6/1 and the End of Trump (and all who sail with him)

There is so much to write, and it is difficult to find a place to start. But I guess I can start with the end:

Trump signs and flags are going to disappear across Amerika today. Arrests will accelerate over the coming weeks. The Republican Party will now splinter and effectively will die as a political party of meaningful standing. Trump truly burned as much of it to the ground as he could. The question remaining is how much damage can he do between now and when he is removed, on the 20^th or before?

Georgia and the impact

It is probably right to start here. Both Senate seats in Georgia have been won by the Democrats, and with that, control of the Senate. Not a blank chequebook, but the ability to ensure that bills actually reach the floor and Senators are required to actually register their vote, so that their positions can actually be recorded, instead of the 2-year act of cowardice that has seen almost no bills reach the floor of the Senate.

Most importantly, Biden will now be able to nominate who he wants in his cabinet and on the bench. He will need to use this power quickly. The first proof is his announcement that Marrick Garland will be his pick for Attorney General, a pick that would have been either impossible or very difficult to get through a Senate with Republican control.

At a guess, news of the loss of Georgia probably contributed to the violence, as the Trumpist Cult could then clearly see that they have lost all; the House, the Senate and the White House. Their rage was stirred up by Trump. The knowledge that they would not even have part of the government to ‘protect them’ may well have added to their sense of betrayal. Of course, Trump (and Giuliani and others) claiming that there was massive voter fraud in the Georgia runoff could not have helped. But the news probably added to the frustration of the Trumpist Cultists.

Trump’s “Stolen Election” rally, and his cowardice

Trump held his rally in front of the White House, and Don Jr and Giuliani spoke before the main act, Trump himself. We watched Trump for the first hour, until the channels switched to the Capitol. Giuliani called for “trail by combat” to a bunch of wannabe revolutionaries. Don Jr incited, and Ivanka called the mob “American Patriots”.

Before the mob actually breached the Capitol, Charlie Savage of the Washington Post posted this in the comments next to the live streaming from the Senate floor:

 

Charlie Savage Washington Correspondent If any of the Capitol Police or staffers get hurt or worse because of the protesters outside the Capitol, Trump is going to face accusations that he incited a riot. At the end of his speech, Trump told his supporters on the Mall that Republicans have been too nice, like a boxer with his hands tied behind his back, and now needed to “fight much harder” against “bad people.” He told them to walk to the Capitol and “demand” that Congress “confront this egregious assault on our democracy” (that is, his loss to Biden), and kept exhorting them that “you have to show strength and you have to be strong” and “you will never take back our country with weakness.” (His defense will be that amid all that militancy, he also used the adverb “peacefully” once.) 2:13 PM ET

 

Yet after saying “We will march to Congress” he got into his motorcade to ride 200 meters back to the White House. Coward.

Storming the Capitol

The Trump “Save America March” broke up and marched to Congress, just as he told them to.

And when they arrived, the barriers were pushed aside, and protesters reached the bottom of the steps of the Capitol. There are questions about who opened the barriers. Regardless, crowds gathered at the bottom of the eastern steps to the Capitol, and crowds gathered at the western side and began to scale the scaffolding that has been put up for the inauguration. There was an inadequate police presence, of Capitol Police and DC Police, and there was no National Guard available. With everyone knowing that there was a high chance of unrest, where were they?

I understand that it might not have been wise to surround the Capitol with a wall of National Guard or police, as the optics of that would be terrible. I can hear it now “they needed the Army to protect them as they stole the election”. So from a public perception perspective, it makes plenty of sense to keep all the security services and military well out of sight. But they should have been on-call, waiting lined up and ready to roll if needed. This will go down as a major failure to prepare, or at worst a calculated attempt to allow rioters to gain entry and overturn the election (or attempt to).

Soon they were at the doors, and windows were broken and protesters climbing in. Soon enough, mobs running through the building. One person was shot trying to break into the Senate chamber. That person since died. I’ll not use her name. While she is an Air Force veteran, she has soiled the flag that she saluted, and has shit upon the Constitution that she swore to protect, from all enemies, foreign and domestic (herself being one of those enemies).

One of the most disturbing pictures, and it is difficult to narrow it down to just one, is the protester/rioter walking through the Statuary Hall carrying the Confederate flag. That is not “Stop the Steal”, that is “Overthrow the Republic”, and that is at Trump’s feet.

Eventually, the Guard and the Police arrived, and order was restored. People were forced to exit the building and leave the grounds. We now read that 50+ people were arrested. That number is a joke. Thousands violated the Capitol, and they are all on camera and video. And the really stupid one videoed themselves and took selfies as they committed riot and attempted to overthrow the government. There will be some short trials and long sentences.

Counting the vote resumed

Even after the Capitol has been stormed by Trumpist rioters, still, some Trumpist Senators continued to object. Remember these names. They are traitors to the nation and the Constitution. They have put a man above the Constitution. They have attempted to install a king. The “Breaking News” Alert from the New York Times summed it up perfectly:

 

Those voting against the results of the American election were: Senators Josh Hawley of Missouri, Ted Cruz of Texas, Tommy Tuberville of Alabama, Cindy Hyde-Smith of Mississippi, Senator Roger Marshall of Kansas and John Kennedy of Louisiana.

 

“Those voting against the results of the American election”.

At about 3:30am Washington time (or thereabouts) Mike Pence read the prepared remarks that included the count of Electors for Biden/Harris and for Trump/Pence. He then declared Biden to be the President-Elect who will be sworn in on the 20^th of January. It was over. Even Trump was forced to issue, through an advisor because his Twitter and Facebook and Instagram accounts have been locked for 12 – 24 hours, that there will be a peaceful transfer of power.

Orderly transfer

Of course, there hasn’t been a peaceful transfer of power. There has been a campaign of rejection of the results culminating in an attempted coup by the mob, stirred up by Trump and his followers. The transfer of power does not happen only on the 20^th, but is a process that starts, or should have started, in November after the election results are clear. A transition team from both the sitting administration and the incoming administration work together to ensure that there is continuity of government. To ensure that new appointees can start the new administration fully briefed on the current situation in the government agencies, the status of programs, and so that staff can get to know each other and who they will be working with. Policies can be discussed so that the incoming administration has an idea of the effort in front of them. National Security continuity is required, and incoming administration officials must know the security threats that the country faces, so that there can be no gap and no period of potential weakness that an enemy can exploit.

Failure to do this is not the peaceful transfer of power.

Trump has not signalled that there will be a orderly transfer of power, he has issued a surrender statement indicating that he recognises (or enough of his direct advisors and supporters recognise) that he will be replaced, that he did lose, and that his insurrection failed. He is now negotiating a peaceful and jail-free departure from the White House on the 20^th.

Make no mistake, Trump is being prised out of the White House with the threat of being physically dragged out. He tried, and failed, and will now depart in such a way as to try one last smear against Biden. But he also has almost no loyalists left.

His insurrection failed. But he will claim that he didn’t actually want that to happen; those well-meaning patriots got out of hand. Good people; the best people, just very enthusiastic people. He will continue to say that the election was stolen, until he is finally sued in civil court by a few states demanding damages. There certainly will be some people in the crowd who will join any suits against Trump for fraud, saying they believed the President when he lied to them, and did what the President wanted and told them to do. It will be an interesting set of lawsuits.

The rest of (Trump’s) Amerika

By now, the morning after, I fully expect that across Amerika Republicans and Trump supporters who are not crazy will be taking down their Trump banners. Trump 2020 bumper stickers will be scraped off. While they will remain conservative, and may still believe in a “deep state”, they also are Amerikans, and they know that inciting you followers to storm the Capitol and walk through the Statuary Hall with the Confederate flag is going beyond the acceptable.

In Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, and quite possibly in Texas, the Trump flags and signs will come down. In the Klan-South it may take a little longer, but in the VFWs (Veterans of Foreign Wars – equivalent to the RSAs in the Commonwealth) the Trump banners will come down. What happened was a direct assault on the Constitution, and that was something they all swore to defend.

Hopefully, the preachers will back-off as fast as they can. They know their constituencies better than anyone. They did not condemn Trump before, because they had good alms paying congregations who wanted to hear how Trump was stopping abortion and making Amerika strong, stopping Communists and keeping the, um, non-Amerikans (read: Blacks, Asians and Hispanics) from displacing good God-fearing Christian Amerikans.

There will be little overt repudiation, because the internal psychological backflips needed will not be possible. But Trump and Trumpism is done, other than for a fringe that will be there no matter what happens. They will no longer, however, be a political force.