The Inciter-in-Chief

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.

The Assault on the Capitol: Trump’s Foot-Soldiers Attack Representative Government and the Legislative Branch

Donald Trump is engaging in a seditious crusade against the US government while neglecting his presidential duties.  Wednesday, he incited supporters to march on the Capitol, where they smashed windows, trashed the building, and beat a police officer to death.  They terrorized lawmakers intent on affirming Joseph R. Biden’s lawful election to succeed him as the next president.

Americans must face and tackle how fundamentally radical and seditious Trump’s machinations are.  He is using the cover of the executive office to wage an ongoing campaign against representative government, Congress, and any fellow Republican, from the vice-president on down, who dares to speak out or break away.  Ever since taking office, but increasingly since the Republican senate acquitted him of impeachment charges last February, Trump has steadfastly implanted an ideology of hate, intolerance, and grievance in his followers’ minds.  This ideology involves labeling fellow Americans as enemies and dangerously “wrong” liars, who must be opposed because they threaten Donald J Trump and his supposedly righteous campaign to stay in power.  Members of the legislative branch, who are doing their Constitutional duties, he dismisses and demeans as “weak” and “corrupt.” Ditto honorable state officials who won’t do what he wants.

Trump has consistently proclaimed these lies and methodically popularized them through tweets, speeches, and interviews.  Since early November, he has continued to insist that he won the presidential election. (It was “a sacred landslide.”)  He has never conceded defeat nor admitted lying.  His doublespeak continues, and will continue after he leaves the presidency. (Even in what some regard as his concession speech, Trump never admits losing, nor acknowledges the legitimacy of Biden’s victory.)

Trump’s core followers completely believe the false narrative he tells.  They believe that the Democrats and Joe Biden stole the election; that massive election fraud occurred (particularly in urban areas of swing states with lots of black voters); and that Trump is the rightful victor.  Trump preaches that his followers are “the true Americans,” and that if his people do not “take back the government,” through violence if necessary, corruption will reign, and the greatness of the US will disappear for good.

What we saw of the assault on the Capitol in real time was superficial.  Initial footage, much of it filmed at a great distance, failed to convey how nasty, violent, and intentional part of the crowd really was.  In some of the early videos, we saw protestors strolling aimlessly through the Capitol, documenting their innocent-seeming transgressions with selfies, whooping like children.  We saw guards opening barricades to allow “protestors” to flow past.  Some Capitol Police chatted and posed with rioters, showed them courtesies, or stood around doing nothing.  In contrast to the savage response the peaceful BLM protests elicited in the capital this summer, police applied a double standard Wednesday, giving a gingerly, kid-glove treatment to the mainly white crowd. Black Capitol police officers later complained that their superiors did little to prepare for what they privately knew would be, not a peaceful protest, but a violent assault.

As more footage has begun to circulate, and more bits of news come together, can we appreciate how deliberate, pitched, and murderous the incursion really was.  Trump’s “army” was handicapped in that it had been warned against carrying firearms in DC, and those who marched on the Capitol were mainly unarmed.  Nonetheless, members of the crowd carried cruder weapons, such as flags and staffs.  Some had flash-bangs or zip ties for binding people.  Some had ear-pieces and two-way radios; others had maps of the network of tunnels under the buildings.  Two bombs were planted around the perimeter of the Capitol, but police found and defused them before they went off.

Though there appears to have been no coordinated plan of “attack,”  elements of the crowd battled fiercely to break into the building by climbing through windows, bull-rushing officers, and battering the heavy reinforced glass of the main entrances and House Chamber.  Trump’s forces beat and trampled one officer on the Capitol steps; he later died.  Another policeman was pummeled nearly to unconsciousness, as a phalanx of rioters pressed to get through a sliding door.  

Ashli Babbitt, an Air Force veteran traveled across the country to take part in the assault on Congress, tried to climb through an opening into the door to the House Chamber that armed police officers were defending. She was shot in the neck and later died. She is just one example of a large subversive population who will follow Trump to the death, falsely believing that they are serving a noble and patriotic cause.

Inside, the Senate and House were ignorant that the Capitol Building was being overcome and assailed.  They were engaged in debate when suddenly security officers ushered the Vice President and the House Speaker out.  The senators, too, were quickly cleared and moved to safety in an undisclosed location.  On the House side, some congressmen and women were trapped inside on the main floor of the chamber and in the balcony when the rioters began ramming the doors from outside.  Security officers barricaded the door and drew their weapons to defend it, as the remaining MCs were evacuated.  Staff and some representatives who were not in the chambers were instead trapped in a lockdown in their offices for hours.  Only later did Congress have an opportunity to reckon with the grave danger latent in the massive assault.  

There are now speculations about “a crowd within the crowd,” a highly militarized and well-equipped group intent on gaining access to the chambers, destroying the Electoral Votes, kidnapping or executing lawmakers, or forcing them to overturn the election under threat of harm.  Recall that before Christmas, Donald Trump met with the leader of the Proud Boys at the White House, and that many members of this violent supremacist organization were visibly active in Wednesday’s crowd.  It may take a few days for senators and House members to recover, but when they do they will realize how close they were to being killed, captured, or otherwise victimized.

Traumatic though it was, Trump’s open insurrection against the legislative branch was merely an opening salvo.  Thugs leaving the building were heard to say “this is just the beginning,” and “next time we come back we will be armed.”  Donie O’Sullivan of CNN, heard many in the crowd lingering around the Capitol saying they were proud of what they had done.  Videos are circulating in various backrooms of the internet, priming Trump’s forces to renew their violent assault on January 20, Inauguration Day.  One hopes the threat of renewed violence against Congress and the institutions of government will galvanize Republicans and Democrats to join together against Donald Trump and his treachery.

Image by Mike Maguire, from this source.

 

The Grim Dawn of 2021

New Year’s Day in my corner of the world was wet and grim.  The temperature was in the thirties, and rain fell on the unmelted snow.  The freezing mix formed big slushy puddles, glazed the steps seditiously, left icicles on the downspouts.  Gradually the trees and bushes sank under the weight of the ice forming on their boughs.  The patio grew too dangerous to cross.

Then, after night fell at around 4:40, the ugly grey day morphed into a snowy night.  The tree boughs, now brilliant with snow, arched lower.  By 10pm, the branches of a birch tree taller than the house had drooped to within just a few feet of the ground!  It was weird and beautiful.  Stressful for the trees.  I photographed them before going to bed, knowing I might never see the like again.  At night, I heard a few too-heavy branches fall from somewhere, landing on the roof of the house with a thud.


I want to say “happy new year,” but it would be insincere.  It’s impossible to greet this January with optimism, to pay lip service to the notion of “being better.”  Mortal and political dangers lie immediately ahead, threatening to push the US, already battered from the numerous crises of 2020, into a state of irremediable catastrophe.  What 2021 immediately demands is stamina, renewed vigilance against the coronavirus, and the guts to face down Trump-related threats to our government and national security.


Just as I went to bed the other night wondering whether the birch tree would snap in the night, so I wonder whether the government of the US will survive the week.  Extraordinarily, in the next few days the pressures that have been building on the nation will culminate.

  • This week, we will see whether Congress will allow Trump to destroy the United States or whether it will at last defy him, uphold the Electoral College, and be true to the will of the people and the Constitution.
  • We will see whether Trump will win his struggle to control the Republican party or whether his efforts will produce an all-out schism.
  • Will Mitch McConnell find a way to prevent the challenge to the Electoral College from going forward?  Only if anti-Trump forces in the Senate find a way to avert the EC challenge will the Republican Party, as we know it, survive this week.
  • Donald Trump’s conniving to hold on to an office he knows he lost is a self-interested quest that has nothing to do with his Constitutional duties.  He is a criminal and a grave threat to national security.  With the prospect of an ugly showdown in the House and Senate looming, calls for Trump’s impeachment or resignation are likely to grow.

Will the forces of good be strong enough to keep the nation from buckling under this week? The answer will come in the next 36 hours.

Devin Nunes Experiments With a Race to the Bottom


How congressman Devin Nunes behaved on the opening day of the House’s public impeachment hearings epitomizes how loyalty to Trump jeopardizes the personal honor of every House Republican while threatening the viability of the Republican Party.

The televised hearings invite a nationwide audience of millions to observe and evaluate the merits of every political actor involved in a momentous and rare Constitutional proceeding.  As the ranking Republican member of the House Intelligence Committee, Nunes used his opening statement to deliver a partisan tirade, airing longstanding grievances irrelevant to the day’s proceedings, maligning his Democratic colleagues as liars, and insulting witnesses George Kent and William Taylor, whose accomplishments and integrity plainly far exceeded Nunes’s own.

Nunes and other Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee are intent on defending President Trump, but they have not really thought far enough ahead to understand how their prejudice in his favor will come across to citizens, who are counting on Congress to examine the president’s behavior fairly and impartially.  The public hearings are a special test of Republican leadership and integrity, because millions of well-informed Americans already know that President Trump has abused his power for personal political gain–not least because the president’s official spokesman, Mick Mulvaney, has already told them so.  Likewise, millions of Americans, including some of Mr. Nunes’s constituents, undoubtedly realize that the president’s behavior is an indefensible deviation from his Constitutionally sworn duties and a challenge to Congress.  They are looking to see whether Republican lawmakers have the courage and independence to admit that Trump’s personal behavior threatens everything republican government stands for.  Will House Republicans fail to admit that Trump must be stopped?

It was doubly ironical to witness Nunes’s crude attacks on the Democrats, given that the hearings were imbued with a concern for our national security and a patriotic determination to safeguard our republican form of government–issues historically central to the strength of the GOP.  Democrats came off as patriotic defenders of our national integrity, whereas Nunes’s petty assertions must have dismayed anyone who cares about curbing Russian aggression or has been part of American efforts to support the principle of self-determination abroad.  The injury that Nunes’s strategy inflicted fell mainly on his own personal reputation, for his fellow-Republicans and he tarnished themselves in defense of indefensible things.

House Republicans may be scared.  Yet what is the nature of the hold Trump has on them?  When will they see that their own best interest lies in being silent and attending solely to the facts presented, rather than whining about the unfairness of the proceedings?  Nunes’s election margins back home in his district are diminishing;  he might fear his chances of reelection are doomed unless he can count on votes from Trump’s base.  It’s depressing to think that Republican congressmen have nothing more valuable or principled to offer voters.  When political analysts say that the Republican Party has become “the party of Trump,” this is what they mean.

Republicans have only to abandon Trump to slip free of all these difficulties.  Perhaps as the evidence mounts, Nunes and his ilk will see the wisdom of cutting Trump loose, a dramatic act that would give new life to embattled republican (and Republican) ideals.

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If the GOP Is Wise, It Will Dump Trump Now


From my vantage here in Chicago, I can sense the forces in favor of Donald Trump’s impeachment and removal from office building among Republicans on Capitol Hill.  Even as David Brooks has insisted that impeachment is a political mistake, even as Tamara Keith and other analysts see political “tribalism” as ineluctably binding Republican legislators to President Trump, one can read events as building toward a directly opposite result, and one very liberating and propitious for all the perplexed Republicans now “hiding in the tall grass,” uncharacteristically quiet and desiring at all costs to avoid the press.

One sign of a change in Republican sentiment is that vocal defense of the President has stopped.  Until lately, leading Republicans have eschewed impeachment as a spurious partisan maneuver, insisting in the face of the Democrat-led initiative that the president is innocent of any action meeting the Constitution’s definition of an impeachable offense (“treason, bribery, or high crimes and misdemeanors”).  Since September 19, however, when word of the President’s efforts to strong-arm Ukraine into giving him political dirt against Joe Biden began circulating, the White House has itself supplied prima facie confirmation of Trump’s determination to use his official powers for personal ends.

With remarkable speed, the president has moved from doing wrong in private to openly testing the proposition that he can do no wrong. He has breezily defended his actions as a matter of “style.”  He has gone so far as to make public statements at odds with his Constitutional duties and responsibilities, denying the legitimacy of, and declining to cooperate with, the House impeachment inquiry, and railing against the “phony” emoluments clause.

The President has moved onto dangerous new ground, all but thumbing his nose at anyone who would insist that he adhere to the Constitution.  This was the significance of Mick Mulvaney’s open admission of a quid pro quo: Trump expects his fellow Republicans to tolerate his dirty dealings and “get over it.”  As though the Constitution is something to go beyond.

Everyone who passed civics grasps that Trump is violating federal election laws.  Once fair elections go by the boards, nothing will be left of the republic, either.

As public servants who have their own oaths to uphold, their own powers to wield, Republican lawmakers can hardly fail to notice how Trump is blossoming into a fearful liability: a president without fealty to their own political needs or principles, an interloper who, having cannibalized their once “grand” party, is intent on desecrating its remains, as in his disastrous unilateral decision to withdraw US troops from Syria and abandon the Kurds.  Trump wants Republicans to do more to defend him.  Yet why should congressional Republicans remain loyal to a president deviating so wildly from his Constitutional job description, which is to execute the will of Congress and respect its laws?

Republicans are supposedly afraid of cutting Donald Trump loose.  What, really, would the downside be?  After Trump’s removal from office, the very conservative Mike Pence would be the incumbent president.  Trump’s much-talked-of base supposedly wouldn’t like this, but let’s face it, this is something no one can know.  What will Trump be, when the amplifiers are turned off?  The Republican Party is still lousy with political talent (much of it in abeyance).  Boosted back into a commanding position through a gutsy act of patriotism, the GOP could find redemption, enjoying a new and more broad-based popularity.  It could even remake itself in time to beat the Democrats in 2020.  Nikki Haley, anyone?  She’s on a long list of Republican alternates published the other day in the Rolling Stone.

Image: Black and white screen-shot of Donald Trump just before his inauguration,
© 2019 Susan Barsy

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