It is the equivalent, for Donald Trump, of the torture of the drop of water.
Posted on July 17
At each session of the public hearings of the commission on January 6, the former Republican president must certainly rage and … suffer. For a politician who could announce within weeks that he will run for the White House again in 2024, it’s torture.
Each time, we are entitled to new revelations, each as damning as the next, aimed at demonstrating that Donald Trump and some of his allies have engaged in criminal behavior.
How not to believe, now, that the insurrection of January 6, 2021 in Washington was the culmination of a long-matured strategy by the former president and the craziest members of his close guard?
How not to believe that Donald Trump was ready to stay in power at all costs?
Even if it meant blocking the certification of the results of the November 2020 election. Even if it meant violence. Even if it meant American democracy wasn’t going to recover anytime soon.
The most recent session, last Tuesday, was the seventh in this series (and possibly one of the last). It made it possible to understand to what extent the call launched on December 19, 2020 on Twitter by Trump to his faithful for the holding of a “big demonstration” in Washington served as a catalyst for the insurrection.
As soon as this tweet was published, many officials and members of far-right groups began to feverishly and coordinate to ensure the success of this demonstration.
The tweet was seen by some Donald Trump supporters as “a call to arms”, according to the commission members.
Various evidence released Tuesday also showed that the president, in the days leading up to the Jan. 6, 2021 protest, had already decided he was going to urge his supporters to march on Capitol Hill.
“The president’s goal was to stay in power for a second term despite losing the election. The crowd gathered was one of the tools to achieve this objective, ”summarized one of the nine members of the commission, the elected Democrat Stephanie Murphy.
With all that we have heard since the beginning of these public hearings, it is difficult to prove him wrong.
The most disturbing revelations so far have come from Cassidy Hutchinson, a valuable assistant to White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, himself a staunch Trump ally.
Disgusted by what she had witnessed, she sat down to eat. In particular, she alleged that the president knew, before encouraging his supporters to go to the Capitol, that several of them were armed. He even reportedly got angry because they weren’t allowed access to where he was giving his speech without going through a metal detector.
Cassidy Hutchinson also said that the president had pressured the agents responsible for his security so that he too could go to the Capitol.
What is increasingly clear, too, is that many of those who played a role in this attempted coup were aware of the nature of their abuses. Nearly a dozen would have tried to obtain presidential pardon before Donald Trump left power.
Like their president, they were as treacherous as they were dangerous.
Rejoice, the work of the commission seems to have made the star of the former Republican president fade a little.
A recent survey (New York Times – Siena College) indicates that nearly half of Republicans intend to vote for a candidate other than him in the next Republican primary season.
Nevertheless, Donald Trump remains, by far, the most popular of all the potential suitors. He collects 49% of the voting intentions, compared to 25% for his closest rival, the governor of Florida, Ron DeSantis.
If American democracy were in good health, the vast majority of Americans, Democrats and Republicans alike, would have long since disavowed the former president. Yet he retains tens of millions of supporters. This is anything but good news.
Journalist Mélanie Marquis recently told us that on this side of the border, even before the 2020 US presidential election, the federal government feared backlash in the country.
We are not done worrying.
It remains to be hoped that the commission’s further work will continue to erode the support that Donald Trump still enjoys. And that he will not get away without paying, this time, for the consequences of his actions.