Trump’s choices: Resign or face removal

Wednesday, Jan. 6, 2021 | 8 p.m.

During the oath of office, the president of the United States pledges to support and defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic. In broader terms, the president is the symbol and defender of our system of government, our justice system and American ideals.

President Donald Trump defiled his oath of office. He should resign immediately and concede the election to President-elect Joe Biden. Trump must end his ego-driven attack on democracy and signal to his supporters in no uncertain terms that this is over.

Trump knows he has lost the election and yet amused himself with nonstop lies about the election being “stolen,” which has so radicalized his followers that we now face a very real prospect of continuing domestic terrorism by Trump supporters. We never expect Trump to do the right thing, but the only right thing for a president to do under these circumstances is to immediately step down and let the country move on peacefully.

Should anything short of that occur, the U.S. House should begin and expedite impeachment proceedings against Trump as soon as it reconvenes, followed by an equally expedited Senate trial and vote to expel him.

Impeachment and conviction has an additional benefit — Trump will be barred from ever holding federal office again.

Trump, in inciting his followers to take action and then sitting back in silence as they stormed the Capitol, committed the most anti-American act of his destructive presidency. More than ever, he revealed his contempt for democracy and the ideals that Americans hold sacred — free and fair elections, a civil legislative process and peaceful settling of disputes, government by and for the people, and law and order.

The violence that Trump fomented Wednesday created scarring images: armed thugs breaking windows and scrambling into the Capitol, gas-masked staff members cowering in the House chamber while security officers piled furniture against the doors and pointed weapons at intruders, the waving of flags associated with white-nationalist and right-wing extremist groups, and many more. Afterward came reports of pipe bombs being found around the building.

One person was shot and died hours later, numerous weapons were recovered, and more than a dozen people were arrested in the immediate aftermath, with many more undoubtedly to come.

For the first time since the British burned the Capitol two years after the start of the War of 1812, our citadel of democracy was attacked. Trump’s supporters committed countless crimes at his incitement — assaults on law enforcement officers, burglary, destruction of property, possibly worse. As of this writing, officials were still assessing the situation.

As President-elect Joe Biden aptly put it: “This is not dissent, it’s disorder. It’s chaos. It borders on sedition, and it must end now. It’s not protest, it’s insurrection.”

Biden was right, though he held back a bit. He failed to use the actual term: It was an attempted coup. A deluded coup by cosplay patriots animated by a fool from the White House, but a coup attempt nonetheless. No true American who witnessed this dark day could condone what happened.

Trump, when he finally issued a video statement at 1:21 p.m. Pacific time, offered a mixed-message statement in which he called for his followers to go home peacefully but also continued to fan the flames by repeating his lies about the election being stolen from him by “evil” people. Instead of immediately condemning the criminals who overran the Capitol and interrupted the process to verify the Electoral College results, he told them he loved them and that they were “special.”

“We had an election that was stolen from us — a landslide election and everyone knows it. But you have to go home now,” he said.

Trump’s actions throughout the day were appalling. He goaded his followers to march to the Capitol. He spent the morning repeating his false claims about election rigging. He assailed Vice President Mike Pence for announcing he wouldn’t violate the Constitution by unilaterally declaring the Electoral College outcome.

He lit match after match after match. Finally, things exploded. Meanwhile, he rubbed his tiny hands together and, coward that he is, scurried back to the White House to watch what he had unleashed on television while swilling Diet Coke.

When he initially tweeted a call to his followers to “remain peaceful” — ignoring a call from House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and others to go on TV to quell the situation — violence had already broken out.

Trump’s inner circle was no better. Rudy Giuliani, speaking at the rally before the storming of the Capitol, called for “trial by combat.” Donald Trump Jr. berated “all the Republicans who have not been willing to actually fight.”

More matches.

This cannot go on another two weeks.

Whether Trump has any capacity for considering anything but his self-interests is highly doubtful. But if he has any care for the country he says he loves, he will step down.

More likely, though, he’ll stay in the White House as long as he can — and remain a threat to democracy.

Trump discovered Wednesday how easy it was to disrupt Congress and stage a coup. Who knows what he’ll do next time.

Assuming he doesn’t resign, members of the House and Senate — especially the Republicans who committed to challenging the election results — need to unify in support of the country.

Let’s be clear: Those Republicans helped create the kindling that Trump ignited Wednesday, by endorsing his craven lies of election fraud. It was inexcusable before; now it’s nothing less than aiding and abetting insurrection.

Worse, without disowning this, Trump and his handmaidens in the Republican Party are sowing the seeds for continued domestic terrorism in the months and years to come. They have the ability to stop it all now by admitting it was nothing but the most brutal and deceitful political theater. If they don’t seize this moment and if they allow this dangerous fiction to continue, there will be blood on their hands.

Now Republicans and the nation have seen the ugly result of enabling Trump’s mob, up-close and in terrifying detail. The GOP agent provocateurs owe it to their constituents, and to generations of Americans who have fought and died to preserve our democracy, to admit their sins and retreat from this madness and hideous political opportunism. Both Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley should relinquish their office as well.

Trump’s vandalism spree of a presidency can’t go on. He must resign or immediately be removed from office. Even two more weeks is too great a risk.