On this second day of the Senate trial, Republican House managers presented another day of disturbing video evidence, much of which had never been shown before, and compelling arguments. In my opinion, it was so convincing that Trump did indeed, and purposely so, incite the crowd he gathered on Certification Day, January 6th, to assault the Capitol Building and literally “fight like hell” against the 500+ members of Congress gathered there to certify the electoral votes making Joe Biden president.
But the Republican Party is so corrupt now, being frightened of the power of Donald Trump with voters, that they lack the courage to do what is obviously the right thing to do, which is to convict Donald Trump of incitement to insurrection and afterwards vote to bar him forever from running for any future political office. Seventeen Republican senators’ votes are needed to convict him, and it ain’t going to happen.
The House managers presented various time periods of Trump and his impact on people. First was the last few months leading up to Election Day, on November 3rd, in which Trump was giving speeches priming hearers for the possibility of his losing the election and claiming if he did it would be “rigged.” Managers were doing this to eventually prove that Trump’s speech on Certification Day could not be understood non-literally, as Trump’s inept lawyers will surely argue beginning tomorrow.
Second was the two months between Election Day and Certification Day, in which Trump and his supporters brought sixty failed lawsuits to overthrow election results. He constantly spoke publicly and tweeted saying the election was a “fraud.” Days near January 6th he implored his Vice President Mike Pence to reject election results on Certification Day. When Mike said he couldn’t do that, since he had no authority to do it, Trump started repeatedly calling publicly for Pence to do so. At this point, Trump had turned on his VP and began threatening his life, which he did quite vividly in his 80-minute speech on Certification Day.
Third was House managers providing much video and Trump speech of Certification Day, providing excellent timelines showing how events interspersed together, including the assault on the Capitol Building and the members of Congress seeking safety inside. It became even more apparent how dangerous the situation was for them, especially Mike Pence and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. The thousands of rioters were constantly yelling and chanting things like “hang Mike Pence” and “where’s Nancy.”
I thought that House managers made such a convincing case, especially with so much video, showing that Trump indeed was trying to overthrow our democratic system of government in its most vulnerable period of transition from one administration to another. Something like this has never happened in the 243-year history of this republic. Since our founding fathers had come from state tyranny governments in the Old World to try to establish a free and fair democratic system of government, that recognizes human rights, in this New World, their main concern was to write a Constitution that would prevent the violent, autocratic overthrow and of it, which was exactly what Donald Trump was trying to do.
Why had Trump done this? Many think it is due to his ego, his narcissistic personality. I don’t think so. Rather, it what I posted on January 3–“Trump Is Doing All This Crazy Stuff to Try to Stay Out of Prison.”
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