Donald Trump’s Dark Path
An unacknowledged or reluctantly-admitted defeat, and a forced commitment to a peaceful transition of power, are still far from the final closure on the chaos
Published: Thursday 07 January 2021 | 08:52:04 pm.
Author: juana@
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
Trump incited them and his followers left for the Capitol. Photo: AFP Published: 07/01/2021 | 08:29 pm
The United States has experienced a very bitter drink of the acíbar [aloe juice] or purgative that has made other nations of the world drink more than once with names of seasons or colors. As an unusual fact for the idyllic image with which the American democracy has sold itself and deceived the planet throughout three centuries, we have witnessed an insurrection of the most extreme and violent ultra-right, determined to maintain the political power of he who is its image and likeness.
Pro-Trump mobs – emboldened by the president for four years, and then emboldened on the day of the events by a speech from the White House reiterating the fallacy that the election was stolen – violently stormed Congress during the formal ceremony to authenticate the Electoral College vote that certified Joe Biden as president-elect.
We have simply witnessed a Made in USA version of a coup attempt, an outrageous event that totally discredits the nation, even among its closest allies. It is enough to see the descriptions or comments of those rulers, condemning the “shocking scenes” in the US Capitol by those whom Ivanka Trump called in a tweet – later eliminated and replaced by an altered one – “American patriots”.
Her father did the same when he calledon his followers patriots and assured them that violent actions are “something that happens when a sacred absolute victory is taken away from them in such an unceremonious and violent way. He said at some other time, “We love you, you are so special”.
Trump’s flags were paraded through the halls and outside the Capitol when there were not so many Americans. There were acts of vandalism such as assaulting and destroying the office of Speaker Nancy Pelosi, while one of the magnate’s foot soldiers sat on the chair from which the country’s representatives spoke and put his boots on the documents of the legislative body.
Anyone who witnessed the situation would ask: how could this mob have entered the seat of one of the four sacrosanct powers? Where was the force of law and order that immediately and employs any means of repression against demonstrators against police brutality and racism? Were the rumors of possible collusion with certain uniformed personnel to guarantee Donald Trump’s stay in the White House true?
I don’t think that the 74,223,744 Americans who voted for the incumbent approve of this outrage against their conservative beliefs in American values. But there are sectors among them that are fierce fascist ghouls ready to do anything, even to lead the country into a civil war. Do not turn your faces away, you have already proven that you are willing to have chaos and misrule.
The assailants forced the main entrance of the Capitol. Photo: Taken from Thecameroontoday
There were thousands of them and they responded to the President’s words shortly before the certification session in Congress that was so violently interrupted: “this country has had enough”; “we will not tolerate it anymore” and “we will stop the steal”.
In that speech at the rally at the Ellipse near the White House, Trump encouraged the crowd to “fight like hell and if you don’t fight like hell, you won’t have a country anymore,” and concluded the diatribe by telling them to “walk down Pennsylvania Avenue” – the one that leads to the Capitol – to support Republican lawmakers who would object to Biden’s certification with the goal of overriding the Electoral College vote.
If those words were not call to action, they might be considered the closest thing in his hate speech.
Trump has further divided the (dis)United States and now the Republican Party itself, which rejects this action, and even his staff, where defections are occurring.
In political circles and in the media, some mention impeachment, but there is also talk of the 25th Amendment to the Constitution. iT regulates the succession that must be made if the president is unable to continue in office, for example, because he is not in his right mind, as many in the world have long since intuited, and at this moment there is clear evidence.
Trump may have dug his own grave in U.S. politics by blowing up democracy in such a crude manner. Together with that explosion has come collateral damage, that of the professional politicians who joined in his lies inciting violence.
The great shock of this Wednesday has only delayed for a few hours the certification of Joe Biden as 46th President, which took place in the middle of the night when the votes from Vermont exceeded 270 electoral votes and, in the end, reached the sum of 306.
The editorial board of The Washington Post was clear and precise in its assessment of the president published on the same day of the events that shocked, embarrassed and outraged a large number of Americans: Trump’s “refusal to accept his electoral defeat and his incessant incitement of his supporters led on Wednesday to the unthinkable… The responsibility for this act of sedition falls directly on the president, who has shown that his permanence in office represents a serious threat to American democracy. He must be removed.
“Mr. Trump is a threat and as long as he remains in the White House, the country will be in danger,” the editorial concluded.
I refer to that last assertion to highlight what very little media has mentioned, but which could be considered that the excesses of the capital were the tip of the iceberg of an evil that corrodes the United States and can lead to that hell that the revanchist mentioned. Scenes of similar disorder were occurring in other cities: in Los Angeles there were violent confrontations between Trump supporters and members of the Black Lives Matters movement; in Washington state armed demonstrators attempted to storm the residence of Governor Jay Inslee, and armed Trump supporters gathered in Salem, Oregon, to support his stay in the White House.
The day after the hours when lawlessness, anarchy, misgovernment, chaos and terror reigned, and with it surprise, bewilderment and alarm, Donald Trump – censored by Twitter, Facebook and Instagram – published on the account of his deputy chief of staff, Dan Scavino, a brief statement of his commitment, but also of marked arrogance and much more, full of arrogant and dangerous threats.
“Although I totally disagree with the election result, and the facts support me, there will nevertheless be an orderly transition on January 20.
“I always said that we would continue our struggle to make sure that only legal votes were counted. While this represents the end of the best first presidential term in history, it is only the beginning of our struggle to make America great again.
Alert, America; alert, world! These winds only herald the possibility that they will bring destructive and greater storms. Neofascism was there before Trump, who just exacerbated it and used it…
You must be logged in to post a comment.