Infamy
January 6 and February 13, 2021 will for ever be a stain on American politics and particularly on Donald Trump and the Republican senators who facilitated his attack on the government.
Impact of Trump
On January 6, 2021, Trump was still the president. He lost the election but he never ceased saying the Democrats stole the election. Like a disgruntled tyrant about to be kicked off the White House, he spread his poisonous lies to the more than seventy million Americans who voted for him.
Trump supporters include all those who benefited from his ecocidal (nature killing) and anthropocidal (human killing) policies.
By this I mean his dismantling of some basic laws and regulations protecting public health and the environment.
The immediate effect of such an attack on human and environmental health would be more poisons in our food and drinking water and the air we breathe. Some people with conditions of bad health (cancer, heart, diabetes, obesity) would get worse, suffer, and die. But the vast majority of Americans would get weaker and become vulnerable to other onslaughts like the plague. The result would be more serious illnesses, shorter lives, and possibly death, hence the anthropocidal effects of Trump’s policies.
The natural world, of course, has always been defenseless. But under the Trump administration, 2017-2021, all ecocidal practices decimating wildlife received a government and business blessing. Barbarism showed its true face for all to see. Hunters were emboldened to step into dens and shoot mother wolves and bears and their cubs.
The influence of Trump also reached deranged people who actually believed him that the Democrats stole the election, or, at least, they were persuaded by Trump to come to Washington to drain the democratic swamp.
On January 6th, they did arrive in Washington where Trump welcomed them and urged them to “fight like hell” on his behalf. He pointed them to the Capitol, inciting them to prevent the Senate from confirming the election of Joe Biden to the presidency of the country.
The followers of Trump, screaming and waving Trump banners and flags, took the Capitol by storm, smashing almost everything on their way, causing damage and death: a perfect political insurrection engineered by Trump.
Americans and the world saw this shameful and dreadful violence on television like a bad-taste western of cowboys slaughtering Indians.
The Capitol conquerors to me, however, looked like bloodthirsty and savage crusaders breaking into a castle or city of religious enemies.
Trump on trial
The House “impeached” Trump twice, accusing him this time of high crimes and misdemeanors. They took their text of impeachment to the Senate, but Mitch McConnel, Senate majority leader, refused it.
This ploy conveniently allowed Trump to move out of the White House and return to being a plain billionaire. But the Senate came under Democratic control and decided to try billionaire-citizen Trump for his treacherous behavior as president.
The impeachment trial of Trump left no doubt Trump orchestrated the insurrection. Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Maryland), one of the Congressional managers who presented the impeachment case against Trump in the Senate, summarized the Congressional trial of Trump on February 13th like this:
“In the most bipartisan presidential impeachment vote in the history of the country, a powerful majority of both houses of Congress found that the former President incited violent insurrection against the Union & the Congress. History will record his terrible constitutional crime.”
However, most Republican senators backed down when time came to decide the fate of former president Trump responsible for a rebellion against the government. Mitch McConnel led the way.
Mitch McConnel recounted accurately the events of January 6th, saying:
"January 6th was a disgrace. American citizens attacked their own government. They used terrorism to try to stop a specific piece of democratic business they did not like. Fellow Americans beat and bloodied our own police. They stormed the Senate floor. They tried to hunt down the Speaker of the House. They built a gallows and chanted about murdering the Vice President.”
McConnel put the blame for this horror on Trump.
This Kentucky politician, however, wants it both ways. When time arrived (February 13, 2021) for voting Trump innocent or guilty of the impeachment charges of insurrection, McConnel and most of the Republican senators, citing that Trump was no longer president, voted that Trump was not guilty.
Finding Trump not guilty
With this vote, the Republican senators told Americans they cared less about democracy and the integrity of America. They sided with a criminal at the highest office of the government who violated the Constitution, undermined the reputation of the country, and almost brought about a real coup.
The implications of these acts (of January 6th and February 13th) are huge. These days and Trump will go down in infamy. They represent the beginning of the end of America as a republic with a semi-democratic form of government.
The next Trump-like president will be successful. The billionaire class from which Trump emerged will be more direct and its presidential candidate will be more open about converting America, officially, into a monarchy or an empire. With endless money at their disposal and with increasing misery for most Americans, who is going to stop their onslaught on the Capitol next time?
The Republican senators of February 13, 2021 will also go down to infamy for selling their country to the highest bidder. The world witnessed their deception and willingness to overlook an insurrection and its perpetrator, Trump. History will judge them harshly.
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