We don’t know yet what motivated a young man to try to assassinate former President Donald Trump, to kill a bystander and to seriously injure two others, but all evidence points to yet another suicidal and depressed young man who had easy access to an AR-15-style weapon. We know the kind: They’ve shot up our schools, our churches, our synagogues, our movie theaters, our clubs, our grocery stores and malls, our concerts. I’ll let others dissect the abject security failures that occurred and the scourge that comes from giving young men easy access to weapons that dispense mass death.
No one, Democratic or Republican, independent or otherwise, should have to face a bullet in the way Trump did. I condemn it.
Credit: Handout
Credit: Handout
But our former president does not get to take on the mantle of a martyr to violent rhetoric, regardless of how many defiant fist pumps he gives. And calls for civility notwithstanding, this does not mean Democrats or any of us can shy away from hard conversations about Trump and what his rhetoric, his track record and now his ticket — with Sen. JD Vance of Ohio as his vice presidential pick — will mean for our democracy.
I was in the Capitol complex on Jan. 6, 2021, and though a bullet didn’t whizz by my ear, I was barricaded in my office as a dangerous, homicidal mob incited by the former president stormed the Capitol.
For months prior, Trump had raged that the 2020 election had been stolen, despite repeated efforts by Republican elections officials in Georgia and around the country to assure him that the election was fair.
The mob on Jan. 6 didn’t just magically appear. It was summoned by the president. He tweeted that there would be a mass Stop the Steal protest that day: “Be there, will be wild!”
Nor were those marching on the Capitol there with no objective. They were told to march to the Capitol by Trump to give Pence the “courage” to overthrow the election.
For those who “pooh, pooh” the threat of that moment: What do you think that the man in tactical gear with zip ties in the Senate chamber was hoping to accomplish? What do you think that the rioters who tried to bash in the windows to the House floor were trying to accomplish? These weren’t poor upset tourists who wanted a tour. They were battering down the door to stop the certification of the election.
What do you think that the people who left pipe bombs in front of the offices of the Republican National Committee and the Democratic National Committee — not but a block from my office in the Longworth House Office Building — were trying to accomplish?
What do you think that the rioters wandering the halls near the office of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, calling out “Nancy, Nancy” were trying to accomplish as her desperate staff barricaded themselves into their offices? What do you think they would have done if they found her?
On Jan. 6, Vice President Mike Pence posted a letter saying that the vice president “did not have the unilateral authority to decide presidential contests.”
Not long after, Trump’s supporters hung a noose on the National Mall — not for Democrats — but for Pence. I cannot imagine a more direct threat of assassination.
Did Trump tone down his rhetoric? Did he “bring down the temperature”?
No.
Trump fanned the flames and tweeted: “Mike Pence didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our Country and our Constitution, giving States a chance to certify a corrected set of facts, not the fraudulent or inaccurate ones which they were asked to previously certify. USA demands the truth!”
During the attack on the Capitol, Trump was cloaked with all the power and strength of the presidency of the United States of America. He had taken an oath to uphold the U.S. Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic. But he sat at the White House and watched the riot unfold on his television screen, seeing the noose, seeing the attack on the House and Senate chambers, all televised in real time. Meanwhile, he fielded calls from senators, from friends, from supporters who begged him to tell the crowd to go home, to call the National Guard. Did he do any of this?
No.
He ate a hamburger. After an hour or so, he tweeted twice to the mob to “stay peaceful.”
Pence finally made the calls to dispatch the National Guard, but it took four fatal hours for them to get to the Capitol, while Capitol Police were beaten to a pulp. One died. Several others soon died by suicide.
Now, with Vance, Trump has selected a vice presidential candidate who says that, unlike Pence, he would have taken it upon himself to overturn the results of the election, an act that would effectively be a coup d’etat and throw the country into a constitutional crisis. Presumably, Vance would not have deployed the National Guard either.
Remind me, why is it a problem for Democrats to raise concerns that another term of Trump would threaten democracy?
I’ve never been one to pull my punches with my own party. I call it like I see it, and I don’t think Biden should be at the top of the ticket for Democrats. I’ll say it plainly: He’s too old. And I’m furious with the Democratic Party for putting forward a nominee who has become so vulnerable.
But if he’s the nominee, I will vote for him, and I urge every patriotic American to do the same.
Because, age notwithstanding, he and his vice president are not an active and aggressive threat to the democratic institutions of this country, as Trump has proven himself to be over and over again. And now he has a vice presidential running mate, who, rather than reassuring us that he would stand strong when called to defend the U.S. Constitution, has pledged his fealty to Trump, and, by doing so, has chosen power and politics over the well-being of this country.
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