One year ago, an obnoxious and fanatical group of Trump supporters followed their leader's instructions and went to Capitol Hill, just as he had said during a speech minutes earlier. He hold them that they had to be strong in order to take the country back. This was all during the so-called "Stop the Steal" rally held in Washington, two weeks exactly before Trump was to be replaced by Joe Biden in the White House.
The rabid Trump loyalists could not accept that their historically unpopular president had actually lost the election. Yes, despite never once reaching 50 percent approval ratings, and despite having lost the popular vote by seven million votes, and having lost the 2020 Electoral College race by as much as he had won it by in 2016, they believed that he had been cheated, that there was simply no possible way that their man had won. They believed the lie that Trump himself conveniently pushed forward about a "mass election fraud," even while they conveniently ignored Trump's own legal team clearly stating - caught on audio and officially recorded in court records - that they were not making any legal arguments about massive voter fraud. Never once did the Trump legal team actually offer a shred of proof of massive electoral fraud in court, even though they certainly claimed that once they were out of the courtroom, and of course, no longer under oath, and held accountable for what they said.
That is such an obvious fraud itself, that it seems almost embarrassing to have to point it out. Except millions of Americans - tens of millions, really - seem to have been taken in by all of this nonsense hook, line, and sinker. And irony of all ironies, they applaud themselves for being sharp and seeing through what they would call "the bullshit." It would be quite funny, if it were not so horribly sad.
Yes, the Trump team was not denied any opportunity to prove their case of "massive voter fraud." They argued their case to the American people, both before the election warning people about it, and afterwards, claiming that there were unbelievable cases of it. But they were unable to prove any of it. Some of what they produced in court - which itself was so small in magnitude that it would not have reversed the results of the election anyway - was dismissed. For example, there was a case out west - I believe it was in Nevada, if memory serves correctly - where thousands of votes were called into question, because the voters were out of state. Wound up being military personnel stationed outside of Nevada, and most likely they were Trump supporters, because a majority of military personnel seem to be pro-Trump. Much of their arguments were like this. The whole thing seemed like a bad dream, like a mockery, such as the press conference at the "four Seasons" in Philadelphia, which wound up being held outside of a landscaping company of the same name. There was the frankly disgusting dripping hair dye while Rudy Giuliani spoke publicly, and always seemingly angrily, about the alleged "massive voter fraud." And again, none of it felt serious, but felt like a mockery.
What was being mocked?
Frankly, our American democracy itself was the target of this mockery.
Yet, it was not just mockery. It was an attack on democracy, designed to undermine public faith in our elections (as if more skepticism were needed).
Then, on January 6th, what sometimes seemed like little more than a bad joke became deadly serious. Again, it cannot be said enough: the unruly crowd went to the Capitol after President Trump told them to. He urged them to stop lawmakers from completing the Electoral Count. They violently forced their way into the most visible symbol of our democracy. Some scaled walls, some others pushed through barriers, smashed windows and doors. The police officers on duty working to protect the Capitol felt rightly threatened. The mob acted like thugs, breaking into the building after first violently gaining access. They chanted sentiments about hanging certain lawmakers, and actively sought some out, apparently trying to seize lawmakers, much like a smaller group had tried to do in 2020 in Michigan with the governor. For the first time in our history, our democracy itself ground to a halt, as lawmakers barricaded themselves, trying to protect themselves from the Trump mob.
Literally, the entire world witnessed what certainly appeared to be an attempted coup. Let us review the facts of what happened. Again, Trump gave a speech to a large crowd on January 6th, after promising that this would be a huge day where big things would happen. He instructed this unruly mob to go to the Capitol building to "Stop the Steal" and urged them not to be weak, but to be strong in order to take back the country. And sure enough, they went, and they attempted to bring this democracy to a grinding halt. Temporarily, in fact, they did. They violently forced their way into the Capitol building, and threatened police and even lawmakers, or elected officials. They were caught on camera, so denial was not plausible or even possible.
Democracy did not collapse on that day. In fact, lawmakers returned to complete the Electoral College counting, and two weeks later, Joe Biden was rightly sworn in, replacing Trump, who established the "Office of the Former President," whatever that is. This completely made up office and title seems to me at once both an admission of his electoral defeat - I do not for a minute believe that Trump actually believes that he won the election and had it stolen from him - as well a weird attempt to delegitimize the actual Office of the President of the United States. Meanwhile, those specifically responsible began to face charges, even though they acted with an air of seeming impunity on the day of the attempted coup. Suddenly, they grew very quiet, even humble at times.
Still, the main parties truly responsible were not, and surely will not, be brought to justice. Trump himself, as always, got away. No, he is not the "genus" that he claims himself to be, and anyone who ever heard him speak should be clear on that much. Yet one thing that cannot be denied is that he is a shrewd opportunist, and he knows exactly just how far to push the envelope without himself crossing that line where he will not be able to escape being held accountable. Since he keeps pushing those lines, they kept getting blurred. And predictably enough, he got away with this.
But he should not have gotten away with it. If any president in American history ever deserved to be behind bars, it is Donald Trump.
Personally, I do not believe that this is over. In fact, I am inclined to agree with Bill Maher, who predicted that the January 6th insurrection might just be itself a pushing of the envelope, to see how much this country was willing to take, kind of like the first World Trade Center bombing, back in 1993, seems not, in retrospect, almost to have been a prelude of the much bigger attacks to come some years later. Some people were punished in both cases, but what is startling is how much these events seem to feed other extremists, almost urging them, inviting them to go ahead and do the same thing, but make it even bigger and more complete next time.
No, I do not believe that Maher is simply fear-mongering. When people are working themselves up to be violent, they often build themselves up to it, like the expression "push comes to shove." Little by little, we have seen our democracy erode, and both parties were responsible for it. It sometimes seems to me that Americans lost their appetite for holding prominent politicians - particularly presidents - truly accountable following Watergate. Reagan was known as the "Teflon President," having escaped being held accountable for illegally selling arms to Iran in order to fund an illegal war in Central America, and he escaped being held accountable or the Savings and Loans scandal, just like George W. Bush did right after him. Then Bill Clinton was seen as the "real Teflon President" as he escaped scandal after scandal. He should have been held accountable for obstruction of justice, among many other horrible things that he did while in the White House. Then George W. Bush seemed like he was the "Teflon President" as he and his administration got away with one corporate scandal after another, and for leading the country into a war (which predictably became a quagmire) under false pretenses, illegally holding "enemy combatants" in concentration camps, and then running the economy into the ground (again, in large part because of the air of "too big to fail" banks and corporations who kept pushing the envelope to see how much they could get away with. Obama successfully eliminated "habeas corpus" (a Constitutional right) and illegally murdering people with drone attacks. Finally, Trump outdid them all (perhaps outdid all of them combined) by having a presidency that was defined by one scandal and outrage after another. From white supremacists supporting him officially and marching on American city streets, to repeatedly hinting that he intended to stay well beyond the two term limit (seemingly always deflecting criticisms by claiming that he was merely "joking" about being President for life") to lying repeatedly about things both big and small to not divorcing himself from his business interests as he promised to do, and thus setting up major conflicts of interest. He also promised that he would be too busy as president to have any time for golf, and then playing golf almost literally as often as he could while in office. He also lied about how he would pay the national debt in eight years, when in fact he increased the national debt from just under $20 trillion before he came into office to $25 trillion by the time that he left. The lies, my God! And his supporters hardly raised an eyebrow over any of these contradictions. Even when he proved to be unfamiliar with the Bible, or held up a Bible upside down moments after legal, peaceful protesters were moved out just outside of the White House.
Trump was such an obvious con artist. Yet, he was truly a product of the United States as it presently is. He is a sign and a symbol of these ridiculous times we live in, of the staggering narcissism and crassness and greed and blatant corruption. And he got away with it for four full years in the White House. He is still getting away with it, and still has tens of millions of blindly loyal supporters who believe his every word, for reasons that, frankly, still remain a mystery to me. I never saw the appeal, and had assumed - wrongly - that most people would be bright enough and ethical enough to see through such an obvious scam artist.
That is why we need to remember January 6th. Because it not only happened, shocking Americans out of their complacency and long-held beliefs about themselves and the stability of their country and their democracy. But more importantly, because it was yet another example of him pushing the envelope. Next time, it will likely be more than a mere push or shove. Some people still scoff at the notion that this was actually an attempted coup. Next time, there likely will be no question about it. And if that sad day happens, it is because we are allowing scam artists like him, and like those violent idiots who stormed the Capitol one year ago on this day, to get away with it.
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