A Confederacy of Insurrectionists
Too many ‘players,’ too little governing.
Revealed in one of the recently dumped J6 Committee transcripts is that at one point during the 187-minute lapse on January 6, Trump mused out loud about the mob’s appearance, wishing those who showed up that day and breached the Capitol were more presentable.
Send ’em back to make-up,’ former Apprentice star Trump could have been saying to himself.
Consider this off-handed remark recalled by a Trump assistant as a snapshot of what’s in store for the legal reckoning of the attack on the US Capitol, January 6, 2021.
Not an insurrection, an excess of insurrections. Not a mob of protestors, a parallel universe of terrorists, out for a display of violence and intimidation. Not anti-government forces culled from the military, a nation-wide confederacy of insurrectionists out to tear down government and install mob rule.
The President fumed that security prevented him from being led triumphantly into the Capitol to take the Chair vacated by the Vice President and to declare himself winner of the Election. A rigged state by state endorsement would follow.
The country has absorbed over 200 federal law violation decisions from January 6 rioters. Like the number of J6 Committee transcript pages dumped January 1, the country will likely absorb 1000 or more. Trump himself may not be among them. Protected by an archaic collection of judicial norms, a conservative power-hungry SCOTUS majority, and a potential ‘Presidential pardon’ in 2024, Trump is less exposed legally than even his closest advisors, currently hiding under “executive privilege,” which arguably no longer applies.
His ‘advisors’ will have to reckon loyalty and jail time.
Trump may not have to reckon anything.
Trump has brought a new take on obstruction: it’s not about justice. It’s about governing. Obstruction in the time of Trump is about refusing to govern, to showing up, to protect and provide. It’s the recalcitrant victimizer who refuses to pay child support. It’s the withholding self-absorbed business tycoon, refusing to pay bills and stiffing contract workers.
Claiming achieving stuff is paramount.
Helping others, not so much.
It’s about obstructing people, obstructing their welfare and claiming your working in their best interests.
Consider not an obstruction of laws for governing, but an obstruction of governing itself. In this scenario Trump is not above the law, he is the law: a passive-aggressive autocrat. There can be no social progress in this scenario, just one bungle after another.
One lie, one fable, one narcotic after another.
Next time when you are storming what America has built; when you go to destroy what America relies on … shave first.
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