The Trump cult members are turning on Republicans who they think are insufficiently loyal to their Dear Leader. Astonishingly, here is a mob at the Washington airport attacking Lindsey Graham, one of the most loyal of toadies. Apparently it was so bad that he decided not to take a flight
The very right wing editorial board of the Wall Street Journal has called on Trump to resign.
If Mr Trump wants to avoid a second impeachment, his best path would be to take personal responsibility and resign. This would be the cleanest solution since it would immediately turn presidential duties over to Mr Pence And it would give Mr Trump agency, a la Richard Nixon, over his own fate.
This might also stem the flood of White House and Cabinet resignations that are understandable as acts of conscience but could leave the government dangerously unmanned. Robert O’Brien, the national security adviser, in particular should stay at his post.
We know an act of grace by Mr. Trump isn’t likely. In any case this week has probably finished him as a serious political figure. He has cost Republicans the House, the White House, and now the Senate. Worse, he has betrayed his loyal supporters by lying to them about the election and the ability of Congress and Mr. Pence to overturn it. He has refused to accept the basic bargain of democracy, which is to accept the result, win or lose.
It is best for everyone, himself included, if he goes away quietly.
Finally Trump came out of hiding and gave a short speech accepting what he should have done immediately after the election, acknowledging that a new administration would be taking office on January 20th.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 8, 2021
America is and must always be a nation of law and order. The demonstrators who infiltrated the Capitol have defiled the seat of American democracy. To those who engage in the acts of violence and destruction: you do not represent our country. And to those who broke the law: you will pay.
…Now, Congress has certified the results. A new administration will be inaugurated on January 20. My focus now turns to ensuring a smooth, orderly and seamless transition of power.
Robert Moore of the British ITV News and his cameraperson were embedded with the mob that stormed the Capitol building and captured gripping video of the events and the people who were involved. It was really ugly.
Watch @robertmooreitv's report from inside the Capitol building as the extraordinary events unfolded in Washington DChttps://t.co/krCQf1uQbx pic.twitter.com/SiWbzF5Nzs
— ITV News (@itvnews) January 6, 2021
Meanwhile, I received from a friend this clip (made by Donald Trump’s idiot son) of people in the White House actually celebrating as they watched the riot unfold on TV screens.
Here is the president watching and cheering for insurrectionists from the White House yesterday.
— Nathaniel O’Dell #BLM (@ODell_Nathaniel) January 7, 2021
The Guardian has a detailed breakdown. with maps, photos, and videos of the sequence of events as they unfolded yesterday. They also provide a sequence of the inflammatory rhetoric of Trump and his acolytes leading up to yesterday.
One thing jumped out at me about the crowd: “Members of the crowd, including some wearing body armour and helmets, begin peeling away from the park, walking the kilometre or so down Pennsylvania Avenue towards the Capitol.”
This is consistent with other reports that I read that said that some of the people who first breached the capitol building were organized and following a pre-determined plan. This was not entirely a spontaneous riot.
After the extraordinary scenes of rioting by a Trump supporting mob that actually invaded the halls of Congress forcing all its members to evacuate until the mob was cleared out and the certification of Joe Biden was allowed to continue, the question is what comes next?
Here is a short video of the invasion
The ransacked office of the Senate Parliamentarian: pic.twitter.com/E7PsSgoAEX
— Ali Zaslav (@alizaslav) January 7, 2021
DC Police saying in live update that they have made 52 arrests.
Yes, only 52.
They also recovered pipe bombs both at the RNC and the DNC and found a vehicle on Capitol grounds with a long gun and molotov cocktails.
— Heather Caygle (@heatherscope) January 7, 2021
If there is one person to whom Democrats should doff their hats to today, it is Stacey Abrams. She lost a narrow race for governor of Georgia to Brian Kemp in 2018 when Kemp, who was then the secretary of state and thus is charge of running the elections, pulled out all the stops to hinder voting by poor and minority communities.
Because of her impressive showing in spite of these massive obstacles, Democrats saw her as a future star and tried to recruit her to run for other offices. But she decided that what she wanted to do was fight vigorously to overcome the registration and voting injustices in her state and she has been indefatigable in pursuit of that goal. And now we see the results of that effort: Joe Biden won Georgia and now Democrat Raphael Warnock has won one senate seat and Jon Ossoff is very likely to win the other. These will have a far bigger impact on the national political scene than if Abrams had won the election to become Georgia’s governor or to some other office, because it gives control of the senate to the Democrats. The expected wins by both Democrats also further solidifies my reputation for getting election predictions wrong.
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Last night revealed the real vice that the vice-president is in. Mike Pence has spent the last four year being an utter toady, one of the most obsequious yes-men to Trump, but now he is faced with the stark fact that Trump is demanding that he do what Pence, not being totally nuts like his boss, knows that he cannot do. But he cannot come right out and say it, so he is doing a tap dance in the hope that Trump will not force him to make a fool of himself when he presides over the joint session of Congress tomorrow when Joe Biden’s victory will have to be certified by him.
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