The Worsening

In which Trump incites an insurrection, and should no longer be President

On Wednesday, January 6, 2021, the outgoing President of the USA unleashed a group of bloodthirsty insurrectionists on the US Capitol building. They’d come to Washington, DC bearing treacherous flags and a penchant for militaristic cosplay, and they featured one distinctively wiry, hirsute man wearing imprecisely atavistic headgear that somehow makes me embarassed to be a Minnesota Vikings fan (of course, a lot of things make me embarassed to be a Minnesota Vikings fan).

At an event that morning just down the mall from the Capitol, Trump, his son, and his lawyer laid an ill-formed plan, or the outlines thereof, atop the foundation of rage and resentment he’s been reinforcing since November, not to mention over the last four years. The generalities: this crowd should somehow put a stop to the formal administrative processes scheduled to take place that afternoon up the hill at the Capitol, processes by which their man Trump’s presidency would end and Biden’s would begin.

And so the redhatted crowd did as their leader wished. They left Trump’s speech, inspired and deluded, and then marched to the Capitol, where they climbed walls, harrassed and even assaulted journalists, and breached the easily breachable barriers. They forcefully entered the building and briefly succeeded in their interim objective of disrupting Congress from accepting the electoral college’s votes. Then, unsure of what to do next, and perhaps awaiting instruction from who knows who (Trump himself, I suspect), they spent some time wandering the hallowed halls of American government while mixing casual vandalism and violence with moments of bemused tourism, like 8th graders on the world’s worst field trip. But this was no innocent expression of opinion. An insurrectionist was shot; an officer was assaulted with a fire extinguisher; both have since died.

The cops who resisted them were almost comically ineffective, a combo of collegial allies and overmatched comic relief. My teenage son, watching coverage of the madness, made a joke about Paul Blart, Mall Cop. I, of an earlier generation, thought of John Candy’s Wally World security guard in the original Vacation film. “Sorry folks. Park’s closed. Moose out front shoulda told ya.” Indeed.

Angry then; angrier now

The events at our Capitol on Wednesday made many Americans, me included, profoundly angry and sad. But today I find myself even angrier and sadder. Why? Because as I write this early on Friday morning (5:00 AM Central Time!), Donald Trump, inspirer of this assault on our democracy, remains the President of the United States, a title that has historically carried with it such lofty pressures as “leader of the free world” and “Colossus of Independence.”

Trump shrinks from such appellations, with their implications of duty to others or principle. His duty is to himself and his mammoth ambitions and insecurities. He has refused — as we knew he would — to perform the most basic act of an election and accept the will of the people and the reality of the result. He has asked — as we knew he would — other officials to cheat on his behalf. He has enflamed — as we knew he would — the rage of his redhats, and they, who operate outside of reality (how nice that must be!) were more than happy to comply.

Rats fleeing a ship that has already sunk

The Republican establishment — congress, cabinet, administration officials — are scrambling to distance themselves from Trump, even though their don, Don, has been leading them to this conclusion since they threw in with him four years ago. As the redhats were taking both selfies and pisses and absconding with lecturns and other minor plunder, the GOP senate twitter handle tweeted the following:

Senate Republicans @SenateGOP

This is not who we are. This is not what we fight for. This is not American. This must stop. Now.

I suppose that’s better than openly supporting the riot, but it’s a remarkable statement, considering all that the Sentate GOP has done to encourage, or at least enable, Trump’s rage against democracy. In fact, one of their rising stars, sharp dresser Josh Hawley, the very picture of bro-Republicanism, power-fist-saluted the insurrectionists even as he headed into the Capitol to do his dirty business. After his senate GOP caucus tweeted “this is not who we are,” after his leader Mitch “For the Rich” McConnell urged him not to, Hawley formally opposed the will of the people while deploying the word “irregardless” just to annoy us English majors.

Ted Cruz, one of the GOP’s stalwarts and a leading candidate for Trump’s most servile toady, was another leader in the fight against the electoral votes. Cruz kicked off the proceedings Wednesday by objecting to Arizona’s results as the alphabetical call was barely underway. He too had called for rebellion in recent days, using language of battle and resistance.

Meanwhile, on the house side of the building, something like 140 Republican congressmen and women were excited for the chance to prove their allegiance to Trump’s lost cause during its final fortnight, and also objected to the electoral college’s results. Only one, Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, has forcefully repudiated the nonsense.

And now they’re left with the consequences, even while they swim away from the USS MAGA’s wreckage, clinging to flotsam. It’s all a bit much. You really didn’t know he’d attempt to overturn the results of the election? Are you kidding? What movie have you been watching?! Think about his behavior when he loses something.

• In February 2016, when Trump finished second in the Iowa caucuses, Trump raged that the winner — Ted Cruz, ironically enough — had stolen the victory.

• Throughout the 2016 election, he growled that it would be rigged and intimated that he wouldn’t accept the result.

• After the 2016 election — and remember, he won! — he spread unsubstantiated stories of stolen ballots in California and busloads of illegal voters in New Hampshire.

• During the 2020 campaign he’s repeatedly invented tales of “thousands” of ballots in rivers and living rooms.

• He claims he should have won the Nobel Prize” for a lot of things” (physics? medicine?) if only the Nobel Prize were fair.

• He claims the Emmys were rigged against him.

• He invented a prize called Michigan’s man of the year so he could claim he won it.

How could the GOP possibly not know that the epistemological truth of his loss wouldn’t prevent him from claiming victory anyway?

And here’s something bonkers: even those Republicans who repudiate Trump’s destruction of democracy still felt compelled to express their loyalty to him. For example, Wednesday night, Sen. Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania, a bright and accomplished Republican senator, gave a fine little speech in which he explained that, yes, Joe Biden was properly elected in the disputed states, including his state of Pennsylvania. He forcefully rejected Trump’s efforts to overturn the results, saying:

“We saw bloodshed because a demagogue [by which he means: Donald Trump] chose to spread falsehoods and sow distrust of his own fellow Americans.”

But here’s the wild part: Toomey also made sure to tell us that he wanted Trump to be reelected. Huh? Sen Toomey, you are calling the man a dangerous anti-democratic demagogue, and also saying you want him to be President of the United States? Again I say: Huh?

So goes the thinking of the modern, win-at-all-costs, Trumpian GOP.

What’s next?

Of course, Trump should immediately be removed from office. As we saw on Wednesday, he has violated his oath and poses a substantial risk to America’s security, global standing, and citizenry. I can think of no character more dangerous to the nation and the world than a lame duck POTUS with Trump’s strange, fragile psyche, who has lost every challenge, and who retains access to invaluable intelligence while his finger rests on the trigger of the most potent military arsenal in the history of the world.

What harm can come of him remaining in office for 12 more tense days? Quite a lot, actually. Just spend a few moments alone with your imagination. What good can come of him remaining in office? Very little. Bring on President Pence, at least for a few days.

Every day of the Trump presidency is worse than the previous day. In recent weeks, we’ve seen The Worsening follow an exponential curve, like — well, funnily enough, like a pandemic. By such math, The Worsening will double today, and again tomorrow, until, like the lily pads in the riddle, it overwhelms us. We can wait for The Worsening to end on January 20, or we can end it today.

I say do it today.

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Image Source: Water Lilies, by Claude Monet, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Claude_Monet_-_Water_Lilies_(14704485846).jpg