Mary L. Trump: Donald's Plot Against America
/August 12, 2021
Donald’s Plot Against America
Now, he and his GOP enablers are peddling the Second Big Lie: that January 6 was just legitimate protest. It’s the crucial ingredient in convincing America to return them—and him—to power.
I felt as though I had stumbled across a crime scene so violent that I couldn’t process it, let alone synthesize the images in front of me. The parts remained stubbornly separate, and there was no way to grasp the meaning of the whole.
In the early afternoon of January 6, while the mob was still swarming the stairs of the Capitol, I was asked in an interview what I thought of the unfolding situation. I watched the crowd that had been stoked that morning by my uncle, and by Republicans like Ted Cruz, Josh Hawley, and Mo Brooks, with their Confederate flags, their MAGA hats, and their Camp Auschwitz shirts; I watched the smoke (the origin of which I couldn’t yet discern) drift through the air, and I heard their shouts of grievance and anger. It looked like a scene from a failed country whose government had just been toppled, a banana republic; but it was the United States of America, my country, our country, and, knowing who was responsible for the chaos here, the first word that came to my mind was “tawdry.”
Of course, it was so much more than that—so much more dangerous and serious than that, as we would eventually find out. At around 2:15, while Republicans Cruz and Paul Gosar were objecting to the legitimate results of the election, the insurrectionists breached the Capitol, Congress was adjourned, and frantic attempts were made to get the vice president and all of the senators and representatives to safety.
Two hours later, the Georgia Senate race was called for Jon Ossoff. It mattered, certainly; it meant that the Democrats would control the Senate. But there was no room for celebration. After four years of Donald’s incessant attacks and ineptitude, we were already exhausted. Joe Biden’s victory was supposed to have offered us some reprieve, but having given Donald room to promote his Big Lie, elected Republicans had now granted him the opportunity to incite an insurrection. So there would be no respite from the madness, from Donald’s particular blend of mendacity, cruelty, and destructiveness. There would be no celebrating.
That horrific day—which we now know General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, referred to as a “Reichstag moment”—was bracketed by Donald’s incendiary speech given just before noon and a video released two hours after the Capitol had been breached that added more fuel to the fire. The speech itself was full of grievances—lies about the “landslide election” that had been stolen from him, threats to Mike Pence, whom he led the crowd to believe had the power to overturn the results of the election, fabulations about people voting as Santa Claus and Democrats’ taking down statues of Jefferson and Lincoln, and calls to action demanding that the crowd force Congress to “do the right thing.” In the 62-second video, Donald says the word peace three times, presumably because somebody convinced him he had to distance himself from the role he played in stoking the mob’s violence; but, because he can never help himself in these instances, he kept hammering away at what was supposedly stolen from them. The video sickened me just as the “apology” video he recorded after the Access Hollywood tape was released had sickened me. I feared the same result—that there would be no consequences.
That night, after I was finally able to turn off the news, the only two things I knew with absolute certainty were: one, that for the first time in our nation’s history there had not been a peaceful transfer of power, because my uncle, who could not accept his resounding defeat and the humiliation that came with it, had attempted to inspire a coup; and two, the next two weeks before Joe Biden’s inauguration would be the most dangerous this country had ever lived through.
more...
https://newrepublic.com/article/163115/donald-trump-plot-against-america
= new reply since forum marked as read
The Republicans have been dragging us down for years, tfg capitalized on the weaknesses they perpetuated. Mary discusses this in this article.
Our nation is teetering toward a tremendous loss. My heart actually aches.
?auto=compress&ar=3%3A2&fit=crop&crop=faces&q=65&fm=jpgLast edited Fri Aug 13, 2021, 02:26 AM - Edit history (1)
God, what a despicable excuse for a human being. 
Thank you for posting this.
I have great respect for Mary Trump.