When the first images of last week’s siege on the Capitol in Washington started coming in, it was shocking, but also kind of embarrassing. A bunch of deluded dreamers dressed up in their pseudo-fatigues on the ultimate self-guided tour – set your own pace, explore where those corridors of power lead you and record it all for Facebook. Tourist terrorism. A coup with selfies.
It’s been nearly impossible, at this huge distance, to get a solid take on it all. Of course the media went straight to talk of sedition and terrorism. Of course Trump’s enemies said he had ignited the whole thing.
But they’ve been saying that, and he’s been doing that, for four years now. As most of us have forgotten by now, it was just a few days since his short-lived biggest attack yet on democracy. That one was a phone call. Heather Cox Richardson summed it up in her Letters from an American:
Unbelievably, it was only a week ago—last Sunday—that we learned Trump had called Georgia’s Secretary of State and pressured him to change the results of the 2020 election. Trump demanded that Brad Raffensperger “find” the 11,780 votes Trump needed to win Georgia. The news of the attempt to get an election official to overrule the will of the people was astonishing: at the time, it was the worst domestic attack on our democracy ever, coming, as it did, from a sitting president.
And as he’s been showing us all along, he can pile outrage on outrage. Each fresh upset hardly gets a chance to play thorough a regular news cycle before there’s a new one. Alone, any of them would surely undo any other politician. But together, it’s all a sort of cumulative news carnage. It’s his brand.
There’s a Trump Cabinet member resigning because they don’t want to be associated with it all anymore. Yeah right, a bit late. There’s another former President denouncing him. There’s Nancy Pelosi in her over-size COVID mask muttering about impeachment. Again. What does impeachment even mean anymore? Haven’t we gone way past that?
Or are we all getting a bit over-excited? Is setting a bunch of would-be thugs loose in the corridors of power nothing more than maybe a PR mistake, a misreading of the public mood for mayhem. He’s gone a bit far, but you’ve got to hand it to him; he’s telling his own story.
Or maybe it’s a grudge thing because he grew up in Queens and for all his billions can’t lose that chip on his shoulder about the privileged elites. That roasting at the 2011 White House correspondents dinner sure was seering, but did it deserve this?
Doesn’t he realise these places are, you know, hallowed?
But hey, it’s a personality disorder. How many times have we heard about the Narcissist in Chief? At worst, maybe it’s a bit of a moral failing. Most of us know when we’re about to cross a line, but this man has lost his compass.
Trump naturally watched proceedings unfold on television. Did he smile his work to see? Allegedly he was pretty enthusiastic about what he saw, but thought some of the rampagers looked a bit low class. Next time, dress better.
Except in the Tweets and images that are emerging now, some of these people had real weapons. They had gallows. Some of them have serious form in the conspiracy stakes. There was talk of hanging Mike Pence, who, God knows, has his failings. But surely this is a bit much.
In all the strident and proper denunciations, it’s nearly impossible to cut through to the reality.
Weighty commentators say the American Republic is forever a case of unresolved warring tensions, always teetering on crisis.
Poor old Joe Biden has the task of turning the volume down. You can only pray he has good people around him, and wish him well.