By Michael Brendan Dougherty
Friday, January 08, 2021
Last night, Donald Trump read a speech from a
teleprompter. After condemning the violence of the last day, he acknowledged
the certification of the 2020 election. “My focus now turns to ensuring a
smooth, orderly, and seamless transition of power,” he said.
Too late. Maybe delivering a real-estate project or
paying off an angry creditor a few weeks late can be rewritten as “seamless.”
But governing is different. After two months, five dead souls at the Capitol, a
national disgrace broadcast around the world, and a significant portion of his
remaining administration resigning, Donald Trump’s concession and promise of
civic comity came too late.
Donald Trump’s name will be associated with the words
“peaceful transition of power” for the rest of our lives. Because, in his
vanity, he denied his country and his successor one. The phrase was a kind of
cliché or ceremonial utterance in American politics — a civic liturgical phrase
repeated so often that we were in danger of forgetting what it meant. Now every
news-conscious adult in America will think of that scene at the Capitol when
they hear it.
The image of protesters bursting through the Capitol
gates and the strange horned figure Q Shaman calling out for Mike Pence to show
himself will be played over and over again before presidential inaugurations.
We should have seen it coming. Trump refused to promise a
peaceful transition during the election and for more than two months after the
result was clear. He lied to his supporters about the nature of the election
and the operation of our Constitution. He knowingly and falsely accused his own
vice president of conniving to overturn the American form of government. His
supporters stormed the Capitol searching for Mike Pence, one of them died in
the affray, and a police officer died as well. Others died of “medical
emergencies” they may have survived if emergency vehicles could have reached
them more quickly.
The other side is contributing in its own ways. Joe Biden
has been nowhere until he gave a speech amid the chaos that was moderately
helpful, even dignified. But incoming Vice President Kamala Harris intervened
yesterday to say that the events at the Capitol demonstrated America’s racism.
She implied, falsely, that tear gas wasn’t used on the MAGA rampagers because
they were white. In fact not all of them were white, and many of them were
tear-gassed. My guess is that unlike this summer, she’s not going to promote a
bail fund for the MAGA people arrested in the coming days. Thanks, Kamala.
But who can even focus on the incoming Democrats? Trump’s
statement contained no concession that he lost, only that his focus was
changing. He offered no congratulations to Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. In
fact, he did not even say their names.
Those omissions will be pondered and reinterpreted by the
QAnon crowd. But his statement struck many of his diehards from the Capitol as
a form of abandonment and betrayal. They had spent weeks reminding themselves
that he hadn’t actually conceded. They understood perfectly that he had called
for them to “show strength” at Congress. What else could he have meant? Now the
gambit was over. Now they understood perfectly that he was encouraging their
arrest and prosecution. Probably because he had been talked into doing it.
That’s pathetic. Taking him seriously or literally was a crime. Trump said so.
They were suckers.
Trump declared a peaceful transition while the notices of
death were still rolling in.
But there is still hope. Our House and Senate finished their
work despite the interruption. America’s partisan divide — which is painful and
a source of fear for a great many — is reflected in the roughly balanced
composition of the House and Senate. And the operation of our laws and customs,
such as they are, give us an opportunity for renewal. Or at least for taking a
deep breath.
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