Donald J. Trump was intellectually, psychologically, and morally unfit for the Presidency. He is not a reader. His attention span is extremely short. His vocabulary is at a 4th grade level. He is a malignant narcissist. He is an insecure bully. He is an unfaithful husband. He is self-confessed sex offender. He is dishonest in his business dealings.
All of these descriptors are facts in plain sight. Even people who support him and work directly with him will admit that these accusations are true. But his biggest and most consistent failing is that he is a compulsive liar and doesn’t even realize it. He lives in a shallow fantasy world in which he is the hero.
Fortunately, he is no longer in the White House. The problem is that he has seriously damaged the Republican Party. A majority of self-identified Republicans in the country are still living in the delusional world that Trump created for them.
The most obvious false belief that is still gripping the country is the idea that Joe Biden somehow “stole” the election and is, therefore, an illegitimate President. The Republican establishment seems unable or unwilling to educate its rank and file members about reality. They seem unable or unwilling to put Trump in the rear-view mirror and move forward.
Insurrection
On January 6, 2021, the US Capitol Building, and the officers who defend it, was violently attacked by an angry mob. Their goal was to disrupt the official certification by Congress of the 2020 Electoral Vote. The members of the mob believed the oft-repeated Trump big lie that the election was being “stolen.”
That Trump incited this insurrection is not in doubt. Even Mitch McConnell admitted this.
There is no question that President Trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of that day. The people who stormed this building believed they were acting on the wishes and instructions of their President. And their having that belief was a foreseeable consequence of the growing crescendo of false statements, conspiracy theories, and reckless hyperbole which the defeated President kept shouting into the largest megaphone on planet Earth.
Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY)
Stirring up evil
This evil man, Donald J. Trump, refused to concede a fair election. Even after the legal system and the Electoral College had spoken, he continued to escalate his rhetoric and stir up his supporters. He tried to pressure at least one election official to change votes. He then specifically called for his fans to come to Washington, DC on January 6th, when the Congress would be certifying the vote, promising that it will “be wild.”
He held a rally that morning in which Rudy Giuliani advocated “trial by combat.” At the rally, Trump called the regular and legitimate vote counting processes of our country “a criminal enterprise” and said,”We have come to demand that Congress do the right thing.” He then sent the mob on to vandalize the Capitol, beat up policemen, and threaten the Vice President and members of Congress.
If that’s not ground for conviction, if that’s not a high crime and misdemeanor against the republic in the United States of America, then nothing is.
Representative Jamie Raskin (D-MD)
Failure to hold him accountable
Yet, on January 13, 2021, 197 members of the House of Representatives, all Republicans, voted “No” on the Impeachment of Donald J. Trump for “Incitement of Insurrection.” On February 13, 2021, 43 Senators, all Republicans, voted to acquit Trump of the Impeachment charges.
The most despicable act any president has ever committed, and the majority of Republicans cannot summon the courage or the morality to condemn it.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, (D-NY)
Some of those Senate Republicans, used a “Constitutional” excuse for their vote. They claimed that, guilty or not, they believed a President could not be impeached if he was already out of office. This excuse was simply a shallow justification for their predetermined cowardly vote. These are not people with principles and integrity.
Remember, these are the same Republican Senators who blocked Merrick Garland’s nomination to the Supreme Court for 293 days because they claimed that the “voter’s should decide” who should appoint the next Justice. Later, these hypocrites approved Amy Coney Barrett’s nomination to the Court in 27 days, just 8 days before an election.
Refusing to stand up
Trumpism remains a foul cancer in the Republican Party that they need to cut out. With the Impeachment proceedings, the Democrats gave the Republicans their best opportunity to repudiate Donald Trump, and his self-serving lies, so they could begin to return their party to reality and to Constitutional norms.
They were given the perfect opportunity to repent of their past association with lies, conspiracies, and insurrection. Instead, most of them, as usual, took the cowardly path.
Mitch McConnell tried to have things both ways. After he led the vote to acquit, he gave a floor speech in which he blamed Trump for the insurrection. In the speech he repeated his excuse that he didn’t believe the Senate could impeach a president who was no longer in office. His speech conveniently ignored the fact that HE was the reason that the impeachment did not reach the Senate before Trump was out of office.
Punishing the few good guys
Since the vote, the seven Republican Senators who had the courage to obey their oath, actually listen to the evidence, and vote to convict Trump, returned home to vitriol from their own state Republican parties. At least two have been officially censured by their fellow Republicans who, it should be noted, were not at the trial. Nor were these critics IN the Capitol, being threatened, during the attack.
Trumpist Republican partisanship has become so extreme that they punish any of their own who have a conscience and try to show integrity. Republican Congressman Adam Kinzinger (IL), who voted for Impeachment, received a hate letter signed by eleven members of his own family calling him “a disappointment … to us and to God.” The letter said he was “brainwashed” and accused him of working for “the devil’s army.”
When a people become so blind to the truth, so full of hostility, so lacking of integrity or good judgment, so arrogant and filled with pride, there is only one thing that can save them — Repentance. Sadly, many in the Republican party seem to have stubbornly placed themselves beyond that possibility.
And now, as I said unto you before, as ye have had so many witnesses, therefore, I beseech of you that ye do not procrastinate the day of your repentance until the end; for after this day of life, which is given us to prepare for eternity, behold, if we do not improve our time while in this life, then cometh the night of darkness wherein there can be no labor performed.
Alma 34:33
Sources
Sahil Kapur, “Key Takeaways: With acquittal, Trump wins battle for the Republican soul,” NBC News.com, February 13,2021.
Ronald Brownstein, “How the GOP Surrendered to Extremism,” The Atlantic, February 4, 2021.
John Pavlovitz, “Cancel Culture is Just Adult Accountability,” Stuff That Needs To Be Said, February 11, 2021.
Weiyi Cai, Annie Daniel, Lazaro Gamio, and Alicia Parlapiano, “Impeachment Results: How Democrats and Republicans Voted,” The New York Times, January 13, 2021.
Jeremy Herb, Manu Raju, Ted Barrett and Lauren Fox, “Trump acquitted for second time following historic Senate impeachment trial,” CNN, February 14, 2021.
Nina Burleigh, “Trump Speaks At Fourth-Grade Level, Lowest Of Last 15 U.S. Presidents, New Analysis Finds,” Newsweek, January 8, 2018.
Mitch McConnell, “Read McConnell’s remarks on the Senate floor following Trump’s acquittal,” CNN, February 13, 2021.
House Resolution 24, “Impeaching Donald John Trump, President of the United States, for high crimes and misdemeanors,” Congress.gov, January 11, 2021.
Susan Page, “Trump’s Senate impeachment trial is over, again. But the 2020 election? Not yet.” USA Today, February 15, 2021.
Davis Jackson, “‘Tribalism is a hell of a drug.’ Trump impeachment trial reopens GOP battle lines even as he is acquitted,” USA Today, February 15, 2021.
Jamie Raskin, “Read Democrat Jamie Raskin’s closing argument in impeachment trial of Donald Trump,” ABC News, February 13, 2021.
Donald J. Trump, “Read Trump’s Jan. 6 Speech, A Key Part Of Impeachment Trial,” National Public Radio, February 10, 2021.
David Jackson, “‘Only just begun’: Donald Trump thanks Senate Republicans for second impeachment acquittal,” USA Today, February 15,2021.
Ken Bredemeier, “Republican Groups Censure Party Lawmakers Who Voted to Impeach, Convict Trump,” Voice of America, February 16, 2021.
Tucker Higgins, “GOP senators who voted to convict Trump are now facing backlash in their home states,” CNBC, February 14, 2021.
David Smith, “After a repentant Trump voter’s one-man protest, what happened next?” The Guardian, August 22, 2020.
It’s sad to think of the generations growing up to stories of WW2 and the fight against authoritarianism and fascism and then to see people beating capitol policemen with American flags in the service of an authoritarian fascist.
“Trumpism remains a foul cancer in the Republican Party that they need to cut out. ”
And make no mistake Trumpism remains a foul cancer on the Mormon membership!
While as troubling as it is to see many people support Trump and his policies I find it especially distressful my Senator, Mike Lee not only supported his big lie of election fraud While Trump was President but now openly courts his support in his re-election bid for U.S. senate.
What does this say about Senator Lee’s character ?