H-12197<\/a>)<\/p>\nMeanwhile, in dozens of ways, Trump emboldened the most extreme of his supporters. Recall his outcry \u201cliberate Wisconsin.\u201d Trump\u2019s support for the armed invasion of the Michigan state capitol with impunity, and the many signals, and inactions showed the white supremacists in the streets that the President and Williams Barr\u2019s Justice Department would overlook hateful racist mischief and mayhem. He even encouraged one of these groups by repeating their militant mantra verbatim.<\/p>\n
Published warnings about Trump\u2019s interest in insurrection were largely unheeded by the mass media and even by the independent progressive media. They were too satisfied with reporting his outrageous tweets and behaviors, too pleased with how easy a subject Trump was for derision. We and others would invoke specific criminal statutes he violated frequently, such as the Hatch Act (using federal property and personnel for political campaign objectives) or the Anti-Deficiency Acts (spending much money strictly not appropriated by Congress) and other grave flouting of statutory and regulatory, mandates, scores of congressional subpoenas and major constitutional provisions. The news media did not regard Trump\u2019s deep lawlessness as worthy of much reporting or editorializing. The excuse was \u201cTrump is just being Trump.\u201d Both the media and members of Congress allowed Trump, without citing legal penalties, to keep pushing the envelope on lawbreaking until his invasion of the very Congress that let him get away with so much. It took \u2013 lawmakers scrambling for their lives through Congressional tunnels to wake them up beyond their rhetoric or perfidy. There are severe consequences for ignoring the law\u2019s non-enforcement when the media and elected officials become too jaded to challenge a president who doesn\u2019t respect the rule of law or constitutional restraints.<\/p>\n
This assault may not be Trump\u2019s last act before January 20th. For sure he will increase the presidential pardons for his friends, family, and quite possibly the rioters and himself. Nobody knows what this \u201cMad Dog\u201d Trump will try to do on his way out? However, it is reassuring that neither the courts nor the military have met his expectations of supporting and shielding him from his adversaries. These two institutions affirmatively refused to sanction dictatorial rule.<\/p>\n
The mounting calls for Trump\u2019s resignation, or prosecution, or removal by impeachment conviction or the exercise of the 25th<\/sup> Amendment are coming from all sides \u2013 Democrats, Republicans, bi-partisan declaration of retired military and civilian officials from past Administrations, and even business groups such as the National Association of Manufacturers. Their immediate urging would be to stop further mayhem and upheavals by a cornered, rampaging commander-in-chief who knows that, in one of his favorite phrases, \u201cthis is our last chance.\u201d<\/p>\nMaybe merely advancing these acts of enforcement and evictions, rooted in our constitution and law, will be a deterrence and persuade Trump to quietly go right away to Mar-a-Largo, as suggested today on NPR by Jeh Charles Johnson, former Secretary of Homeland Security.<\/p>\n
That kind of finale has not been his MO, whether as a failed gambling czar, choosing corporate bankruptcy as an exit strategy, or as a president who doesn\u2019t show remorse, admit mistakes, or that he ever \u201cdid anything wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n
If there is anything Trump dislikes more than being a loser (the election), it is being a two-time loser. Perhaps he will back down, play the victim again, and with a stable of defense attorneys, hope that he can wear a pin-striped suit instead of an orange jumpsuit while wistfully watching Fox News behind bars.<\/p>\n\n
This post was originally published on Radio Free<\/a>. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Ralph NaderJanuary 8, 2021 Despite the many crimes Donald Trump regularly committed over four years, it took his blatant incitement of the mob that stormed the U.S.\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":145,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[425,4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6413"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/145"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6413"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6413\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6414,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6413\/revisions\/6414"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6413"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6413"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6413"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}