure local and federal officials to sanction his false claims of election fraud, the failed arm twisting of his Vice President, his consistent disregard of facts presented by members of his administration confirming the lack of evidence of fraud, Trump continued to incite and inflame his supporters to violent action culminating on January 6, 2020.
But to me the most damning evidence against Trump is the 187 minutes where he sat idle, did not lift a finger to stop the building insurrection, did not activate the National Guard that was primed to act on his orders, and his refusal to condemn the actions at the Capital or disavow those who breached the building intent on stopping the critical ratification of the results of the 2020 election that was necessary for the peaceful transfer of power in a democracy. And as of this writing, Trump has never acknowledged the deaths and injuries resultant from the actions of a mob that he mobilized, incited, and unleashed on January 6, 2020.
This is the closest our country has come to an internal violent overthrow of its government. We know who orchestrated it, those who abetted it, and those who committed the violence.
The question is, what are WE going to do about it? The preservation of our democracy and the rule of law has been placed before us in stark relief.
For years democracy has been incrementally usurped by an authoritarian movement. This movement is broad and deep within our government, in all its branches and at all it’s levels. For years state legislatures have been enacting election “reforms” with the sole intent on limiting participation of voters in elections.
For years members of one political party has obstructed and halted the enactment of policies that might actually help people solely because those policies were proposed by the opposing party. The senate openly, shamefully prevented consideration of a president’s nomination of a Justice to the Supreme Court. This same party in control of the senate then confirmed three nominees to the Court, not because they were outstanding jurists, but because they were seen as advancing the party’s social, economic, and political agendas.
In other words, much of what was unthinkable a few years ago has been normalized by the law. Due to the perversion of the instruments of government, special economic interests have been preserved if not advanced and the rights of specific less powerful groups have either been limited or retracted.
Which brings up the rule of law. In our (still) democracy, WE get to vote for those who make the rules that govern us. WE get to decide whether those WE elect will uphold the rule of law making accountable those who willfully and openly violate the law.
And mostly WE get to insist that everyone be treated equally before the law. For the past several months hundreds of those who entered the Capital, stopping a constitutional process, committing violence, and destroying OUR property have been prosecuted and punished. But those people are easy to prosecute, they’re low hanging fruit.
The test of the vitality of our rule of law is whether they will investigate, and where there is sufficient evidence, charge and prosecute those who manipulated, incited, and created the environment that motivated thousands to descend on the Capital.
This is not merely the test of the rule of law, it’s our test as citizens. We will be called to vote in November, but voting in an election is not fulfilling our citizehip duties. In a democracy we are called to a higher standard. Too often we have failed in our citizenship duties, standing quietly by while watching events unfold around us. We can speak, we can organize, and we can act, peacefully and lawfully, to let those we put in office know that they have a duty to act in the public’s interest instead of the special interests.
We have to insist that those who violate the law be held accountable, just as we would be in the same circumstance. If they are not held accountable then the rule of law, as we know it, will be seen as nothing more than a tool for those in power to protect themselves and punish their opponents.
So to paraphrase the movie Speed, our democracy and our traditions are being threatened; what do you do? What do you do?
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