“January 6th was not simply a protest, it represented the greatest movement in the history of our Country to Make America Great Again,”
Donald Trump made that statement.
Yesterday.
Congressional Republicans weren’t any better. Their reaction to the first session of the committee investigating the January 6th insurrection was to hold a press briefing blaming Nancy Pelosi and asking why there weren’t special committees investigating inflation or high gas prices.
But they’re just minions. Eventually it all comes back to Trump.
If one thing is evident from the first session of hearings, it’s that everyone around the 45th president was fully aware he had lost the election and it had not been rigged against him. Trump knew too, although he will never admit it.
You see, Trump is a classic sociopath, and that means nothing matters to him except his own wants and needs.
It should have been obvious early in his 2016 campaign when he started talking about what was wrong with our country and saying, “Only I can fix it.”
He may as well have said the phrase attributed to Louis XIV, the famous “Sun King” who ruled France for 72 years.
“L’etat, c’est moi.”
I am the state.
Hearing testimony about Trump’s reaction to the crowd yelling that Vice President Mike Pence should be hanged ought to send chills down everyone’s spine. If the crowd had gotten hold of Pence and executed him, Trump would have had an excuse to declare martial law and remain in power.
I feel bad for Pence. While there was nothing distinguished about his term as vice president other than the way he ended it, the gentleman from Indiana will certainly be remembered most for a three-word phrase.
“Hang Mike Pence.”
Sort of an escalation from what Trump had crowds chanting about Hillary Clinton.
“Lock her up.”
Was there ever a major candidate — let alone an actual president — who stirred his followers to the point of encouraging violence? I’m not sure even Adolf Hitler went that far in campaign speeches.
I certainly don’t think Trump was our first egotistical president. I think you’ve got to have a pretty healthy ego even to think about being president, but I’m not sure any of the 45 men who have held the office since 1789 have ever been as blatantly egotistical as the man from Mar A Lago.
I still don’t think Trump will be president again. I don’t even expect him to be the Republican nominee in two years. Between legal challenges and health problems a morbidly obese man of 78 will face, I just can’t see it.
That certainly doesn’t rule out him being a kingmaker. I think it’s entirely possible that whoever does get the nomination will have to journey to Mar A Lago and knell before Zod, er, Trump.
It isn’t the hard core Trumpanzees that are the problem. We’ll always have the people out on the fringes, but it’s the folks who will always vote Republican no matter who. They’re the ones who add enough heft to make Trump dangerous.
They’re the ones who should be watching the hearings.