A comforting thought came to me the other day: The conspiracy theories and lies of former President Trump and his followers may win a few battles and elections, but they aren’t sustainable over the long term.
Falsehoods won’t last. Not in a democracy based on the rule of law.
Democracy rules
Many Americans worry that a repeat of Jan. 6, 2021, is not only possible, but could succeed.
I don’t think so. Our 200-plus-year-old democracy is stronger than that. We already proved this once.
Trump lost the 2020 election. That is documented fact that will never be overturned. Trump supporters cannot provide evidence to prove otherwise.
Indeed, if there was election fraud, it was (and is) from Republicans – trying to strong-arm elections officials into illegally changing votes.
That won’t work, either.
Crossing the legal line
Trump stole documents from the White House – boxes and boxes of them. While we argue whether they were de-classified or not, the fact remains: He took documents that didn’t belong to him.
He wouldn’t give most of them back without a search warrant.
Trump wants a “special master” to go through those documents to see if some of them should be returned to him.
He doesn’t have the authority to make that request, because those documents aren’t his.
I can’t predict the outcome of the documents seizure, but I wouldn’t be surprised if Trump will eventually face criminal charges over it.
Jail time? He deserves it, because the rule-of-law president believes that laws don’t apply to him. He needs to be taught that lesson.
My way, or …
If he’s willing to learn anything.
Which he’s not. He played by his own rules before he became president, ignored his own advisers while serving as president, and continues to burn through lawyers and advisers who won’t defend him staunchly enough.
His method of leadership is not sustainable.
It might work in Russia. Vladimir Putin leads that nation in a similar fashion, but he’s a dictator. And look at the death and destruction he’s causing, especially in the Ukraine.
Control freak
Given the same opportunity, Trump would cause similar death and destruction.
Don’t believe me? Look at his COVID-19 response.
Because he could not control the virus, he blew it off – and by doing so, politicized a purely medical and health issue.
Trump could have united this country over COVID. He could have saved hundreds of thousands of lives, and prevented untold suffering.
His ego wouldn’t let him do it. That would require him to accept help from others – ie, scientists, researchers and medical professionals on the front lines of the COVID battle.
Trump refused all that.
He preferred death and destruction, because he thought he remained in control.
He didn’t.
COVID didn’t care. It killed and caused suffering anyway, because Trump wouldn’t support steps to prevent it or even slow it down.
The vaccines, produced in record time, worked.
COVID is still very much out there, but the current strain isn’t nearly as deadly as the first few strains were.
The nation (and world) got through the deadly strains, no thanks to Trump.
His foundation will crumble
Perhaps Trump’s greatest achievement as president, from the viewpoint of conservatives, was the hundreds of judges he appointed at all levels of the judiciary across the United States.
Yet, even those Trump-appointed judges aren’t accepting his legal filings and motions over elections and the Mar-a-Lago documents seizure.
Legally, Trump has lost his immunity because he is no longer president. He still thinks he is above the law.
He’s not.
His residence was entered with a search warrant.
As time marches on, Trump’s influence over this nation will wane. It has no foundation.
The followers who support him will become irrelevant, too.
We need a strong GOP
Will the Republican Party still be around when that happens? I hope so. I think so.
We need at least two political parties. I wish we had three.
Democracy is based on options. Choices.
There are more than two parties on our general election ballots, of course, but the Libertarian, Green and other parties don’t have the influence the Big Two do.
If the GOP implodes, that might leave a Big One. Which would be too close to a dictatorship.
The sooner the GOP divests itself of Trump, the better off the GOP will be – and the better off our nation will be.
A nation of laws and choices
Because Trump sustains himself on conspiracy theories and lies.
Despite what he thinks, the United States does not revolve around him. It doesn’t revolve around any individual. It never has.
That’s the genius of our Founding Fathers.
When John Adams was elected our second president in 1796, the first president, George Washington, peacefully stepped down from his role as the most powerful man in the country. This transition has taken place nearly four dozen times in our nation’s history.
Only once was the transition not peaceful: Jan. 6, 2021.
Trump lost, and could not force his way back in.
That’s not the way our democracy works.
And it never will.
Because we are a nation of laws. Of choices.
Don’t like the current president? Elections come every four years. Vote him out.
A word of advice to the Republican Party: In the 2024 election, give us an electable candidate.
A candidate based on conspiracies and lies will not be electable.
A vote for conspiracies and lies is a vote for death and destruction.
Literally.
That’s what we’ve learned over the past six years.
(photo credit: thedailybeast.com)
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