IMO President Trump did a lot of good things in his term until he was torpedoed by COVID-19 and the tangled skein of threads involved in the November 3rd election. This electoral circus will be puzzled over for a long time. I take note that Ossoff won in Georgia by just enough to avoid a re-count.
Nevertheless, The president's actions since November 3 have grown more and more erratic and have now culminated in what can only be called an incitement of mob violence directed at the Congress.
People ask why the Capitol Police and other federal authorities were not better prepared to defend the Capitol complex against attack. Well, pilgrims, nobody expected the president of the US to whip up crowd anger and then to send the mob to the Capitol.
I wrote some days ago that Trump's rage and pain were serious factors to consider in a moment of political crisis. These things and his "one man show" mentality" overwhelmed him yesterday and in acting out his personal agony he did serious damage to the country. He is done. Stick a fork in him, maybe over-done.
The Democrat leadership will not want to pursue him although his actions yesterday might make him criminally liable. The squaddies will howl for his blood, but Schumer, Pelosi, etc. are not going to want to do anything that rash.
IMO he should leave the scene. A retreat to Mar a Lago is what should happen. He can let the clock run out there. He can resign and let Pence deal with the mess, but he should go.
The populist revolt that he led is not dead. It is not anything like dead. The 75 million citizens who voted for him are still here. They still want the same things, but he should depart and let a new leadership of the Deplorable Smellies emerge. pl
TTG
IMO Trump will be a minimal inluence in US politics as new leaders
of the Smellistas emerge. He is an old man. He is done, cooked. He could have been the "grand old man" of the movement, but he ruined himself the other day.
Posted by: turcopolier | 08 January 2021 at 02:04 PM
TTG,
Big tech silenced him when he told everyone to go home. They did that after first silencing the initial 15 seconds or so his tweeted video where he said there was election fraud. Silencing every voice, starting with his, isn't going to change any minds. Machiavelian is what Joe's handlers are going to be.
Posted by: Fred | 08 January 2021 at 02:25 PM
The one biggest survival-based reason I would like to see President Trump removed from effective power as soon as possible is to deprive him of the still-a-little-over-240 hours he still has to start an unstoppable war with Iran the way Pompeo and his other thinking-brain dogs want him to do.
Still, I wish he would have handed out pardons to Clinton, Clinton, Bush, Obama and perhaps some other senior-most legacy political operator-perpetrators in the most humiliating way possible.
Posted by: different clue | 08 January 2021 at 03:17 PM
I quite like the lies they tell about it all Fred. Reasonably straightforward. "The courts have uniformly rejected Trump's claims". It's not much trouble sorting that out.
Compare that to the lies we get over here, often so twisty and technical you're never sure whether they're lying or dumb.
And I love your AOC. You know where you are with her. Salem here we come. Your crazies are again so much more straightforward. Ours tend to be more concealed crazy.
Confirms my belief that American politics is miles ahead of ours in Europe. Sharper articulated. Lines clearer. Means you'll be on the road to recovery well before us.
You do intend to recover, I take it? Not as if there's much in the way of alternative.
Posted by: English Outsider | 08 January 2021 at 05:22 PM
Dan Lennon -- "Anyway, its all bad, I think too many Americans use politics in place of the religion they are looking for,"
Congresspersons are referring to the "sacrosanct chambers" that were violated; Pelosi lamented the "gleeful desecration of . . . the temple of our American democracy."
Rich rhetoric, coming from the same governmental authorities who demanded and enforce the shuttering of the nation's churches.
Posted by: Artemesia | 08 January 2021 at 05:34 PM
Someone said in these comments 'There is no organised, disciplined movement' behind Trump, in criticism.
Agreed, the organisation was minimal.. to assemble in protest. Surely that's enough, and the reset depends upon the qualities and urgencies of the people who respond. It's not a funded, political tool, but the usual public protest.
Nowhere here in the comments have I heard that the 'storming and break in of the capitol was a) possibly assisted and planned b) led by factions of such groups as Anftifa. Yet evidence surfaced very quickly. I find that lack of critical approach here astonishing. As if what transpired could only be the fault of the protesters who, incidentally had very good cause to protest, given the evidence I've seen of massive and widespread election fraud. That issue shoul dnot be sidelined by the eventuality at capitol hill, which is FAR MORE SERIOUS and THREATENING and yet it is, just as wouold be wished by the Biden camp.
Posted by: John Plumridge | 08 January 2021 at 05:56 PM
In fact, while my brain is still spinning in its gimbals, a couple more names for Pardons came to mind.
Jeffrey Epstein, for any services he may have rendered to the Great and the Good and the Leaders of the Free World, because they need and deserve occasional relief from the pressure they labor under.
And William Barr, just in case he had any involvement in calling for or advising on the Epstein assassination, because " loose lips sink ships" and sometimes those-in-the-know have to do what needs to be done to keep those ships afloat.
There. Those are two pardons which would really get the puck moved back to center ice . . . if that is the word for it.
Posted by: different clue | 08 January 2021 at 06:42 PM
If I understand Twitter correctly they have terminated the President of the United States account forever, I know, they will accept the next one but the future ex President cannot use this commercial communication tool forever. I’m sure FB is coming shortly with their ban. The BOA came out with a statement condemning the actions of people at the capitol and then we have the media highlighting individuals at the capitol mentioning where they work with people losing their jobs. All well and good that these private entities are doing their perceived civic duty but I know where my meager funds will be spent in the future and I urge others to look at he entities they utilize in the future.
I will state that I never thought Twit and FB were viable long term businesses.
Posted by: Bobo | 08 January 2021 at 06:56 PM
Trumpism without Trump or the $8T 4yr deficits would be good.
Previously I said that the Georgia recount proved that Dominion did not electronically alter votes on election night but the state should verify that the barcodes on the printed ballot matches the text on readable portion.
I found out that Georgia did that. They called their first re-count an audit and stressed that it was a manual count of the paper ballots that excluded Dominion machines altogether.
https://sos.ga.gov/index.php/elections/historic_first_statewide_audit_of_paper_ballots_upholds_result_of_presidential_race
"Due to the tight margin of the race and the principles of risk-limiting audits, this audit was a full manual tally of all votes cast."
I got the heads up from reading Dominions lawsuit against the soon to be bankrupt Sydney Powell https://www.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.225699/gov.uscourts.dcd.225699.1.0_3.pdf
Posted by: Christian J. Chuba | 08 January 2021 at 06:58 PM
Regarding the Big tech social media purge going on right now, I've said it before: the big tech deplatforming of ISIS in 2014-2016 is the blueprint by which they deplatformed outright White nationalists
and people like Alex Jones in 2017-2018. These nationless companies will slowly but eventually snuff out all forms of dissent in the West that exists over the internet. In a world in which governments have the power to restrict individuals to their homes, the internet becomes the actual only public square. First they came for the jihadists and I said nothing because I was not a jihadist, then they came for the conspiracy nuts and white nationalists and I said nothing because I was neither of these, then when they came for me....how does that go again?
Posted by: Serge | 08 January 2021 at 07:57 PM
Christian,
Georgia counted the same fraudulent votes a second time. Dominion will have fun with discovery.
Posted by: Fred | 08 January 2021 at 10:31 PM
Trump incited no one.
Posted by: Richard Ong | 09 January 2021 at 01:04 AM