Those four words, followed by an explicit repudiation and an unqualified concession, are what a true leader would have said during yesterday’s riotous chaos at the Capitol building.
Those four words would be the feeling and sentiment of a statesman, of a person who held aloft the nation’s principles. That statesman could have exhausted the many legal means available to challenge the electoral outcome, could have accepted the repudiation of all those challenges in courts of law (many of them headed up by his appointees or appointees purportedly of his party), and could have declared his fealty to the Constitution and all the citizens of the nation.
Instead, we got a half-assed message, a tepid “go home peacefully,” offset with continued inflammatory “your victory was stolen” rhetoric and a not-so-subtle call for perseverance. Hours later, after darkness, a curfew, and law enforcement/security had cleared the building, and Congress reconvened to certify the election, he gave us some more half-ass:
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.
Not the words of a true leader, but rather those of a petulant sore loser who was cornered into saying them.
His Vice President and his Senate Majority Leader found no just cause to support his Quixotic (as in unable to separate reality from fiction, not just pointless) assault upon the outcome of the election, and stepped up in fidelity to their oaths of office to reject his demands that they break every last vestige of institutional (and Constitutional) integrity in order to flip reality in Trump’s favor.
The damage done by yesterday’s utter embarrassment will resonate for a long time. The red hats of MAGA crowd, even those appalled by yesterday, will find those hats are now scarlet letters, and Trump’s legacy will be that much easier for the Democrats to unravel. The possibility of moderation by Biden, Schumer, and Pelosi, given their razor-thin majorities, is diminished, and the far-Left will push its ruinous agenda harder and harder. The “good people” narrative will be forever rebutted with images of loons and hooligans trashing Congressional chambers, and no amount of whataboutism or “Antifa False Flag” conspiracy theorizing will do anything to win over those who recoiled from this mess. And, the last people in the world who deserve it, i.e. Pelosi and Schumer, will be able to claim moral high ground in their political machinations.
Many Trumpists will persist, despite the obvious damage this has done to their brand and their cause. I saw too many “this is the start of the civil war” comments, although most of them were certainly empty Internet-warrior chest-thumping. That they’re failing to accept that Trump lost, despite the reality of the blatant loathing a sizable chunk of the nation had for him, is the same Quixote-delusion that Trump himself has been putting forth since Election Day.
Some of Trumps most ardent supporters in the press are now (and deservedly) excoriating him for setting this disaster in motion. Some are calling for a 25th Amendment removal of Trump, as soon as possible. Others are calling for impeachment and removal. Neither is likely to happen before the 20th, but impeaching him for incitement would be his just deserts. That he finally committed to leaving the White House is probably the only thing that’ll save him from that ignominy, and mostly for practical reasons.
No matter what, this is the end of Trumpism. Its destruction lies in his petulance, his pettiness, and his smallness, no matter the successes of his term. Rather than going down in history as a necessary disruptor of the Leviathan, he will forever be known as the Great Debaser of the Republic.
The four words he should have uttered are instead being expressed, in various ways, by many who shared common ground. Staffers are quitting, supporters are abandoning, and transactionalists (who saw him as a lesser evil) are saying “no mas.”
Our nation is diminished by yesterday’s debacle. It remains to be seen what will rise from the rubble, but I’m not hopeful. The partisan divide will remain, the tribalism may jumble a bit but will also remain, and no one at or near the top has either the gravitas or the desire to resolve any of it. Half the country will feel that the other half is trying to “do unto” them, and they won’t be wrong, because that’s what our current crop of politicians do (and that’s what most of them have been elected to do). It’s a bad day for liberty, because this is exactly the sort of thing liberty’s enemies love to leverage. ‘Never let a crisis go to waste.’
As for the Internet warriors, all in a mad rush to elevate themselves above their fellow citizens? If you’re still tub-thumping about civil war, the boogaloo, and the like, I don’t want to hear it. You’ve picked a house of cards upon which to build your indignation. If you’ve suddenly emerged to condemn violence in public protests, after silence or condoning of what we witnessed all summer, I don’t want to hear it. Your moral preening is as transparent as a freshly-Windexed window. If you instantly and conveniently found “evidence” that this was all caused by Antifa instigators, just… stop. Making baseless conspiratorial excuses for your team’s grotesque behavior puts you in the “not worth listening to” category. And if you’re among those who dubs himself a “patriot,” with all the outward trappings? This isn’t patriotism, it’s a cult of personality fixated on the worst possible choice for it. What’s going on in our government is gross, but shitstorms like this are not the way.
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I see one way for Trump to at least partially redeem (not the right word but I’m on my phone) is to champion real election reform. He’ll need to tone down his calls of fraud and say appearance of fraud. Call for reform so that the people can have confidence in the results. It wouldn’t hurt to for him to say he got caught up in all the theories. He was to close and he wanted them to be true. And of course he needs to come out and full throatedly condem the violence and call for prosecution
A lovely thought, but when has he presented any indication that he’d dial down to reasonable? It’s not in his nature.
Hippos will fly before this happens.
Thanks as always Peter! At 62, seeing things I never thought. God bless our fractured republic.
Sore loser, aye? So you think the election was the most secure in American history? Like I told someone today, there are some decent politicians walking around today stating that accusations of election and voter fraud are baseless, from both sides. One thing I have appreciated about the Trump years; his being there has revealed the liars in government to the governered.
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No one said anything about “the most secure in American history.” Therein lies a false dichotomy.
There is a great giant chasm of difference between election irregularities and enough malfeasance to tip the election from Trump to Biden. There were certainly irregularities, and I’m sure there were more than normal due to COVID, but I’ve not seen anything that supports the “stolen election” narrative, and I’ve seen assertion after assertion discredited by rational and trustworthy sources.
Moreso, there have been by some counts 60 court rejections of the assertions made by the Trump team. Are they all in on the conspiracy?
He lost. It’s that simple.
You’re quite stupid if that’s what you really think.
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Thank you for the eloquent and civil response.
Meanwhile, I’ve been open-minded to the allegations since they were first made. Skeptical, because I don’t believe massive conspiracies are easily perpetrated or hidden, but willing to be convinced. I’ve seen nothing that rises to the “stolen election” threshold, and there are a whole lot of people who actively dislike the Left, the Press, and what the Democrats stand for who’ve walked the same path and reached the same conclusion. I *have* seen debunking after debunking of allegations and “anecdotes,” and as I already wrote, the courts have rejected this crap 60 times.
I get it – many fear what the Dems are going to do. I do as well. But that’s not a justification to run hog-wild and anarchic. Not by any means.
Where did you see debunking of allegations? The people involved in this are actively hiding the data that they have regarding voting. One can’t debunk something and at the same time ho to great lengths to hide evidence. I told my brother months before the election that it would be a rigged election at the highest levels. Why did I say this? Because after the constant barrage of conspiracy theory after conspiracy theory and twisting of truth for five years by everyone in politics and media, they would not sit back in allow a clean election. Was it coordinated by everyone involved, probably not. Send me a link to your strongest source of debunking election fraud.
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That’s what I thought. You don’t have anything at hand that can debunk the evidence available.
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Sorry, dude, but 1 – the burden is on you. 2 – it’s laughable that you call me stupid and then expect me to continue to engage, and 3 – you ask me for something you could find in 30 seconds via search engine.
But since I’m a sport, I’ll offer you a starting point.
https://reason.com/volokh/2021/01/03/ted-cruz-recycles-election-fraud-claims-already-rejected-by-the-courts/
There are countless reliable refutations out there. All you have to do is look.
You’re going to have to try another, that’s an article claiming the courts rejected the evidence. The courts did no such thing. The courts refused to get to the evidence. No court case got beyond technicalities, using such legal options as Standing. The reason ppl are claiming those who are fraud deniers as “stupid” and other terms, is the fact that you keep using the courts as the example of no evidence. It’s not on me to provide the evidence. It’s there for everyone to see. And for another thing, I’m not a Trump supporter but I can see the fraud and evidence and there are many other libertarians I know personally who are the same. The fact that you can’t just exposes how naive you are. I take your bio at face value and except that you may be intelligent but that means nothing to me. I’m older than you and I’ve come across many exceedingly intelligent people over the years who can be credibly labeled as naive and stupid.
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Oh, that’s rich. You double down on the personal attacks, and continue to expect me to substantively engage?
Sorry. That sort of thing doesn’t play here.
I will offer one suggestion, however. Try searching for information without conclusion shopping. Try looking at credible sources that are skeptical of the stolen election claims, instead of those that deem it gospel and back-fill.
I clicked through to your link, which is a solicitation page, so I’m not leaving it up here. You don’t get that free ride on my site.