The future of Trump and Trumpism.
By Charles R. Kesler
Donald Trump’s supporters probably thought it couldn’t get any worse than Election Day, or more precisely the hours and days afterward when the votes swung shockingly in Joe Biden’s favor—the day the winning stopped. Then came January 6, and the attack on the Capitol.
No citizen, no constitutionalist, no conservative could regard that day’s outrages with anything but dismay and indignation. To attempt to interrupt or intimidate the Congress in the performance of one of its highest constitutional duties, counting the electoral votes in order to select the next president, is a flagrant offense against the constitutional order. It would be like a violent mob storming the Supreme Court in order to prevent it from hearing oral arguments or from issuing a ruling in a case.
That it was “the people,” or rather a self-proclaimed subset of them, who assaulted the People’s House makes no difference. Nor is it an excuse that many of them surely thought they were trying to protect the country and the Constitution from a massive electoral fraud. “No grievance,” said Abraham Lincoln, “is a fit object of redress by mob law.” The Bill of Rights guarantees only “the right of the people peaceably [emphasis added] to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
It is true that the mob on January 6 started out as part of a peaceful crowd at a Trump rally on the Ellipse. Mobs often start out peacefully, but it is also true that most crowds don’t take such a violent turn. There was probably a selection effect at work, as Steve Sailer speculated on his blog. When Trump attends a rally in the hinterlands, his crowds “are the salt of the earth. But when he calls for his supporters to come to him from all across the country,” wrote Sailer, the cost of travel, as well as other factors, select for more passionate enthusiasm.
So he winds up with a crowd that consists of tens of thousands of law-abiding citizens, a few thousand adventurers who are up for taking selfies inside the Capitol, a few hundred street brawlers up for a good old fight…, and a few dozen real crazies.
On December 19, in a tweet announcing his adviser Peter Navarro’s conclusion that it was “statistically impossible to have lost the 2020 election,” President Trump added, “Big protest in D.C. on January 6th. Be there, will be wild!” The odd juxtaposition of statistics and “wild” protest would scar the day itself. A large crowd, variously estimated to range from the tens of thousands to several hundred thousand people, gathered peaceably at the “Stop the Steal” rally. After listening to several hours of arguments statistical, historical, and political, they were adjured to march to the Capitol to make their voices heard. At that point, the sheer fact of mass became important. Tens of thousands began to stream toward the Capitol to do what, exactly? No petitions had been prepared to present to their members of Congress. No preparations had been made to organize protests by, or to address, a crowd of that size, or even to contain them safely. They were left, apparently, to lap up against the building like waves pounding a breakwater.
The president didn’t address them. His rally was over, after all. He had returned to the White House to watch the unfolding protest on television. It was wild, unscripted, reality TV, with the participants left to make it up as they went along. No one knew whether the resulting show would be drama or comedy. It turned out to be tragedy.
The Second Impeachment
The Left and the Never Trump Republicans had long insisted that Donald Trump was a threat to American democracy. The reasons were exhaustive, from Russia collusion to his alleged racism and bad character. He was denounced as (depending on the expert) an authoritarian, a populist, or even an authoritarian populist.
In one afternoon, in broad daylight, Trump seemingly gave them the proof they had been looking for. “Suddenly all but the most fanatical partisans,” exclaimed Michelle Goldberg in the New York Times, “admitted that Trump was exactly who his fiercest critics have always said he was…. The siege of the Capitol wasn’t a departure for Trump, it was an apotheosis.” Almost instantly, the House of Representatives impeached him for “incitement of insurrection.” Within days, a general delegitimization or shaming set in: a law firm dropped the Trump Organization as a client; the PGA yanked a tournament from one of his golf courses; Twitter, Facebook, Snapchat, and other social media platforms banned him from their pages.
He gave them the rope with which to hang him, someone said. Five years after Watergate, reflecting to interviewer David Frost, Richard Nixon admitted something similar: “I gave them a sword and they stuck it in and they twisted it with relish. I guess if I’d been in their position, I’d have done the same thing.” More than two years passed between the Watergate burglars’ arrest and Nixon’s resignation. The campaign to delegitimize Trump is going much quicker, though its ultimate success is less sure. The point is the same: to push the violator of democratic norms, the alleged threat to democracy, into a kind of internal exile, to exclude him, in effect, from polite society and from any possible political role. Nixon accepted his ostracism quietly, and went on to write many interesting books. Trump won’t do either...
