The coming public regret

By the end of the day exactly four years ago, as I write this, Donald Trump was arguably the most hated man on the planet. Former Trump stalwarts like Lindsey Graham, Ted Cruz and Mitch McConnell were condemnatory. By some two weeks later MSNBC commentator Lawrence O’Donnell solemnly intoned that “Donald Trump will never set foot in the White House again.” Things looked worse than bad for Trump and just about everyone was reciting his political epitaph.

Many of the men and women who stormed the Capitol Building on January 6, 2021, later complained bitterly about how utterly abandoned they felt by Trump. He offered them no lawyers and no financial assistance, of course. Many who were criminally charged said they believed that, in attacking the Capitol, they were following the orders of the president of the United States. So where was he when they needed him?

Well, he’s back, and I certainly didn’t have today on my Bingo card, as the saying goes. Four years later Trump is about to re-enter the White House on a wave of the (albeit small) popular vote. He also claims that he is going to pardon all of the January 6th “political prisoners.” Even the violent ones. Even the ones who physically attacked police officers with iron pipes, tasers, pepper spray, bats and flagpoles, injuring more than 140 of them and contributing to the deaths of several.

Since the insurrection, Republicans have learned to modify their views. Today most of them join Trump in claiming that January 6 was a false flag operation staged by Antifa, or it was peaceful Republicans touring the Capitol. Some say the rioters were entrapped by the FBI “to do things that they didn’t even know might be illegal.” None of these Republicans appear to notice that each of these “explanations,” including Trump’s plan to pardon all of them, contradict the others.

None of this matters. In the post-truth era, truth takes up valuable time to explain, and MAGA has neither the time nor the inclination to hear the truth. Their boy is in charge again, and if they had any shame they would blush all the way to the bank. Fortunately for them, they have absolutely no shame.

Donald Trump has feigned empathy for the January 6 rioters, and has promised to pardon them all on his first day back in office. Of course Trump doesn’t really give a shit about them or their suffering, so he could forget all about it. After all, he supposedly won’t be running for president ever again, so he doesn’t need any votes. But he probably knows that pardoning those fools will be good for his ego. If someone does most of the work, I expect Trump will probably go ahead and pardon them. Especially if someone works the Trump signature machine. After all, can you imagine Donald Trump personally signing 1,600 pardons with a pen? That ain’t happening.

Meanwhile many Republicans still support the narrative that the “Deep State” stole the 2020 election. Other Republicans are very reluctant to go on record and say otherwise. Of course, it never occurs to anyone in the pathetic legacy media to ask them if we could so easily steal the 2020 election, how come we didn’t also steal the 2024 election? No, that would be too obvious. That would be too …, uh, confrontational.

Despite the unbelievable turn of events over these last four years, I refuse to credit Trump. For one thing, I don’t think he did anything. He remained throughout stupid, inarticulate, more of a liability to his own re-election efforts than a help. No, instead of credit I give blame. I blame the once mainstream now legacy media for their limp, Trump-pandering reporting. I blame the Department of Justice for their slow-walking procedures and timidity. I blame all the judges who refused to throw the bastard in jail for contempt of court. In fact I blame the entire American justice system, which is emphatically NOT equal under the law.

Ladies and gentlemen, we are about to see what regret, writ large, looks like. It’s going to look like a constant lament of if-onlys. If only we had done this. If only we had done that. If only Mitch McConnell had led his senators to finding Trump guilty in the second impeachment. If only Merrick Garland hadn’t delayed 18 months before charging Trump for the insurrection. Of course, this kind of public regret could be illegal by the time it’s expressed. But rest assured, it will be there.

Robert Harrington

Robert Harrington is an American expat living in Britain. He is a portrait painter.