Let’s call things by their names: Wednesday we witnessed a failed coup attempt.
Joe Biden won the Presidency by seven million votes and 306-232 in the electoral college, which isn’t even close. Scores of courts rejected a slew of silly challenges to the voting process. Trump and others tried to circumvent the process to keep Trump in office.
Trump’s conduct is no surprise. Republicans nominated, and we elected, a narcissistic and incompetent man who had routinely disregarded laws, contractual obligations, and ethical norms, while surviving by telling more and bigger lies.
As president, Trump told an astonishing number of lies, and was rarely in the same zip code as the truth. He repeatedly put his own interests ahead of the nation’s.
Defeated, Trump rejected reality, shouted blatant lies, and tried to bully/cajole other Republicans into violating their oaths of office and vetoing their citizens’ ballots. That his followers threatened severe harm to some Republican voting officials didn’t matter. Nor did law or tradition.
Trump lies and threatens to get his way. Ambitious folks like Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley abetted his attempt to use laughable challenges to throw the choice to the House. Both are smart enough lawyers to know the effort had no chance; but it’d sure make ‘em look good to Trumpists in 2024.
Fortunately, Trump’s not as organized or focused as, say, Vlad Putin. Fortunately, Trump’s so odious and unpleasant even to his allies that many, while kissing his butt in public, resented him deeply. Fortunately, Democrats hold a House majority, and some combination of decency, patriotism, and Trump-fatigue caused enough Republicans to reject the coup attempt. Trump’s questionable mental state and seditious conduct has inspired conservatives to urge his removal under the 25th Amendment.
But a majority of Republican representatives voted Trump’s way, even after complaining that Trump’s mob had trashed the Capitol and put them in fear for their lives.
Watching McConnell and Pence say fine words, I hoped their disgust with Trump, Hawley, and mob violence, might revive a little bipartisanship. Cabinet members are leaving Trump’s ship. Republican senators say privately they abetted Trumpian misconduct for too long, hoping he’d improve. They should say so publicly. I’m torn between welcoming their awakening and recalling how long it has taken. Trump has been Trump all along. And it’s easier to stab a king who’s reeling from self-inflicted wounds.
And what of the longer term? Republicans haven’t won the popular vote for many years, but they control a majority of states, and often get saved by the electoral college. They know that an indecisive election means the House chooses – with each state getting a vote. California and Wyoming count equally.
I still hope, but it might be too tempting to Republicans to veto an inconvenient Presidential vote and install their own choice.
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[The above column appeared this morning, Sunday, 3 January 2021, in the Las Cruces Sun-News, as well as on the newspaper’s website (A Failed Coup and an Uncertain Future the newspaper's website) and KRWG’s website. A related radio commentary will air during the week on KRWG (90.7) and KTAL-LP. (101.5 – http://www.lccommunityradio.org/), and will be available on demand on KRWG’s site. The photograph above is copyright Peter Goodman, and was taken on 12 September, surrounded by military and law-enforcement folks protecting monuments and federal buildings after the 2001 attack.]
[What has been most interesting in the aftermath of 6Jan21 has been the varied reactions of Trump fans and conservatives generally. (It’s important to note that those are overlapping sets, with people who may be either or both.) The extremists vary from the pride (exhibited by “the Q-Anon Guru” and a New Mexico Republican county official, who were there and proud of it and say the country deserves more of the same if it persists in accepting a fraudulent election and doing other things those folks don’t like) to denial (as by Sarah Palin, I heard, and by local Facebook friends who are Trumpists, who insist that anything bad was actually done by “antifa infiltrators.”) The denials are absurd, given the celebratory (and self-incriminating) cell-phone videos and public statements by Trumpist participants, and flat statements by the Q-Anon Guru and others that there were no antifa infiltrators and the beautiful day was the work of Trumpists.
Less on the fringe, some are defending Trump, while many others are jumping ship, distinguishing themselves as fast as possible from Mr. Trump. (See, for example, Ben Sasse’s statements (asserting that Trump has committed impeachable offenses and confirming (as I was guessing while watching on 6Jan) that staff are appalled by how much Trump enjoyed watching on TV the sacking of the Capitol, the Chao and DeVos resignations, and "We Were Wrong, He's a Fascist".)]
[That Republican variety is natural. Some conservatives never accepted Trump. They shared political goals (restrict or forbid abortions, cut taxes on the rich, pack federal courts with conservative judges and justices) but clearly saw that Trump’s dangers outweighed his political convenience. Others didn’t, but were reasonable and even patriotic people mistakenly guessing they could do the country more good from within Trump’s administration than from outside. We’ve always known that many of his advisors and appointees were holding their noses as they worked with him. Or for him.
How should we others (progressive, moderate, even conservative folks who rejected Trump) feel about those who are belatedly (sometimes anonymously, still) stating truths about Mr. Trump? That’s important to who we are and where we go from here.
Tempting as it is to shout “I told you so,” or criticize their selling out, Jesus was not unwise in advising us to cast the first stone only if we are sinless. To me (and I may try to explore this in my next column) that means to try to cool all that if we have ever sold out, and to contemplate honestly how we might have acted had Mr. Trump been a progressive running on the Blue ticket. As noted above, we’re dealing here with two intertwined problems: conservative views, with which I generally disagree but from which I often learn, and Trumpism, which means embracing the exceptional selfishness, disregard for law and ethics, wanton unpleasantness, racism, arrogant discourtesy, and greed that is Donald. It’s tempting to believe that Trump could only have been a Republican, that rich folks’ greed and Trump’s greed, corporate disregard for workers and Trump’s contempt for the lower classes, are all of a package; but what if a charismatic but dishonest and power-mad leader arose who told us the system was screwing us (which most of us believe, including me), that s/he could get elected and make real change, and that we needed to deal seriously with global warming, racism, and economic inequality? Many of us would vote for her over Ben Sasse, Milt Romney, or Tim Scott. Many of us would work in her administration., uneasily, and let her increasing efforts to dismantle our democracy slide, to serve the greater good of turning our country more progressive?]
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| Foxy w Shadows ©PeterGoodman |
[Let me add that everyone should watch this
for a more immediate view of the domestic terrorists, and their actions and words. Folks who don't trust the TV source should at least watch and listen to the terrorists themselves.]
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