On his way out the door, Donald Trump made sure he would never lead his party again. He stood in the breach last Wednesday morning and uttered the worst words ever said by a president of this country when he urged the mob that had gathered to disrupt the certification of the November election. As with Pickett’s Charge, it involved a march across open ground at a fortified bastion of union authority, and like Pickett’s Charge, it fizzled completely. It was the high-water mark of a rebellion against the Constitution and the system of government that it had created, fueled by a losing president’s inability to accept reality.
Also urging on the mob was Republican Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley, who until last week had a future in politics. Now, even his book contract has been canceled because he now at least appears complicit in Capitol deaths and injuries. Most people in business (publishers being among them) tend to take pains to avoid being associated with such things.
Hawley has also been dropped by ex-mentor John Danforth, a supporter and sponsor of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, who,with his conservative colleagues,has been knocking down frivolous Trump election lawsuits.
All three “Trump justices” joined the three other conservatives and the three justices picked by Presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton in ruling against the case made by Trump’s lawyers when they came before them last year. Hawley now calls this lost contract “suppression of speech.” That is not true in this instance, as he is free to say and to write what he wishes. He is free now to seek and perhaps find other outlets, much as his publishers are free to disassociate themselves from people who urged armed assaults upon members of Congress.
Pictures exist of the senator raising his fist to the mob in a “follow me” gesture, perhaps in his mind reminiscent of Henry the Fifth in the battle of Agincourt. But in this case, he looks much more suggestive of Benedict Arnold, who betrayed his country. He has the rest of his life to regret this one moment, as he no doubt will be doing quite soon.
Before this occurred, the Republican Party was in for a busy four years of dealing with Trump and his roughed-up ego, bruised by the world and unhappy about it, looking for scapegoats upon whom to offload his own loss. On his way out of the door, he managed to lose the whole state of Georgia, dragging two senators down along with him, losing Senate control for Republicans, and bringing the federal government under unified Democratic control. Quite a feat for the man who had boasted of “WINNING,” or of winning so much that we would get tired of winning.
Having now lost the White House, the Senate, and Georgia, the Republicans may not be tired of winning. But they surely are weary of Trump.
