I'll Think of a Catchy Title Later

January 6, 2021 confirmed my worst fears, and showed us all the true nature of Trumpism.

In October 2016, I had a specific, troubling fear. We were weeks away from the presidential election, and all indications were that Hillary Clinton would become our next president. Her opponent, Donald Trump, seemed like a comic book villain, all bluster and macho chauvinism. Breathless coverage followed his every tweet, his every campaign event. It was a train wreck in slow motion; what would he say next?

The news de jour was feverish speculation among the chattering class, centered on whether Trump would gracefully accept his anticipated defeat. Actually, that wasn’t quite it: nobody thought he would be graceful. Rather, the speculation was whether he would accept the election’s result, full stop. Would he admit reality, or would he continue to insist that the election had been rigged, and that he was, in fact, the victor?

After all, he had demonstrated a loose and flexible relationship with the truth, and had no compunctions about telling outright lies, time and again, repeating them until his followers accepted them as mantra. At the risk of provoking Godwin’s law, there is an old saw about the power of big lies.

My fear, at that time, was not whether or not Trump would accept the results of 2016. It was whether, in the then-unlikely event he were to win, he would accept the results of an election that took place during his presidency.

In the months since election day 2020, we have seen the answer. Not only has the president refused to accept the outcome, he has fired his supporters up into a fantastical frenzy, bellowing conspiracy theories, demonizing all who refuse to bow to his fictional accounts. Much of this he accomplished on his own, but he had enablers, from the withered husk of a former NYC mayor to a bloviating, bearded Ted Cruz. There were many more, and media- both social and conventional- are now repeating their names, lest we forget their role in this sad episode.

Yesterday, at the president’s urging, armed insurgents breached the US Capitol, sending legislators, staff, and law enforcement scrambling to remain safe. The United States flag was thrown to the ground, a flag adorned with TRUMP taking its place. This is what fascism looks like: employing violence to gain what cannot be achieved by legal means.

In his remarks on the floor of a joint session of Congress, Senator Ted Cruz could not cite any evidence to support his “belief” that the election was conducted fraudulently. Instead, he urged colleagues to join him because of the substantial minority of Americans who believe that it was. Why, one might wonder, would so many people believe something that isn’t so, especially after unsuccessful efforts to demonstrate it in countless courts and legislatures?

The answer, of course, is because the doubts about the conduct and accuracy of the 2020 election were the Big Lie, the one repeated ad nauseum by Donald Trump and his mealy-mouthed myrmidons. People like Ted Cruz created a widespread belief in lies, and then cited that belief as reason enough to oppose and delay the transition of power.

After witnessing the Proud Boys staging an armed invasion of the US Capitol, there can be no remaining doubt about what Donald Trump meant when he told them to “stand back and stand by” at a presidential debate.

Mike Pence, for years chief among Donald Trump’s minions, was asked to subvert the constitution and assert the power to unilaterally choose the next president. Had that power existed, which it does not, it would have allowed the last vice-president to throw out the results of Trump’s own election in 2016: that role was then held by Joe Biden, our president-elect.

Donald Trump serves no master but his own narcissistic quest for power, fame, and wealth. He has shown that he will never give them up, no matter what. They must be taken from him.

I doubt that the 25th Amendment will be employed, though I hope that it will. I doubt that the congress will impeach and remove Donald Trump in the waning days of his administration. I have no doubt that he will pardon himself, and his supporters who engaged in criminal and terroristic conduct yesterday. We have a word for what this is:

Donald Trump is a traitor. The insurgents who stormed the US Capitol are traitors. The senators and representatives who enabled and encouraged his pathetic attempt to overturn the election are traitors.

And no patriotic American can continue to support any of them, full stop. This is no longer a matter of differing political views, or even worldviews. It is now Americans against the fascists, and too many fascists are among us.

Yesterday was a dark day in American history, and we must never forget those who caused it. Remember their names, and hold them accountable.

-AG