January 7, 2020

No doubt we all saw the same thing yesterday.  For the first time in my life time, we witnessed what can be called no less than an attempted coup on American soil.  The only question I have is why are so many people shocked?  This was somewhat inevitable.  The GOP, Fox News and other ‘conservative media outlets’ have created a monster over the last four years – ‘FrankenTrump’ I like to call it – and then they wonder why they can’t control him and his supporters.   And let’s be clear, this was no ordinary protest, this was a group of Trump loyalists trying to stage a coup by storming the United States Capitol during a process being conducted by Congress which is normally mundane, relatively uneventful and a mere formality.

However, this year, due to Trump’s (and his sycophants’) unwillingness to accept the results of the election and continuing to pour gasoline on the flames of false conspiracy theories and get his ‘base’ all riled up, this is what we ended up with.  This is a huge stain on America’s reputation around the world that won’t be soon forgotten.  There should be no doubt left in anyone’s mind now that Trump will go down in history as the worst president in American history.  He should be held accountable.  Every member of Trump’s merry little band that breached the Capitol illegally should be held accountable.  And every Republican member of Congress who contributed to creating and enabling FrankenTrump should be held accountable.   

There will be those who will try to equate what happened in the US Capitol yesterday to the BLM protests as a way to mitigate and rationalize what took place.  It is a false equivalency.  The BLM protests stemmed from legitimate grievances about the disproportionate numbers of people of color who are killed at the hands of police.  And, yes, some of the protests did get violent which is never excusable but the large majority of the protests and protestors were peaceful.  The effort underway yesterday was to protest the results of an election that was conducted in accordance with laws, state constitutions, and the US Constitution.  All 50 states certified their election results.  Over 60 court cases were withdrawn or dismissed for lack of evidence of voter fraud.  The President, the enabling Congressional Republicans and the people who attacked the Capitol yesterday wanted to overturn the results of a legitimate election.  A similar effort in any other country would be called a ‘coup.’

I talked yesterday about the cost to America for Trump’s short sided foreign policies.  Domestically, his cult of fealty in the GOP has now led to a loss of the White House, a loss of the House of Representative and now, a loss of the Senate.  And yesterday, a failed coup to basically undermine democracy in this country.  I think the Republican Party is going to need to do some serious soul searching.  Are they going to get back to true Republican conservative principles or are they going to continue to follow Trump into the swamp of corruption and conspiracy?  People talk about the split between the progressive and moderate wings of the Democratic Party but right now, those pale in comparison to the schism running right through the GOP. 

After what seemed like an interminable amount of time, the Capitol Building was retaken from the Trump-ites and Congress resumed the process of certifying the results of the Electoral College.  We can only hope that Congress can get through the certification process with no further violence and disruptions caused by Trump and his acolytes.  The result is inevitable, even if Trump won’t accept it.  Two weeks from yesterday, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris will be sworn in as the next President and Vice President.  The only real question is how much more damage can Trump cause on the way out the door?  And from the looks of yesterday – a lot. 

There has been talk by some of invoking the 25^th Amendment in an effort to immediately remove Trump from office.   A couple of members of the House of Representative are already drawing up Articles of Impeachment with the same end goal.  It is highly unlikely that either of these things will bear fruit, partially because of the timeline and partially because there are still not enough Republicans who are willing to hold this president accountable.  Regardless, Trump will be a private citizen in less than two weeks and, if we’re all lucky, Twitter will continue to lock his account.

Regardless of the rhetoric coming from Trump and his kids, I personally believe they will be way too busy dealing with all of the legal and financial problems facing them to get too involved in future political efforts for a while.  I also believe that the Trump political brand has been seriously damaged which will hamper any future efforts by Trump or his kids to make a serious bid for elective office.  I think and hope that the Trump dynasty ended yesterday.

If there was any good news yesterday, it was simply that both Senate seats up for grabs in Georgia went to the Democratic candidates so it will be a 50 – 50 tie in the Senate but since Vice President-elect, Kamala Harris, will be the President Pro Tem of the Senate, it will give the Democrats the majority they need to kick Mitch McConnell to the curb and hopefully enable Biden to actually get something done.  Good riddance to the ‘Grim Reaper’, Mitch McConnell.

It is very sad that the historic victories of Reverend Warnock and Jon Ossoff were so overshadowed by the senseless acts taking place in Washington D. C.  The fact is, it was a very sad day for the country.  There is no guarantee that we will ever regain what was lost.