A Complete Analysis Of Trump’s 208th, And Final, Unpresidented Week As POTUS

President Trump was impeached a second time for inciting an insurrection against the country he's supposed to protect. This will be his legacy.
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by: Ahmed Baba on January 17, 2021

On January 13, 2021, the United States House of Representatives voted to adopt an article of impeachment accusing President Donald Trump of incitement of insurrection.

On January 13, 2021, the United States House of Representatives voted to adopt an article of impeachment accusing President Donald Trump of incitement of insurrection.

Updated January 19, 2021 to include developments that happened in Trump’s final days.

Trump’s first major typo after winning the election was spelling Unprecedented incorrectly. He infamously tweeted “Unpresidented.” This typo is emblematic of his administration: An impulsive, frantically thrown together group of characters with virtually no oversight. After Trump was sworn in, I started writing the weekly “Unpresidented” column, analyzing every week of his presidency. This is week 208, Trump’s last full week in office. A 4-year summary edition of Unpresidented will be dropping on January 19.

We’re here. We’ve just endured the final week of Donald Trump’s presidency. It was the week Trump was impeached by the House of Representatives for the second time, the first president in history to wear that dishonor. It was the week large parts of Washington, D.C. were put in lockdown as we learned of more potential threats from pro-Trump terrorists ahead of the inauguration. It was the week Trump’s approval rating hit a historic low of 29% at the Pew Research Center. It was the week Trump further solidified his rank as the worst President in history.

Before 2020, Trump still may have been outdone by Andrew Johnson or George W. Bush as worse presidents. Trump had yet to do as much damage as Johnson did when he kept the Confederacy alive, and Trump hadn’t gotten hundreds of thousands of people killed like Bush’s lie-based wars. But in 2020, President Trump laid the groundwork for a deadly insurrection with sustained disinformation, and his incompetence allowed hundreds of thousands of Americans to die from a pandemic he failed to contain. Until Trump, no president in history had ever so callously allowed hundreds of thousands of Americans to die and sought to violently overthrow American democracy itself.

But even after all of his cruelty, we sat and watched as far too many House Republicans defended this corrupt, failed President. Led by Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), Republicans sought to deflect blame for the violent insurrection to the feet of Democrats. They tried to claim Trump actually encouraged peaceful protest in his speech that incited the storming of the Capitol. Others, like House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), acknowledged that Trump bears responsibility for the insurrection but still argued against impeaching President Trump, claiming it would be divisive. These calls for unity are a transparent attempt to shield Trump and themselves from accountability.

On the other hand, there were Republican voices who spoke out against President Trump. Top Republicans like Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) and Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY) signaled they were no longer supporting him. Cheney went the furthest, sending out a statement the night before Wednesday’s impeachment vote declaring she would vote to impeach the president. McConnell leaked to the press indicating that he is pleased with the impeachment effort but is undecided on whether to convict President Trump.

The final impeachment vote, which took place at the scene of the crime where insurrections had just sought to desecrate the House chamber one week before, was 232-197. 10 Republicans voted with Democrats. This week’s impeachment vote gives us the opportunity to prevent President Trump from running for office ever again if Senate Republicans convict him for inciting an insurrection in the upcoming Senate trial. The Senators will be both jurors and witnesses to the conduct in question. I did a further breakdown of the impeachment vote and what could happen next in The Independent, but this is the point I really would like to drive home from that article:

After the Civil War, America had its first Reconstruction. During the civil rights era of the 20th century, America had its Second Reconstruction. We should think of this era as the beginning of America’s Third Reconstruction. We are fresh off a racist attack on the Union, but the threat of right-wing violence is far from abated. There are systemic racism challenges to address, and a sizable percentage of Americans radicalized by lies that led them to commit undemocratic actions. Will this delusional constituency and their leaders be held accountable, or will they be appeased in the manner they were after the Civil War? Will they continue to be fed lies by political leaders in the manner of the Southern Strategy that followed the 1960s?

What we do next will determine if this era will be remembered as the final resurgence of the ideological descendants of the Confederacy or a warning of things to come. We can’t let Trump break American democracy. The Senate should convict and ensure this authoritarian never sees political power again.

It’s been a pleasure writing this column, but this is not actually the final one. I’m currently working on a 4-year edition of Unpresidented, which will be complete with a summary analysis of the entire four years and a clickable database linking to each week. This will be published on Tuesday.

For now, let’s dive into the final Unpresidented week.

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The Calm Before Impeachment

Day 1,453: Monday, January 11

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and President Donald Trump (AP)

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and President Donald Trump (AP)

Monday’s top stories:

Top Republicans Abandon Trump

Day 1,454: Tuesday, January 12

Tuesday’s top stories:

Twice Impeached

Day 1,455: Wednesday, January 13

Donald Trump waits to step out onto the portico for his Presidential Inauguration at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, Friday, Jan. 20, 2017. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)

Donald Trump waits to step out onto the portico for his Presidential Inauguration at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, Friday, Jan. 20, 2017. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)

Wednesday’s top stories:

Biden Unveils COVID-19 Recovery Plan

Day 1,456: Thursday, January 14

Thursday’s top stories:

Biden Continues To Project Leadership In Trump’s Final Days In Office

Day 1,457: Friday, January 15

Former Vice President Joe Biden and Senator Kamala Harris (Biden Campaign Photo)

Former Vice President Joe Biden and Senator Kamala Harris (Biden Campaign Photo)

Friday’s top stories:

Final Days

Day 1,458-1,461: Saturday, January 16 – Tuesday, January 19

President Donald Trump walks towards Marine One as he departs from the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, Saturday, Dec. 16, 2017. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

President Donald Trump walks towards Marine One as he departs from the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, Saturday, Dec. 16, 2017. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

Top stories:

Rantt Media and ZipRecruiter


Unpresidented // Democratic Party / Donald Trump / House / Impeachment / Mitch McConnell / Nancy Pelosi / Radical Right / Republican Party / Senate
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by: Ahmed Baba

Ahmed Baba is the Co-Founder and President of Rantt. Writer of Unpresidented, Ahmed documented and analyzed every day of the Trump presidency. He's also a columnist at The Independent and his work has been cited in The New York Times, The Washington Post, BBC, Rolling Stone, BuzzFeed, The New York Post, The Huffington Post, Yahoo News, Blavity, Newsweek, The Telegraph, and more. He can be reached at [email protected] or found on Twitter @AhmedBaba_.

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