Yesterday, Donald Trump, the first president elected without any political or military experience, also became the first president to ever be impeached by the House of Representatives twice. Along with setting that record, he is also the first to be impeached with ten members of his own party joining in the vote against him. And in one of the most scathing (and in my opinion, best) verbal broadsides against him, Republican House member Lynn Cheney said that Trump “summoned the mob” that assaulted the Capitol Building and added that “There has never been a greater betrayal by a president.”
Anyone who knows the Constitution should have supported her and the two hundred and thirty two other House members that voted in favor of impeachment. Because this was not just about partisan politics, this was about the executive branch of the government trying to intimidate the legislative branch to alter their vote. And this was a vote on something that was strictly a ceremony, a final counting of the certified Electoral Votes that would finalize Joe Biden's victory. But it's a ceremony that Trump and his followers wrongly believe that Vice President Mike Pence, as the leader of the Senate, could use to reject Electoral votes from states that Trump lost, granting him a second term. Pence, in his first real break with the president, told Trump shortly before the vote that he does not have that power, incensing Trump, who denounced Pence at a morning rally a short distance from where the riot began.
Now it bears stating that Trump, like any other president, has the right to persuade or cajole members of congress to vote the way he wants. But when his rhetoric extended to whipping up an angry mob to commit outright acts of violence ("You have to be strong!" He told them a rally shortly before the siege on the Capitol Building began) he violated the powers given him by the Constitution and became guilty of an impeachment worthy offense.
As more news and videos of the riot are being made public, what happened only seems to get worse, with many of the attendees planning more than a peaceful protest: a man who had posted his desire to shoot House Leader Nancy Pelosi was apprehended with more than one firearm. Another man had molotov cocktails. Bombs were left. Numerous other weapons were brought. One police officer was beaten to death, and several others were injured. There are stories of congress people hiding in barricaded offices that had rioters banging on the doors. And then there's Trump's behavior during the riot, which may have been worse than what he did before it. According to the Washington Post's report of inside accounts, he seemed excited by what was happening on TV, and he refused to call in the National Guard, leaving that duty to Pence. Trump didn't even call to check on Pence during the riot, even as rioters chanted "Hang Mike Pence!". Although yesterday Trump released a video denouncing violence, it was obviously an example of a little too little too late. He even still failed to concede the election in it.
One of the crazy things about the riot is that many of the people involved are well educated professionals. It just goes to show the power of cult driven conspiracies that a doctor or lawyer could believe that a violent uprising was needed to stop the empowerment of Satanic pedophilic cannibals. Many people have pointed to the fact that if this had been a Black Lives Matter protest, there would have been far more security and far more violent riot control techniques used on the rioters. This seems undeniably true; part of the reason may be that many police officers and security people are more sympathetic to right wing protests than left wing ones. And there are even some Democratic congresspeople charging that their Republican counterparts were aware of the upcoming riot and aided the protestors. Obviously, those are serious charges that will have to be investigated in what will be sure to be a flurry of investigations coming in the next few months.
Finally, it's impossible not to notice just how many of the rioters were white men, many from white supremacist groups like the Proud Boys. In the end, I think the riot will go down, like the Trump presidency, as the failed last gasp of white male dominance in America. It's the nature of power that people who have it will often do anything to hold on to it. Like lie about an election and exhort others into violent acts to overturn that election. January sixth will go down as one of the worst days in American history, and we have to either throw Trump and his strongest followers into the asheap of history or fracture as a country. The fact that the Republican party may be ready to move on without him is heartening, but he still remains popular with the party's base voters. Either way, if the United States does wind up splintering, the riot will be seen by history as the flashpoint. We will see.
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