The testimony of Mark Meadows aide Cassidy Hutchinson was a great pleasure to watch. What is not to like about reports of Trump throwing plates of cheeseburgers against the wall of his office so that ketchup drips down and has to be wiped up by aides? But there was one piece of information that caught me completely by surprise and made me realize that I had actually underestimated Trump’s danger to the country.
I had seen replayed several dozen times the clip of Trump’s
speech at the ellipse in which he tells the assembled crowd that he will walk
down with them to the Capitol. Since I
knew he had not done so, I took this as typical Trump bravado. But Hutchinson
made it clear that Trump desperately wanted to go to the Capitol and had been
stopped from doing so only by his Secret Service detail.
Just try to imagine what would have happened if he had tried
to lead that mob into the Capitol. Would the Capitol police have stopped him? I
think not. He was, after all, the President of the United States. He would have entered the chamber,
accompanied by the mob, and attempted to take control of the opening of the
reports of the electors. Right there,
the last vestiges of American democracy would have evaporated.
These are genuinely perilous times and I have no confidence
in any of the predictions I have read or heard. We must do what we can and
hope.
I suppose that the food fight Donald trump was trying to start on January 6 will appear in biopics or films made about this episode in American history, Cassidy also said that it had happened multiple times before and that the "valet" (dining room servant) had to clean up after the Child President many other times. Trump is still a threat to the future of democracy as he tries to resurrect his "statesman" identity from the ashes of his arrogance and asinine behavior during the peaceful transition of power.
ReplyDeleteThe bullying of Mike Pence by a thug-like Trump to get him to violate his oaths and conscience in these solemn matters exposed by the inquiry also is in tension with Donald Trump's pathetic attempts to re-write history from his own favored or idealized point of view, as in this May 22, 2022 interview with Christian Broadcasting Network in which he claims "I was right about everything" while promoting his new platform, Truth Social:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i6LN1QQUKxo&ab_channel
Perhaps Trump identifying himself as infallible in the Presidency and deserving of another term is absurd enough to be self-defeating. The law-makers are desperately struggling to correct the historical record and expose lies, but Trump thinks himself above the truth or out of reach of refutation by facts. The main thing to stop him should be to get him to testify under oath or in a legal context in which he is forced by authorities not to lie and face reality. If his abuse of campaign funds or violation of fund-raising rules or banking laws in his businesses and tax avoidance schemes (his alleged long record of financial crimes and misdeeds) or conspiracy to obstruct the Biden Administration can be factually documented and established by court standards of evidence gathering, then his innocence illusion is shattered and the mirror of TV does not allow him to fool the public again. Courtroom procedures or evidence rules and standards make a difference in the long term that he cannot outrun.
Here is the future I hope for: the reality TV star forced to respect reality in ways that he did not dream were possible, cornered by so many facts of his unethical and illegal actions in order to avoid justice and a true public rejection of his rule in an election that made him into a loser, could turn into a "wimp" and retire from politics so he can golf more and pretend to tweet important wisdom to the world on Truth Social.
Perhaps the many stand up comedians of American night life will ridicule Trump so much more that it will finally deflate his reputation (this comedy approach did not work so far, but maybe comedy takes more time to shift minds). We need an evangelical approach, so maybe Mike Pence could phone Trump and record him whimpering about his political fate, release this recording to the public, and confess his sin in ever supporting such a wimpy stateman as Trump turned out to be. Maybe the Christian Broadcasting Network could help turn this tide by interviewing Pence for the right side of the Trump story. God and his followers could turn out to be useful in getting rid of political devils like Trump saving America from its civilizational decline.
Wasn't there an episode in "West Wing" where the "president" went up to the Capitol uninvited to press Congress to acquiesce to one of his policies?
ReplyDeleteOtherwise, I think i read somehwhere that it's quite constitutional for a president to invite himself into the Senate, but not the H of R?
Yat another alien perspective which some of you will surely dislike:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.newstatesman.com/ideas/2022/06/america-new-civil-war-crisis-industrial-complex
Had he gone down to the Capitol it would have been a good thing and would likely have led to the 25th Amendment being invoked. Trump is a bully and a coward. Put him close up in an actual high stakes/high stress situation and he would have cracked.
ReplyDelete“He would have entered the chamber, accompanied by the mob, and attempted to take control of the opening of the reports of the electors. Right there, the last vestiges of American democracy would have evaporated.“
ReplyDeleteHuh?
Trump = latter day version of Catiline... except Catiline was personally courageous in his ignoble cause, whereas Trump has been weaselly and dishonest as ever.
ReplyDeletePresidents do not have the authority to enter the House Chamber without the Speaker's invitation. What the Senate does, I don't know.
ReplyDeleteJefferson preferred the word “inalienable.”
ReplyDeleteJohn Adams insisted on using the word “unalienable.”
Did it matter?
https://www.dictionary.com/e/unalienable-vs-inalienable/
I'm an "inalienable" man, myself. Don't mess with Jefferson's prose. He had many faults, but his prose style wasn't one of them.
ReplyDeleteWhen I see something labeled "organic" in the super market, I inevitably ask myself if the proper term for the alternative is "inorganic." Similarly, is the food that is not in the "Natural Foods" section "unnatural"?