Donald Trump isn’t getting what he wants out of this
Donald Trump’s abetting of last week’s insurrection by domestic terrorists has turned US politics upside down. With one week left in Trump’s unforgivably repugnant presidency, the nation is feeling the strain of a vengeful president trying to make one last stand.
The FBI is now warning of planned nationwide armed “protests” (read: riots by latent and actual domestic terrorists) that could start later this week and go on at least through President-elect Joe Biden’s January 20 inauguration. The Bureau reported that “protests” are planned in all 50 state capitals and in Washington, D.C., and that last week’s coup attempt, our nation’s first, has emboldened Trump’s most extreme supporters. In other words, the threat that these “protests” pose is grave.
With Trump, the safe bet has been on chaos. He’s going to be impeached a second time, which has never happened to a president before. He’s been banned from Twitter for life. His cabinet is dwindling with resignations mounting by the day. In short, he’s probably a complete disaster, even by his own standards. And the more Trump feels cornered, he lashes out. He must relish the news that there will be armed mobs of his supporters at all of the state capitals and in D.C. If there’s any way for him to extend his support of those vile people, you can bet he’ll do it. He’s still holding out for a successful coup, or worse, a full-blown civil war.
But Trump won’t get either. I already shudder to think at the potential for lost lives at the hands of the mobs. I know that it’s going to be ugly — truly, truly ugly. I expect there to be more scenes like what we saw in last week’s insurrection, if not worse. Despite all of this, however, I know that the US will never cede to Trump.
Even Mitch McConnell, a man who has arguably done more to undermine the nation even when compared to Trump himself, showed that when push comes to shove comes to uprising, he stops short of fully embracing armed revolution. With many Americans turning against Trump in the wake of the insurrection, I highly doubt any senators with even a single functioning neuron (this precludes Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley) would ever grant Trump his final wish and plunge the US into a fascist dictatorship.
Democracy thrives in snarkiness