In his final year in office, Donald Trump demonized and denigrated his political opponents while inflaming a sense of grievance in his followers. Having become president on promises to “drain the swamp” and fight a corrupt political establishment, he treated any political figure who opposed, or merely competed with, him as an enemy. Meanness rather than civility was his metier. Whereas the duty of a president is to execute and administer laws impartially, Trump ran the White House like a machine politician, rewarding loyal “friends” and punishing the rest.
Trump’s willingness to foment violence against “enemies” became evident in April, when he began egging on groups of gun-toting citizens in several states, including Michigan, who resented strict COVID measures as an intolerable curb on personal liberty. “LIBERATE MICHIGAN,” Trump tweeted, explicitly encouraging them to overthrow the state’s lawfully elected government, implying that it was akin to tyranny. Trump had incited his first insurrection. Shortly afterward, members of right-wing militias stormed the statehouse in Lansing and forced their way into its legislative chambers, chanting “Let Us In.” At least two of the protestors later joined a plot with some ten others to bomb the capitol and kidnap Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer. Michigan state legislators were terrorized. Whitmer had to carry on knowing that the president had made her a target of violence.
After the plot made the news, Trump brushed it off, saying Whitmer should “make a deal” placating her would-be captors. In the end, Trump got away with his blatant attack on Whitmer and Michigan’s state sovereignty. Inciting violence in Michigan cost him nothing. Among disaffected whites, who resent the way minorities and women are achieving political parity in US society, his following grew. State governors were silent. Female senators, who might have identified with Whitmer and chosen to stand up for her, also said nothing. No one formally called out Trump for this unprecedented and unwarranted attack on a state government and its authorities.
Trump’s partial success in Michigan encouraged him. It inspired him to plan crowd violence more methodically. He continued experimenting with militaristic language, particularly in the service of a boastful, grandiose narrative. He projected excessive confidence and invincibility. He spoke as one destined to win reelection, speaking dismissively of the machinations of his supposedly corrupt opponents and “others” who were not really American and definitely not worthy of the franchise. In the run-up to the November election, Trump loudly denounced the nation’s sophisticated election system as unfair and easy to manipulate. He repeatedly challenged the legality of election procedures in key states and counties, even where such measures enjoyed bipartisan support. In the summer, emails went out to Trump supporters inviting them to join “Trump’s Army.”
After losing Biden, Trump continued casting aspersions on the honesty of state and local election officials. He questioned the vote. He refused to concede, instead gathering about him a chorus of sycophants (including many top Republicans) who amplified his baseless claims of election fraud, perpetrating the Big Lie. Thousands began echoing his rallying cry of “Stop the Steal.” Trump’s insistence that he had won the election, that Biden and the Democrats had somehow stolen his victory, resonated with a segment of his followers who felt that they too had been passed over and betrayed. Secretary Pompeo kept the faith, insisting on November 10 that there would be a “smooth transition to a second Trump administration.”
Trump’s forces kept pressing on every front, threatening death to election officials and others who refused to falsify the election so that Trump could win. In Georgia, a frustrated election official, Gabriel Sterling, begged Trump via social media, “Stop inspiring people to commit potential acts of violence. Someone is going to get shot, someone is going to get killed. And it’s not right.” In Michigan, armed Trump protestors showed up at the home of secretary of state Jocelyn Benson for a “Stop The Steal” rally one December night. They surrounded the house and taunted her, as she and her 4-year-old son decorated for Christmas inside. Such folk believed, as one Trump fundraising email put it, that they were “the President’s first line of defense when it comes to fighting off the Liberal MOB.”
Having exhausted every legal option for overturning Biden’s victory, Trump orchestrated one last grand maneuver to wrest the presidency away from Biden on the day Congress was to receive and record the Electoral College results. Trump’s determination to disrupt and derail the proceedings predated the occasion by several months. This time, the groundwork he laid ballooned into a choreographed melee, a pitched attack on the Capitol and the people within it, that has no precedent in American history.
When the Senate impeachment trail begins on February 8, House managers will present a more complete picture of the storming of the Capitol that injured some 140 police officers and caused eight deaths. The outgoing president deliberately manufactured an assault on the legislative branch that could have resulted in the end of our Constitutional tradition. He encouraged a spirit of grievance and distrust among his followers, stoking their resentment against Congress and the political establishment itself through a sedulous campaign of put-downs and lies. He told them to march to the Capitol; they obeyed. He watched the violence from the White House with delight. Afterward, he claimed to “love” the mob and averred that “These are the things and events that happen when a sacred landslide election victory is so unceremoniously & viciously stripped away from great patriots who have been badly & unfairly treated for so long.”
Next week, the ex-president will send lawyers to the Senate to defend the indefensible: Trump’s premeditated attack on Congress, the vote, and the nation itself. The senators must find him guilty. To do otherwise will destroy the prospect of peace in our land: presidential authority will have no limit, and the peaceful transition of power will be a thing of the past.
Image: Screenshot from NBC coverage of the assault on the Capitol,
from this source.
I agree–how can he not be found guilty?! However, based on the 2020 impeachment trial and everything that has happened since, I fear the Senate will still refuse to do the right thing. It is baffling, except if we understand that, for them, political power is more important than the principles on which our nation is founded. Meanwhile, Trump’s lawyers seem to have abandoned him prior to the Feb. 8th trial. Maybe there is hope.
Peggy, I too am afraid the Republican senators will fall short, based on the number of times they have let the nation down lately. They are no good at policing themselves, that’s for sure. But if they do not convict Trump, the Republican Party will be attractive only to right-wing extremists. The party’s stature will be low, and it will no longer appeal to reputable people or cutting edge businesses or organizations. So there is a chance that Republican senators will convict Trump out of self-interest. This is what I hope will happen — that the impeachment vote will look like the certification vote on Jan 6-7, with only a few die-hards like Cruz and Graham voting to acquit. We’ll see.
I have no expectation that there is enough integrity in the GOP to do anything but vote enbloc with tRump! And the ‘party’ has long been a radical right wing home.
Sometimes I have trouble believing people are as bad as they are. The past 12 months have opened my eyes.
Thanks, Allen.
Susan
Great post. You capture how far Trump was willing to go to overturn the election and keep power. Somehow he scared almost everyone in his party to forebear criticizing him, or else.
I often wonder how he managed to stifle resistance within his party. The GOP somehow became a party that can tolerate violence and insurrection against the US. WHY? How could those 139 House members and eight senators STILL, on Jan 6th, after almost losing their lives to the mob that attacked the Capitol,–how could they stand up afterward and challenge the certification of the EC vote for Biden?
Trump’s impeachment trial begins February 8. He MUST be found guilty. The evidence is overwhelmingly against him. Any senator who votes to acquit and “let him walk” will be infamous forever.
We probably won’t know the answers to the question of motive until it becomes a matter for historians. People who know the motives of a Lindsey Graham or a Ted Cruz will probably tell the story at some point when they no longer fear judgment or retaliation. It’s far easier to describe a historical event (as this election definitely has been) than to explain how or why it happened. The same with Trump. The cowardice, temporizing, and inaction of senate Republicans has outraged most Americans. They have been denounced ad nauseam on social media. I think we can say with certainty, though, that Trump’s behavior was consistently so outrageous that many Americans got tired of trying to oppose it. Many millions instead began seeing the world through his eyes and got to the point where he even made sense.
Humans can form an addiction to anger: that might be part of the story. Trump found people reasons to be angry and he enjoyed being angry himself. I’ve read that some people get pleasure from indulging anger–it’s a bad habit for an entire subpopulation to form.
Cruz and other seditionists imagined that siding with DT would make their political future. I think they miscalculated. The great majority of Americans is happy DT’s presidency is over. I could be very wrong, but I think most Rs will end up voting to convict.
Thanks, Bob!
Susan