Enough is enough. There really is no other way to contextualize perhaps the darkest day for America since airplanes hit the World Trade Center in 2001. Donald Trump is not going to quell his mob and odds are his followers aren’t going to listen to him anymore anyway. As rioters stormed the Capitol building, several Republicans and pundits demanded Donald Trump speak up and ‘call it off’.
Who are they talking to? It’s not Donald Trump’s responsibility, apparently. He had his opportunity earlier in the day as he addressed a crowd in a long rambling grievance-fest. Now it’s time for Congress to speak up and use its constitutional authority to end this.
Congress has the absolute power to do so. Make it final. Make it unanimous. Make it known. Donald Trump is no longer interested in governing. He’s only interested in making his exit as painful as possible. That is damaging the country.
What happens today will have real ramifications as the Biden administration attempts to get hold on the country. False tweets and unproven conspiracy theories are not impeachable offenses. We all knew as a country who Donald Trump was when we elected him. Enough, now. Remove Donald Trump as president and allow the Electoral College and Congress to do its work.
I did not believe Trump’s phone call to the Ukrainian president was so bad as to require impeachment. Back in January, our government should perhaps have been more focused on a new mysterious respiratory virus spreading out from China.
Now, none of that matters. Today Trump ginned up his DC crowd. The marchers then descended upon the United States Capitol, smashed windows and doors, assaulted police and took over the Senate chamber, preventing Congress from performing their constitutional duty.
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They endangered the lives of duly elected officials and their innocent staffers. A woman died. Still, it’s a miracle that what happened today did not get worse and there should be no further opportunity for Donald Trump to use the levers of the most powerful office on Earth to stand by and let this happen again.
If Donald Trump wants to encourage sedition and insurrection, he can do so as a private citizen from here on out and face the legal consequences. He should however be immediately removed from the Oval Office. It would be messy but no messier than what happened today. No arguments. No debates. No months-long investigations. We all saw with our own eyes and own ears what transpired in front of cameras today. There should be no ambiguity. No whistleblowers to challenge or cross-examine.
Fourteen days is a long time for someone like Donald Trump to continue to maximize his special brand of damage. In a Twitter video from the White House, he finally told his crowd perched across the Capitol stairs to go home, while still supporting the reason they should be there. That since-deleted speech should be Donald Trump’s final statement as president of the United States.
