We have to agree, as a country, that what happened on Wednesday, January 6, was as far as the Trump project can possibly go and unite to condemn the whole shebang. We have to make it clear that not only is this behavior unacceptable, but, come to think of it, the fact that Trump has completely abandoned even the pretense of combating the pandemic at this most critical moment, all to devote more time to stealing an election—well, that’s unacceptable too.
Some encouraging signs have emerged to signal that this time is finally different, and that the Trump brand may be indelibly tarnished.
There’s the increasingly vocal effort to remove Trump from office, along with a flurry of embarrassingly late resignations. Shopify has taken down Trump’s merchandise sites, a step toward marking the MAGA hat as the aggressive gang paraphernalia it represents. And Facebook has finally suspended Trump’s account indefinitely.
To paraphrase an oft-repeated sentiment, how can the president be unable to access Facebook, but still have access to the nuclear codes?
What more will it take for us as a country to not only remove Trump from office but fully condemn him? When will columns such as this one be considered not a partisan screed from a Trump-hater but the rational analysis of a horrified observer?
People often defer to history as the ultimate arbiter for Trump, but Wednesday’s failed insurrection proved that we don’t have the luxury of waiting. We need to set the historical record straight right now.
A majority of Americans voted Trump out of office in a free and fair—and exhaustively inspected—election, exactly for this purpose. And then Trump incited a treasonous coup in order to try to stop their will from coming to fruition.
If we wait for the Biden administration to investigate; if we whitewash this moment into a tamer interpretation; if we don’t assert, loudly and clearly, that the majority of Americans want this madness to end forever, then the answer to the question of “What would it take?” is clear.
Not anything.
By Joe Berkowitz, an opinion columnist at Fast Company
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