Isolated, temporarily banned from social media, and facing a wave of resignations, Donald Trump pledged an orderly transition of power on Thursday after Congress officially certified Joe Biden’s Electoral College victory.
“Even though I totally disagree with the outcome of the election, and the facts bear me out, nevertheless there will be an orderly transition on January 20th,” Trump said, in a short statement delivered through Dan Scavino on Twitter.
Trump was largely unrepentant. “I have always said we would continue our fight to ensure that only legal votes were counted,” he went on to say, through Scavino. “While this represents the end of the greatest first term in presidential history, it’s only the beginning of our fight to Make America Great Again!”
Needless to say, that won’t suffice when it comes to satisfying the Republican lawmakers who turned on Trump Wednesday, after his supporters laid siege to the US Capitol during what, if one can somehow manage to look past the symbolism, was a pitiable, profoundly absurd occupation of Congress. It wasn’t so much a “seditious mob,” as it was thousands of undereducated county fairgoers who, on another Wednesday, in another year, would have spent the afternoon eating pork chops on a stick and trying to win a giant stuffed bear at the rigged BB gun game run by a guy wearing a Nascar shirt and a Confederate bandana.
Wednesday was, doubtlessly, a tragic day for the world’s proudest nation. And it goes without saying that the senseless loss of life that accompanied the melee counts as an unmitigated disaster.
That said, I’ll confess I cringed a bit when Chuck Schumer and Mitch McConnell cast themselves as brave heroes who, facing grave threats to their own lives, put it all on the line to certify Biden’s victory in a marathon all-night joint session. Schumer likened Wednesday to Pearl Harbor. Somehow, that just doesn’t feel like a very apt comparison.
But I digress. Trump’s statement was the closest thing America will ever get to a concession speech. It’s fitting that it was only two sentences long, and had to be delivered via someone else’s Twitter account because his was suspended for inciting an insurrection.
There were (and still are) reports that at least some cabinet members are considering ways to remove Trump prior to January 20. Whether he realizes it or not, the riot he incited on Wednesday probably rules out a hypothetical 2024 run on the Republican ticket. It’s hard to imagine the party machine (whatever’s left of it) getting behind him again, especially not if more palatable alternatives present themselves.
Joe Biden probably struck the right balance Wednesday in his own remarks about the events in D.C. He did use the terms “sedition” and “insurrection,” but he also said it was “a reminder that democracy is fragile.”
In his remarks late Wednesday evening, Schumer told his colleagues that “these images were projected to the world.” “This will be a stain on our country not so easily washed away,” he added.
He’s right about that, but, again, the problem isn’t one day of chaos at the Capitol. The problem is that Trump exposed the fragility of the system. Until Trump, America’s vaunted checks and balances had never really been stress tested, at least not in the modern era. When they were, they didn’t work very well. Trump ran roughshod over the country’s purportedly unassailable institutions.
The only thing that saved America from autocracy was precisely what John Bolton told CNN last month during one of countless interviews. “Trump’s not smart enough to be a successful authoritarian,” Bolton remarked, in a flat assessment that didn’t seem to satisfy the network.
Trump’s not a dictator. He just played one on TV. And the show was canceled at the end of the fourth season.
The worry is that somewhere in America, there’s a real aspiring dictator. And assuming that person is out there, he/she now knows it’s possible to institute an autocracy in the US. It just requires a level of competence that Trump ultimately couldn’t summon, likely because he doesn’t possess it.
Schumer, in the course of dramatizing what scarcely needed further dramatization, accidentally underscored a more mundane, albeit no less absurd, reality. “In the end all this mob has really accomplished is to delay our work by a few hours,” he said.
That’s not the hallmark of organized sedition. Whatever Trump’s supporters were trying to accomplish, they failed, unless the only goal was to have their pictures taken in the Capitol building. (You can do that without storming it, by the way.)
Ironically, they failed for the same reason America itself has failed for the past four years: Lack of competent leadership.
On March 25, 2019, following William Barr’s efforts to exonerate Trump in the Mueller probe, I wrote that,
Having crumbled the country’s institutions and having essentially antiquated the whole idea of “checks and balances,” Trump now faces a new challenge: Shaping and defining autocracy in America. One wonders if he appreciates the gravity of that.
In the end, he didn’t.
The whole “show” gave me a feeling like the march on Rome . Mussolini had egged on the crowd, while sitting quietly in his office. He could distance himself in case of failed attempt. Or being crowned if the attempt would succeed.
I loved that part of Trump speech. Reminded of the old French joke “armons-nous et partez” (translates as : let’s all arm up and off you go! … Apparently someone parodying a Pope during some crusades, trying to get rid of some pesky nobles)
Cowardly scum. Sorry for the abrasive nature of that comment but I think it’s hard to deny corporal bone spur isn’t exactly keen to put his own bloated body on the line when it comes to fighting for his supposed ideals…
an absolutely great on point post!
Cringeworthy, indeed.
Even my 87 year old life long Republican parents are ashamed and embarrassed.
Now we have Tourist Terrorism for white people and it is a pathetic look. Antifa seemed to have behaved.
Trip to Guantanamo Bay free of charge after January 20 for the lucky photo contest winners.
Won’t happen. They’re whites. It’d be great if they were at least prosecuted. Trump and Cruz etc. should also be charged with something…
Some of these folks were just “blowing off steam” not “really” terrorists will not fly. Republicans will not allow Democrats a chance to grab the “Law and Order” mantle. It will be bi-partisan and heads will roll. A bridge too far.
People really need to cool their jets on the “terrorist” talk. Using it flippantly runs the risk of cheapening the meaning of the word. Also, applying it to every exercise of free speech that ends up turning violent due to the actions of some of the participants runs the risk of creating an environment where peoples’ exercise of their right to free speech ends up being treated as a “national security threat”. That’s not healthy for a democracy.
I do not disagree that what happened yesterday could accurately be described as the “use of violence to further a political or social agenda”, and therefore meets the literal definition of terrorism. However, the BLM protests which descended into riot over the summer also would also meet that technical definition. I am NOT drawing an equivalency between the BLM protests and the riot/unrest yesterday. Demands for ending racial inequality are NOT in any shape, way, or form equivalent to demands to overturn a valid democratic election. I AM pointing out how liberally throwing around the word “terrorism” based on the fact that something meets the technical definition can lead us to some pretty dark places fast.
That said, anyone who was there with the intend of assaulting or murdering politicians and the person/people that left pipe bombs at the DNC and RNC offices would meet the technical definition of terrorists, as well as a sensible subjective definition of the word. However, as H points out, most of the people at the Capitol yesterday seemed to be there with more of a perverse carnival attitude than an intention of overthrowing the government.
I’m thinking exile to Elba would be better than jail.
Biden’s statement that democracy is fragile is true. Democracy survived here only because the judicial branch defended it for two months in dozens of battles and despite the varied efforts of the executive and legislative branches to overturn it. Cruz and Hawley, among others, weren’t paying attention to the context.
But other parties are echoing Biden with a different tone. China’s Global Times (the Party mouthpiece) headlined today: “Capital vandals show fragility of democracy” with less sympathetic implications. They didn’t need to spin the facts much or cast this in terms of US decline, relative merits of political systems, or the need to protect the world from US-style anarchy. Such implications were better left to the reader…
Cruz, Hawley, trump, et.al. are providing vast political capital to the enemies of democracy. World press are basically now questioning whether the US is still a superpower.
The Global Times included a telling quote: “Mohamad Safa, a permanent UN representative from Lebanon tweeted on Wednesday, “If the United States saw what the United States is doing in the United States, the United States would invade the United States to liberate the United States from the tyranny of the United States.”
Another brick for trump’s personal wall of shame.
Biden has his work cut out for him.
Yesterday, as the Capitol was being invaded and members of the mob entered the Senate chamber, a very close Turkish friend called me from his home in Istanbul. He has traveled far more extensively in the United States than I have and knows the country well. He has often expressed his respect for our country and his affection for our citizens. Yesterday he wanted an explanation of what was happening as it was beyond his comprehension. And, ironically, while living in the autocratic Erdogan miasma, extended his sympathy.
Thank you for sharing this from your friend.
Watching the mob scene yesterday, I was stunned by how easily the police were overwhelmed. Watching the media coverage last night and this morning, one common thread was “how was this allowed to happen?”. Now there are images coming out of cops taking selfies with the “protestors” and security personnel letting them through the barriers, and I can’t stop thinking about the passage from Fight Club:
“Remember this. The people you’re trying to step on, we’re everyone you depend on. We’re the people who do your laundry and cook your food and serve your dinner. We make your bed. We guard you while you’re asleep. We drive the ambulances. We direct your call. We are cooks and taxi drivers and we know everything about you. We process your insurance claims and credit card charges. We control every part of your life.
We are the middle children of history, raised by television to believe that someday we’ll be millionaires and movie stars and rock stars, but we won’t. And we’re just learning this fact. So don’t fuck with us.”
The implications of that are frightening.
The many have always the advantage of the numbers on the few. Kinda implied by the words themselves.
The issue has always been and always will be about organisation. Look at what Stacey Abrams managed to achieve in Georgia by uniting the downtrodden (of a different color) …
I’m reminded of the quote less because it’s about the power of the many versus the few and more because of the implication that “the call is coming from inside the house”.
The reason I’m reminded of the quote isn’t that I see it as a warning that the working/middle-class simply outnumbers the upper-class/elites. It’s that I see it as a warning that the upper-class/elites are dependent on the working/middle-classes to maintain the status quo.
In the context of yesterday, you have a bunch of politicians and talking heads in the media on the television today asking, “how was this allowed to happen?”. At the same time, you have photos and video coming out showing at least some of the security forces at the Capitol allowed/enabled the events that transpired to happen. It seems completely beyond the comprehension of those politicians/talking heads (the “elites” if you will), that at least part of the reason what happened yesterday “was allowed to happen” was that the people they depend on (or at least some portion of them) agree with, or are at least sympathetic to, yesterday’s mob.
This possibility has been hiding in plain sight for much of the past several years. Interview after interview with rank-and-file police officers, soldiers, etc. show that there’s a lot of enthusiastic support for Trump within those groups. We’ve seen it in the endorsements from police unions around the country during the 2020 election.
A question that many of these politicians and talking heads need to be asking themselves as they try to navigate a course to avert disaster is “what if the people we depend on to enforce the status quo are no longer with us?”.
A couple of years ago I was in London during a large and thoroughly peaceful pro-Brexit demonstration. There were more police lining the route of the march than I have ever seen. (But, then I live in the flyover mountain west where as many as two officers might congregate at a Dunkin’ Donuts.) I asked one what he thought of the demonstration. There was no talk of policy or economics. Only this simple stark reply: “Those are our people.”
That’s a good point. We’ve seen that in the BLM protests and counter-protests.
Another scary tidbits of info is that, apparently, evangelicals are a fair chunk of the US army…
Though, that’s not entirely unique to the USA. I think it was Germany which was recently horrified to discover that its attempt at re-creating an army had been ‘compromised’ by neo-Nazis joining en masse to get military grade training with the aim of… well, who knows what but nothing good, that’s for sure.
NB: I’m not equating evangelicals and neo nazis. But from the pov of a secular liberal democratic government, either being a big chunk of your armed forces is an issue…
A very appreciated quote. One of my life rules has always been. Treat everyone with respect.
Sorta like a when one is grateful for a fender bender as a wake up call to be a better driver, we could be grateful we only had a brush with an wanna be autocrat. Yeah the damage was a bit more extreme than a dented fender, still could have been worse.
SO MUCH to do in the 2 years before the next election.
Damn. I guess Hillary was right. Deplorables.
Hmmm, I wonder how security would have reacted if demonstrators were BLM marchers. Just kidding, I know exactly what would have happened.
Once the Capital Building was breached the police holding the line on the front steps had to retreat or risk being surrounded and outnumbered. Best to retreat and form a new defensive line.
“ That’s not the hallmark of organized sedition. ”
Just because someone is an ineffective seditionist doesn’t make him/her less so. The intent of the mob was clear: to stop the vote from being recognized by the federal government.