Trump Prepared For This Insurrection His Entire Presidency

Trump insurrectionists laying siege to the Capitol building – January 6, 2021. (Tyler Merbler/Creative Commons)

The images will be engraved in our minds forever. The People’s House was attacked. Not by foreign terrorists as in 9/11. This came at the hands of our own people. We still don’t know what, if anything, will follow. We only know that despite the attack, Congress did finally certify the victory of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris as President and Vice President.

We were shocked. We should not have been surprised.

We usually don’t expect drama when Congress meets on January 6 to count the ballots of the Electoral College and certify the winner, in this case, Joe Biden. It’s a formality that hasn’t received attention since 1876. However, this year President Trump and his allies announced the election had been stolen from him. The nation watched dumbfounded as the Trump forces unleashed storms of tweets and lawsuits to “Stop the Steal” and throw out many thousand of Biden votes.

The judiciary stood firm and dismissed the lawsuits. No proof had been offered. Only wild conspiracy theories.

With all legal avenues closed, a number of Republican senators and representatives planned to challenge – without basis – votes from a number of States. To further make the point, the Trump faction planned an incendiary rally just before Congress met to certify Joe Bidden as our next president.

And shortly after the joint session was gaveled in, shots were heard. In the Capitol. On live television, the world saw an unprecedented attack on our own Capitol. By Americans. Our citizens.

CHAOS ON CAPITOL HILL: A massive crowd of protestors forced a lockdown as members of Congress inside debated over Republican challenges to Joe Biden’s presidential victory. Some Trump supporters were chanting, “We took over the Capitol.”
WATCH LIVE: https://t.co/epwfQJCsDl pic.twitter.com/Ks9UccaI2z

— ABC13 Houston (@abc13houston) January 6, 2021

Hordes of people, most armed, many in costume rushed into the building. Leaders, especially those in the line of presidential succession, were whisked to undisclosed locations. Soon alul were taken to safety. But not without seeing unreal scenes of danger.

Scenes emerged of a rioter in Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office with his feet on her desk. Note that he knew how to find her office. The Parliamentarian’s office was ransacked. Meanwhile, some quick thinking women rescued the ballots and took them to safety. That is not unlike 1814 when the British burned the White House and Dolly Madison rescued our founding documents.

The man pictured in Nancy Pelosi’s office took a piece of her mail, made it out safely, then posed for a pic pic.twitter.com/UckbTRHZsW

— Kayla Brantley (@_KaylaBrantley) January 6, 2021

The Capitol Police were quickly overwhelmed. No help was forthcoming. President Trump reportedly refused to bring in the DC National Guard, and Vice President Mike Pence had to coordinate the decision.

From a bunker, House Majority Leader, Democratic Rep. Steny Hoyer and Senate Minority Leader, Senator Chuck Schumer, called Maryland Governor Larry Hogan, a Republican. They told him he urgently needed to send the Maryland National Guard. Governor Hogan quickly agreed. But it wasn’t to be simple. Hogan needed federal permission to send his troops onto federal property. Hogan immediately requested that permission.

Ninety minutes later, Governor Hogan received that permission. Help finally arrived.

There were four deaths and a number of injuries. Finally, the rioters left and Congress resumed its session. Late that night, they certified the election.

On January 6, we were shocked. We should not have been surprised. This did not happen in a vacuum.

Over the last few years, we’ve become accustomed to hate rallies. In 2017, we watched as the Proud Boys and other white supremacists marched in Charlottesville, VA. At night, they carried Tiki torches and chanted: “white lives matter” and a Nazi slogan, “Jews will not replace us.” Counter-protestors did show up that night and the next day. And that was when an avowed white supremacist deliberately rammed his car into a crowd of counter-protestors, wounding 19 and killing a young activist, Heather Heyer.

We wanted President Trump to condemn the hate groups. Any president would. However, President Trump said, “There were very fine people on both sides.”

The nation gasped. And moved on.

We were accustomed even then to hateful, insulting presidential tweets. We couldn’t dwell on that, because other jarring episodes came up which were replaced by other jarring episodes. Republicans simply accepted that Trump was playing to his base. Most were unwilling to contemplate the likely outcome.

A group of mental health professionals wrote extensively about the president’s behavioral and psychological issues. They wrote despite the long-standing ”Goldwater Rule” stating that diagnoses cannot be made without actual examination of a patient. But they found Trump’s behavior so frightening, so egregious that they warned us of the chaos that he could bring. Mary Trump, the President’s niece, is a clinical psychologist and wholly agreed with the aforementioned group.

Their consensus: if confronted with loss, he was likely to mentally deconstruct.

Meanwhile, Republicans decided he just liked chaos and therefore, ran the country like that. Few stopped to consider that he was incapable of anything but chaos.

From Trump’s first campaign and on, Trump rallies were known for generating hate and fear. Reporters feared for their safety. Still, the networks made sure we saw these rallies in all their ugliness. The media didn’t realize how contagious hate and anger can be.

Trump railed against immigration, separated families, and locked immigrant children in cages. He railed against Black Lives Matter. Not once did he forcefully condemn white supremacists, it was disingenuous and came with qualifiers. The Chaos President continually generated anger and hate that festered and grew. This was going to find an outlet.

Still, Republicans sat back. He was after all the Chaos President. Trump was Trump. He had a loyal base, which led to other Republicans’ political fear of him. And their fear of angry tweets. Their jobs mattered too much to warrant a real stand.

In April 2020, as the Covid-19 pandemic struck, Trump and the science world clashed. Trump downplayed it out of fear it would hurt him politically. Scientists correctly warned that this disease was highly contagious, lethal, and no treatment existed. Governor Whitmer of Michigan closed much of her state and saved a lot of lives. President Trump irately tweeted: “Liberate Michigan,”

Coincidentally, shortly after that, armed white supremacists invaded the Michigan Assembly in an attempt to intimidate. Did the President condemn this? Of course not. Did we rise in anger? Of course not.

It wasn’t long before these haters plotted to kidnap and kill Governor Whitmer. Presidential condemnation? Of course not. We grew accustomed to this insanity.

Now let’s fast forward to the presidential election in the midst of the pandemic. During the primaries, states realized the danger of in-person voting. Many expanded their capacities for mail-in and early voting. Keep in mind, some states had previously moved to exclusively mail-in votes.

Aided by right-wing media and conspiracy theorists, Trump lost no time in falsely asserting that mail-in ballots and early voting guaranteed fraud. Except in Florida, where the Trumps mailed in early ballots. Soon we discovered that the post office was moving slowly. The reason? Trump-appointed a new Postmaster General, Louis DeJoy, who wasted no time in slowing mail distribution systems.

Trump and his supporters claimed that President-elect Joe Biden was fragile, suffered from dementia, was “sleepy, ” and a criminal, Biden won the election. Ever since he’s hurled charges of voter fraud; thousands of dead people voting; mysterious bags of ballots mysteriously appearing, and worse.

Former Vice-President Joe Biden won with a compelling majority. The Trump machine ramped up the fraud charges and flooded the courts with lawsuits demanding that states throw out votes. They did not produce even one supporting fact.

No matter. Trump and his supporters chanted “Stop the Steal.” They claimed that Trump won the election by large margins. Even though Joe Biden clearly won.

Trump demanded three recounts in Georgia. No matter how often they counted, the votes remained the same with Biden as the victor. Trump then called the Georgia Secretary of State and demanded that he “find” 11,708 votes for Trump. The President’s anger was obvious as fellow Republican Mr. Brad Raffensburger explained the law and that he could not do that.

And this brings us to the shattering scenes in the Capitol

We were shocked. We should not have been surprised.