If there was any doubt that Donald Trump is the worst president in American history, the rock-solid findings of the January 6 committee have put that doubt to rest.
I haven't watched all of my recording of tonight's primetime hearing by the committee into Trump's 187 minutes of utter inaction following the insurrection at the nation's capitol. But I listened to about an hour while driving around, and looked at some of the hearing when I returned home.
It's amazing that there's anyone in the United States who still backs Trump.
If any other president had done 1/1000 of the horrible stuff Trump did in his four years in office, and continues to do at the present moment, there's no way that former president would maintain any credibility, much less be seriously considered for a second term.
This shows how true the frog-in-boiling-water analogy is, even if I doubt a frog would truly remain in a pot while the water was heated to 212 degrees.
Bit by bit, day by day, we Americans were exposed to Trump's lies, incompetence, and malevolence so often, in so many ways, it became easy to view Trump as either a buffoon or a crazy uncle who somehow made it into the Oval Office.
But the January 6 committee has revealed that Trump is even worse than that. He's a lying incompetent malevolent crazy buffoon who also is a wanna-be authoritarian. Trump knew he lost the election to Joe Biden.
Yet Trump worked hard to stay in office illegally, January 6, 2021 being his last gasp at trying to remain president by any means within his power. This is so un-American, so against the ideals of our constitutional democracy, anyone who continues to support Trump is a democracy-hater.
If that sounds harsh because you're someone who likes that Trump appointed three anti-abortion Supreme Court justices, cut taxes on corporations, imposed tariffs on China, or whatever, think about this.
While the nation's capitol was being attacked by an angry armed mob, chanting "Hang Mike Pence!", Trump sat for over three hours in the White House watching Fox News, ignoring the pleas of his deeply conservative staff to issue a statement decrying the violence and telling the mob to go home.
Is this how you want the Commander in Chief to behave? If a foreign power attacks the United States, are you really OK with the president doing nothing because he figures he'll benefit from the attack? And do you believe Trump would have stood up to Putin after Russia invaded Ukraine when Trump wasn't even willing to act against an insurrectionist crowd invading the capitol?
Sadly, most Republicans still back Trump, or at least aren't opposing him. This shows that the Republican Party has lost not only its moral compass, but also its political instincts. There's no longer any upside to supporting Trump.
It might help a candidate win a Republican primary. However, an ever-increasing share of American voters are beyond tired of Trump's attacks on democracy. There's a good chance they'll give Democrats more election wins this November than was being predicted just a few months ago.
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