A disastrous end to a shocking presidency
The city Trump has called home for four years is being turned into an armed camp incongruous with the mood of joy and renewal that pulsates through most inaugurations. In a symbol of a democracy under siege, the people’s buildings — the White House and the US Capitol — are caged behind ugly iron and cement barriers.
With unintended irony, Biden’s team has picked “America United” as the inaugural theme — a motto that is now more apt in defining Biden’s hoped for destination rather than the splintered land he will begin to lead.
Trump’s pattern of violence
In a chilling new warning, the FBI revealed the possible next stage in this now nationwide wave of radicalization, saying armed protests were planned at state Capitols in all 50 states between January 16 and Inauguration Day, January 20. Even as a nationwide sweep widens for the perpetrators of last week’s outrage, the bureau said new protests were planned for Washington for three days around the inauguration.
Former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe was shocked by the magnitude of the bureau’s intelligence on possible new violence.
“I don’t think in the entire scope of my career working counter terrorism issues for many, many years, I don’t think I ever saw a bulletin go out that concerned armed protest activity in 50 states in a three- or four-day period,” McCabe said on CNN’s “The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer.”
Biden told reporters that despite the warnings, he was not afraid of taking the oath of office outside next week — but the combination of a massive security effort to protect him from Trump’s supporters and social distancing amid the Covid-19 pandemic mean his will be the most hollowed out inauguration in years.
So far, after a massive domestic terror attack on the citadel of US democracy, there has been no major public briefing by any major federal law enforcement agency or the White House, an omission that fosters a sense of an absent government.
The current atmosphere of fear and wild political insurrection are a lesson in what happens when a figure as powerful as a President deliberately tears at America’s deep racial and social fault lines as a tool of his own power. Trump’s presidency revealed a new insight about the all-powerful modern presidency — the character of the person in the Oval Office chair really matters.
A Congress that can’t constrain a President
Momentum towards impeachment is now all but unstoppable in the House after Pelosi rejected a suggestion from House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy of some kind of censure motion.
McCarthy did acknowledge to Republican caucus members Monday that the President bore some responsibility for last week’s insurrection, according to a person familiar with the call. But some of his other responses to the outrage — an overhaul to the electoral certification process and legislation to promote voter confidence — hinted at the insincerity of the Republican approach.
With a few exceptions, Republicans — who indulged and in many cases supported Trump’s blatantly false claims of electoral fraud for weeks — have responded to the uproar over last week’s Capitol attack by complaining that by pushing impeachment, Democrats are fracturing national unity. It’s as if the last four years never happened.
“My personal view is that the President touched the hot stove on Wednesday and is unlikely to touch it again,” Blunt said on CBS’ “Face the Nation.”
America has emerged from many dark periods since the Civil War. The country was torn by resistance to the Civil Rights movement. And the Vietnam War turned generations against one another. But the fact that millions of people now appear to deeply mistrust the electoral system that is the basis of US democracy means that the country’s internal political cohesion is now being tested as it has rarely been in the last century-and-a-half.
And the Republican indulgence of the President’s repeated political arson has revealed a massive constitutional blind spot. When one party’s lawmakers are in thrall to a strongman leader, their duty to ensure checks and balances to constrain presidential power is soon forgotten.
Trump to reemerge
Trump has not appeared in public for days. And the suspension of his social media accounts amid concern that he could stir up more violence mean the country has been unable to assess his mood.
The virus is meanwhile running rampant. Eleven states and Washington, DC, just recorded their highest 7-day average of new cases of Covid-19 since the pandemic began. For the first time, the country is averaging over 3,000 deaths from the pandemic per day. Trump’s outgoing head of the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention Dr. Robert Redfield warned in a recent interview with McClatchy newspapers that the pandemic would get worse for the rest of January and parts of February and that the country could see 5,000 deaths a day.
And hopes that the nation could soon turn a corner are being tempered by the glitches in the vaccine roll out. Just as with the early stages of the crisis, poor coordination between federal and local and state authorities and the overall lack of a broader distribution plan are hampering the effort.
Like everything else, it will be up to Biden to fix it.
