The penultimate Week #208 of The Trump Era dawned on Friday to a shocked nation, no easy task in a country already stunned and reeling from 4 years of Trump’s toxic and destructive presidency and almost a full year of the deadliest pandemic in a century. Only something as horrific as the January 6 storming and looting of the US Capitol Building by domestic terrorists acting on the President’s behalf and at his direction could further traumatize a nation already covered in thick scabs.
But shocking it was, and as details emerged and suspects identified, it became clear this attack was even more organized and dangerous than it first appeared (and it appeared plenty dangerous for anyone’s tastes), what with Vice President Pence being targeted for lynching and Speaker Pelosi and other prominent Democrats qualifying for kidnap and execution, while the Administration aggressively tried to prevent sending reinforcements to the small and overwhelmed Capitol Police Force.
Questions flew about complicity by some members of the Capitol Police and by Trump’s loyal Republican Congressional allies who backed his play to illegally overturn the election results (an attempted coup for those keeping score at home). The stories and images revealed widespread vicious violence met with acts of heroism that certainly saved Representatives and Senators from death.
Calls for Trump’s resignation, impeachment and/or forcible removal from office reverberated nationally, while Trump uncharacteristically remained silent, with even his go-to communication medium, Twitter, suspending his account until after the January 6th vote count in Congress for “posing a threat to public safety,” imposed even before he directed the attack on the Capitol.
The Twitter ban was inexplicably lifted on Friday, and Trump promptly announced he would not be attending Biden’s inauguration, before immediately reverting to threat to public safety mode with this beaut: “The 75,000,000 great American Patriots who voted for me, AMERICA FIRST, and MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN, will have a GIANT VOICE long into the future. They will not be disrespected or treated unfairly in any way, shape or form!!!”
That was that for Trump and Twitter, the social media platform that made him, and his account was deleted forever, along with the Twitter accounts of 3 of his most toxic and dangerous minions, Michael Flynn, Sidney Powell and Lin Wood, only the first trickle of Trump renunciations that would follow all week long as individuals and corporations scurried to put daylight between themselves and all things Trump.
On Saturday the arrests of the Capitol insurgents began in earnest, aided by their own proud selfies posted on every media, with rumors swirling around of possible Secret Service involvement and complicity by one of Trump’s lapdogs, Congressman Devin Nunes, and the FBI offering rewards for information leading to arrest, opening the floodgates of tips from people who know these dumbasses personally.
Then Trump received more bad social media news when the ultra-right wing website Parler was effectively shut down by the web hosting companies who were tired of enabling Trump’s coup and all its insane death threats and damaging conspiracy theories.
On Sunday a second Capitol Police officer died, and only then did Trump acknowledge our grief and loss and ordered the White House and all Federal building flags flown at half staff, at the same time releasing an official (and fictional) White House account of Wednesday’s failed coup, calling it (!) “the First Amendment Protest.”
Then to add to his angst over losing access to social media, the President had his other passion ripped from him when the Professional Golfers Association announced that “the golf world must sever all ties with Trump,” and the scheduled PGA Championship at Trump’s Bedminster Golf Club in New Jersey was cancelled. This caused Eric Trump to do what the Trump family does best, threaten to sue the PGA, a lawsuit given as much chance to succeed as his father’s 70-something stillborn lawsuits to overturn the election in his favor.
Perhaps to lift his boss’s mood, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced his latest sabotage of the incoming Biden Administration; first by lifting restrictions against Taiwan and creating a confrontation with China, then by labeling the Houthi rebels in Yemen a terrorist organization as a favor to Crown Prince Bone Saw of Saudi Arabia, whose country has been earnestly slaughtering Yemeni women and children with American weapons Trump sold them for years. The United Nations warned that the designation of the Houthis as terrorists would only make the deadly famine in that country worse, and Pompeo’s rash act would constitute a passive genocide of the prolonged and painful death by starvation, which didn’t seem to bother Pompeo all that much, a man who hasn’t skipped a meal in his life.
Speaker Pelosi immediately harshed Trump’s mellow by announcing that Pence had 24 hours to remove him from office as unfit to serve according to the 25th Amendment or he would be impeached a second time, and on Monday Congress would pass a resolution urging him to invoke the Amendment that day, otherwise the House would draw up Articles of Impeachment for inciting sedition on Tuesday.
Monday found President Attention Whore beside himself with frustration, unable to command his rebels on Twitter or make up any new snarky nicknames for Democrats, so he lashed out at the people he sent to attack the United States Congress for looking “trashy and low class” before waxing melancholy about the lack of loyalty shown to him by prominent Republicans who were tripping all over themselves trying to claim they never liked him in the first place and were never really on board with his toxic antics.
Then Acting DHS Secretary Chad Wolf bailed, a week before one the country’s greatest challenges to our homeland security, the expected attacks by Trump’s insurgents on Biden’s Inauguration Day, after having done next to nothing to stop the Capitol attack. Joining Wolf in fleeing Trump was Deutsche Bank, who announced they would no longer do business with Trump or any of his companies, a month after Trump’s personal banker abruptly quit the bank under a cloud of scandal, said scandal being that she kept lending money to Trump even though he is a dead beat who owes them hundreds of millions in loans, most of them guaranteed by (who else?) Russia.
While Congress was voting on the House Resolution to urge the Vice President to remove Trump from office, Pence turned them down flat, perhaps not wishing for Trump to try to kill him again with another mob, while a brand new Congresswoman, the pistol-packing Lauren Boebert, was accused of aiding and abetting the Capitol terrorists by live-Tweeting Speaker Pelosi’s change of location during the attack, informing the attackers “The Speaker has been removed from the chambers.”
Then Shopify announced it would no longer allow Trump merchandise to be sold on their website, followed by dozens of other online retail sales sites, and hundreds of large corporations declared they were cutting off the donation spigot to the 126 Republican Representatives and 8 Senators that tried to derail Congressional approval of the Electoral vote count, even after the attack of January 6.
Also not feeling the love that day were Rudy Giuliani and First Lady Melania Trump. It seems the New York State Bar Association is considering disbarring Giuliani because of his inflammatory comments immediately prior to Wednesday’s attack on the Capitol, and for his efforts for months to cast doubt on the results on the presidential election.
Melania, meanwhile, proved herself a true Trump when she made the backlash to her husband’s assault on democracy somehow (!) all about her, saying “Surrounding these tragic events there has been salacious gossip, unwarranted personal attacks, and false misleading accusations on me – from people who are looking to be relevant and have an agenda,” kind of strange for a woman on the verge of agenda-free irrelevance.
As if none of this ever happened, on Tuesday Trump headed to Texas to celebrate his wall and engage in a good old fashioned Trump Lying Fest, where he claimed he had “completed 450 miles of beautiful wall” in spite of the fact that only 6 miles of new wall have been erected in 4 years, then launched into his litany of familiar lies and delusions about the 2020 election. Then for reasons known only to himself, Trump decided to visit the site of another defeated insurrection when he visited the Alamo, where he infuriated the universe by claiming that his remarks that launched a terror attack in his own government “were totally appropriate.”
Disputing that assertion was the House of Representatives, which that day delivered their ultimatum to Mike Pence and proceeded to introduce a single Article of Impeachment against Trump, the formal charge being “Incitement of Insurrection Against the United States.” To be sure,Trump’s attack dogs in the House; Jim Jordan, Matt Gaetz, Mo Brooks, Loui Gohmert and Kevin McCarthy attacked Democrats in a stimulating round of their favorite game, What Aboutism, with Gaetz even trying to sell the insane fantasy that the attackers were “Antifa infiltrators” who (!) “turned a peaceful demonstration into a riot,” an astounding assertion that thousands of leftists suddenly decided to dress up in soiled MAGA caps and ragged clothing they would not be caught dead wearing.
Even Trump enabler (!) Mitch McConnell saw through their imbecilic invective and said he was “glad the Democrats are impeaching Trump,” and condemned the 8 Senators who objected to the Electoral count, while the Joint Chiefs of Staff took the unprecedented step of putting out a rare message signed by all of them to all service members saying the pro-Trump mob attack on the US Capitol last week was an assault on America’s constitutional process and against the law, and reiterated the American policy of the military being completely divorced from politics, reminding Trump yet again that he could not count on their help in overthrowing the government.
Then the FBI said they had warned the Administration and the Capitol Police of the impending violence on the day before attack, as the Department of Justice held a press conference announcing hundreds of arrests and hundreds more arrest warrants issued, and said that the insurrectionists would be charged with a variety of crimes ranging from criminal trespass, unlawful entry into a secure facility, destroying government property, theft of government property, assault of a Federal Officer and murder. Further, the DOJ announced a Sedition Task Force to charge the terrorists with same crime as their very favorite president ever, Insurrection Against the United States.
Then Europe put a stop to Pompeo’s sabotage of America when top European officials refused to meet with him, putting the kibosh on his final diplomatic trip in a slap to the Trump Administration after the president’s assault on the U.S. Capitol.
On Wednesday, still mired in denial and delusion while Vice President Pence ran the country in his mental absence, Trump thought this would be the ideal time to (!!) unveil the floor plans for the Trump Presidential Library and launch yet one more fundraising drive to have his library built, having ascertained that his beloved poorly educated still had 2 nickels to rub together when they clearly had at least a slim chance get by with just the one nickel.
Nancy Pelosi spent the morning thanking the National Guard who are defending the Capitol against further terror attacks on Inauguration Day, giving each of them her Challenge Coin as a gesture of America’s gratitude, while intelligence warnings of possible IED bombs being assembled to be planted all over Washington DC that day were issued, after the revelation that panic buttons in some Congressional offices has been “ripped out” prior to the attack.
Speaker Pelosi then returned to the House to preside over an important vote, and by early evening, Trump was impeached for an unprecedented second time for high crimes against the United States, providing us once again with “numbers like no one has seen before.” This was the one record Trump did not covet, however, and had to be restrained by White House staffers from going to the House Floor to defend himself, thus depriving America of what would surely have been some inspired lunacy.
On Thursday we learned that as many as 7 Representative were rumored to have given reconnaissance tours to small groups of terrorists. They are Jim Jordan, Louie Gohmert, Matt Gaetz, Lauren Boebert, Taylor Greene, Paul Gosart and Andy Biggs, all of them on board with Trump’s failed attempt to overthrow the government. Also, phone numbers to two of Senator Ted Cruz’s offices appeared to be listed as contact information in a note found in a truck belonging to Lonnie Coffman, who was indicted for “carrying unregistered firearms and 11 Molotov cocktails” in that same vehicle during the Capitol attack.
And speaking of traitors in official positions, we heard from a furious and unhinged Peter Navarro, nominally Trump’s Director of the Office of Trade and Manufacturing Policy but in effect one of Trump’s main propagandists, when he attacked Big Tech for effectively shutting down Parler by refusing to do business with the misinformation site that has been pouring gasoline on smoldering Trump cultists. Navarro threatened to sue to regain his right to overthrow the government that pays his salary while taking the opportunity to lie his ass off, saying “Trump was legally elected on November 6th” and that (!) “Democrats did violence to President Trump” by impeaching him for inciting violence.
Senate Majority Leader McConnell announced that there was no time for a Senate trial to convict the President in his few remaining days in office, and that it would take place once Biden is sworn in, with a second vote scheduled to strip him of his pension and travel allowance, and to bar him from ever holding elected office in this country again, which would effectively rid McConnell and the Republican Party of Trump for good.
Trump remained isolated and hunkered down with Navarro, Mark Meadows and the My Pillow guy, who was spotted carrying classified official documents that as a private individual with no official government job he should not even be allowed to see, much less carelessly parade around White House grounds. Even Rudy Giuliani felt Trump’s wrath when he refused to pay his legal fees. Why Rudy thought he would be the only one Trump did not cheat out of his pay remains an open question.
Mike Pence was running the government since Trump was focused only on creating a grand military sendoff for himself on the morning of the inauguration of his successor that he refuses to attend, and banning even the mention of the name “Nixon” in the White House, the President who resigned the office rather than inflict further harm on the country.
In stark contrast to Richard Nixon, Trump wishes nothing more but to inflict as much harm as he possibly can on the country that rejected him, a situation that necessitated the deployment of 26,000 armed troops in Washington DC, the refusal of hotels to take bookings from out of town for the coming week and the boarding up of businesses near the centers of government in order to prevent a repeat of the January 6th insurrection, while 50 State Capitols are doing the same in the face of threats from armed savages loyal to Trump.
Trump made no farewell speech or gave thanks to anyone who voted for him or served in his Administration, nor did he mentioned the deadly pandemic that killed 4,440 Americans that day and 23,000 for the week, and never once mentioned Joe Biden by name. He is left only with his country’s scorn and his own impotent fury, while America prepares to clean up the monumental disaster of the failed Trump Experiment.