This monster must be stopped
Two years ago this Friday a mob gathered. Their goal was to protest the “stolen” election and “stop the steal,” to hold individuals personally responsible for then president Donald Trump’s loss in November. The mob got ugly and the chants were terrifying. Fortunately, the intended victims of the mob had escaped to safety. Given the bellicose nature of the mob it was a close escape. Harm could have come to these intended victims, possibly even death.
That was the scene on January 6, 2021. Only I’m not referring to the mob at the Capitol Building in Washington DC. I’m referring to the mob at 62 year old Ruby Freeman’s house in Cobb County Georgia. People had come to Ms. Freeman’s house, people looking for her and her daughter Shaye Moss. They were there demanding answers. They were there to do violence, if necessary.
Both women had spent the previous few days in mortal terror. Both women were in hiding, petrified of the MAGA lunatics who called them on the phone at all hours of the day or night, threatened their lives and even came banging on their doors. All at the invitation of the president of the United States.
All because of a perfectly innocent vIdeo of both women doing their jobs. But when the likes of Rudy Giuliani and Donald Trump and idiots at Fox News viewed that same video, instead of seeing two women doing their jobs, which is what it was, they saw (or claim they saw) two women stealing the 2020 election.
This is preposterous, of course. Not a single frame of that video shows any such thing. Donald Trump was even told as much, not just by reporters and fact-checkers, but by his own Justice Department. What conspiracy theorists said were “suitcases” of bogus ballots were really just standard boxes used locally to transport real ballots, nothing more.
That was the truth. But today, in the post-truth era, truth is whatever some people want it to be, whatever is convenient for them. That such madness has real victims with real lives that get ruined in real time matters not at all to the spreaders of these lies. They live in their own world and in their world the truth is whatever they say it is, in service to whatever narrative they support.
So Donald Trump was told the truth about these two innocent election workers, but he chose to tell lies that put both women in danger. And last night he decided to do it again.
On “Truth” Social, Donald Trump wrote, “Wow! Has anyone seen the Ruby Freeman ‘contradictions’ of her sworn testimony? Now this is ‘BIG STUFF.’ Look what was captured by Cobb County police body cameras on January 4, 2021. … Now it gets really bad.”
Shortly after that, Trump published a second item, directly accusing Freeman of election crimes, followed by a third item, in which he asked, “What will the Great State of Georgia do with the Ruby Freeman MESS?” Trump then concluded that he’s fighting “the evils and treachery of the Radical Left monsters who want to see America die.”
Today’s article isn’t about Donald Trump and his claim of a “stolen” election. It isn’t about the perfidy of the Republican Party. It isn’t about Kevin McCarthy and the clown show in Congress. It’s about two women, two patriots, who love their country and wanted to serve it. It’s about how their lives were unjustly ruined because it was convenient to ruin them. It’s about how Donald Trump doesn’t care who he hurts in order to get what he wants, because in the end, everything is about him and no one else matters.
Two years ago two innocent, decent women were disingenuously targeted by the president of the United States. Their lives were deliberately ruined by Donald Trump so he could exploit them for a narrative he knows is a lie. Now he’s doing it again because he can. Now he’s doing it again because no one will stop him.
This monster, Donald Trump, must be stopped. This monster, Donald Trump, must be indicted. This monster, Donald Trump, must go to prison. And, as ever, ladies and gentlemen, brothers and sisters, comrades and friends, stay safe.
Robert Harrington is an American expat living in Britain. He is a portrait painter.