Thursday's hearing by the January 6 Committee was clarifying in the way that a great closing argument at a trial can be, pulling together threads that had previously come up and demonstrating how someone is guilty of the crime or crimes they've been accused of. What is so absolutely glisteningly clear is that Donald Trump, while President of the United States (a thing that really did happen), tried to overturn a legitimate election he had lost. What's more, he knew that he had lost the election and he knew that the election had been legitimate. What's more, he knew ahead of time how the voting was going to go for the election, that mail-in ballots, the number of which surged because voters were encouraged to vote by mail during the pandemic, would be counted later and break towards Biden. Because he knew this, he planned, with others, in advance to say he had won, even if he had lost, and then to fight it out to the bitter end, making everything that came after premeditated.
What's more, he knew he was calling on supporters, many of whom were inclined towards violence against Democrats and what they perceived as RINOs, to come to Washington, DC and march on the Capitol to stop the counting of the Electoral College votes. What's more, when the expected violence started, he did nothing to stop it for hours, abandoning his Oath of Office and watching on TV to see if the violent mob might succeed.
What's more, to this day, Trump keeps propagating something he knows is a lie, which is not only causing threats of violence and harassment of election workers and politicians. And his language is leading to the strong possibility that a bunch of those who go along with the erroneous election belief will be elected themselves, so that, even if Trump doesn't run, they will do possibly irreparable harm to the democracy and to the nation.
And yet, for some reason, Donald Trump has not been jailed. He is free to "truth" out election lies and QAnon conspiracy madness. He holds rallies where he preens and prances like a parody of a dictator, warning his decreasing crowds of crazy cretins to be prepared to fight for him or to make sure that his lies never die, even if he goes ungently into that good night. He is investigated and investigated, giving the impression that those investigating him do not have enough to indict or arrest him, let alone convict him. Perhaps that is true, but that hasn't been tested yet, but the narrative sticks because of how Trump has slipped out of any attempt to hold him accountable, except for the 2020 election.
Maybe I'm naive, and I'm certainly not a lawyer or legal expert, but if someone's stated goal is to overthrow the elected government of the United States and that someone is fomenting violence and threats of violence against those who don't want to overthrow the elected government of the United States, then it would be patriotic to arrest that person. It would be patriotic to hold them without bail until trial so that they can't keep fanning the flames of rebellion, a rebellion that is based on lies that have been called lies by people across the political spectrum and by dozens of courts of law.
This isn't some wild, leftist idea about what Trump deserves. It's based on Trump's words, actions and inactions, and the results of all of that. Even in his petulant letter responding to the January 6 Committee's subpoena of him, Trump holds the insurrectionists blameless, implying that the riot, violence, and lawlessness that day was justified. He said that the committee has "targeted only those who were, as concerned American Citizens, protesting the Fraud itself." How does that not send the message that Trump wanted the violence on that day? He is saying that what the rioters did was right.
He continues to insist that there is a vast conspiracy involving thousands, if not tens of thousands of people, including members of Congress of both parties, state and local officials of both parties, election workers of both parties, and more, without a shred of genuine evidence to support any of it. Meanwhile, the Republican Party, which is now primarily existing to support the lies about the 2020 presidential election (but, oddly, not the election of anyone else in that year), is poised to get elected hundreds of people who are fully invested in the conspiracy and who want to declare invalid any election where their candidate loses. They want to be able to easily overturn the will of the people in presidential elections and, no doubt, any other election, undermining the very foundation American democracy is built on, however wobbly that foundation might be. And despite the power they will have, these officials will represent a minority of population of the country, and they who will use any means to gain this power. Right now, they talk constantly about using violence to achieve those ends if they have to.
Again, I'm asking how is it not the height of patriotism to want to stop that?
One other genuinely chilling thing discussed at the hearing on Thursday is that Trump wanted to act deliberately to undermine an incoming Biden administration (which, obviously, he would only do if he knew he had lost the election). "Knowing he was leaving office," Republican Adam Kinzinger said, "he acted immediately and signed this order on November 11th, which would have required the immediate withdrawal of troops from Somalia and Afghanistan, all to be complete before the Biden inauguration on January 20th." If it had been acted on, there would have been a "catastrophic" mess left behind for Biden to clean up, in addition to the catastrophic mess of the economy and the Covid pandemic Trump was dumping on the way out. But think about that order for a moment: Trump was going to cause deaths and plunge nations into anarchy just to make Biden's first days in office miserable. At least when Biden withdrew troops, the outcome was his to deal with.
All of this and I haven't even gotten into how the Secret Service and FBI are likely corrupted by Trump and his ground troops in the Oath Keepers, Proud Boys, and other groups, to the point that some agents may very well have been coordinating with the 1/6 rioters. It is damn hard to escape the idea that Trump was hoping that members of Congress who opposed him would be killed. I can't help but think that that's what he wanted when he watched the events unfold for over 3 hours on January 6, 2021, refusing to lift a finger to stop the mayhem. This is a man, after all, who loves going to boxing matches. He enjoys violence.
So I'm not saying that Trump shouldn't have a trial. But I am saying, as I have before, that we hold people who are obviously dangerous in jail without bail as they await trial. This isn't a game. The normal rules have been tossed out the window. If it's all unprecedented, then we need to respond in unprecedented ways.
What could be more dangerous than a former president trying to wreck the country and force it to conform to his fantasy? We know what happens when leaders do that. It never ends well. For the good of the country, for the good of our constitution, that's what needs to happen to Donald Trump. It's what should have happened on January 6.
The MAGA crowd keeps insisting that they are the real Americans, but if to be American, you need to fall in line behind one person, then that's antithetical to what the country is supposed to be, even in its worst moments. So I'm taking back American identity: if you love this country, you want to see Donald Trump behind bars. That's the measure of who is a real patriot.
