Just a month ago, President Trump tried to carry out a coup to stay in power after losing the presidential election.
And yes, let’s call things what they are: it was a crude, absurd, grotesque, ill-conceived, worse executed, coup. But it was. Because to be one you don’t need the army. There were organized groups armed to the teeth that knew what they were doing. There was a crowd of fans unaware of what they were doing.
In the last decade there have been many overthrows and bloody attempts, in Latin America and around the world. This was it. With seven dead, 200 wounded, 300 accused insurrectionists and a country in suspense.
Trump did.
He did so with the approval of his party, with the activism of his supporters, and with the approving silence of others.
The attempt failed. Joe Biden is President and in both parties there is a desire to move forward to defeat the coronavirus and overcome the economic crisis.
But a poisonous nucleus of congressmen persists in Congress who are there, not to legislate but to destroy.
Like Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri, who waved with an outstretched arm and a closed fist, Trump-style, to the mob that invaded the Capitol on January 8, is the only one of the 100 who has opposed, because yes, to each and every one of the candidates for ministerial posts in the new government.
Like Congresswoman Lauren Boebert of Colorado, who they accuse of having shown the leaders of the mob, the day before the attack, where the offices of the Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi are. Boebert achieved her 10-minute fame for attempting to smuggle firearms onto the premises of Congress, as she, she wrote on Twitter:
“The government cannot tell me or my constituents how we are allowed to keep our families safe.”
https://twitter.com/laurenboebert/status/1345891049584132097 [/ embed]
And especially Marjorie Taylor-Greene from Georgia, with her anti-Semitic statements, false information, xenophobia, and aggressiveness.
She is for whom the fires in the West are due to the Jews having lasers that shoot from space.
Whoever said, and then backtracked, that the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 were false, as were the school massacres in Florida and Connecticut. Who supported QAnon’s dementia.
Who put a “like” that she exhorted to kill Pelosi.
Congress approved last week – with 11 Republican votes – to expel her from the Education and Budget committees. She now insults those who displaced her, Democrats or Republicans.
The mere fact of her presence in Congress is disturbing. Republicans have to monitor and control it. Her and her cohort.
There are more extremists. Like Congressman Jim Jordan, a leader of the Congressional Freedom Group, a karateka who pretends to be a populist by wearing his shirt sleeves.
As the mob approached the House deliberations room, he insisted on decertifying the election results in six states that Trump lost. Although he later tweeted his opposition to the takeover of Congress while it was taking place and criticized the assailants, he never found Trump responsible for anything.
Or Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, who joined Hawley but later questioned Trump’s attitude in interviews.
There is more.
But these are the most outstanding, the ones who least care about his words, the most open in his coup ideology.
Because it is nothing other than that: the coup trend in Congress.
They are more than a thorn in the side of democratic institutions. They are a poisonous plant that can grow and stab a democracy in the back.
Others claim to profess ignorance. Although they know that Trump is responsible for the riots, they are opposed to trying him claiming a false unconstitutionality of the trial.
The Republican minority leader in the Lower House Kevin McCarthy even said he did not know what Qanon was and refused to sanction Taylor-Greene. Yes, he had a conversation with her after which he expressed satisfaction. Of what?
Who else? Initially, 12 senators were going to object to the certification of votes in states that Trump lost. Then the mob broke in and everyone had to leave the compound. When he returned, there were only six left: Hawley, Cruz, Tommy Tuberville from Alabama, Roger Marshall from Kansas, Cindy Hyde-Smith from Mississippi. The rest thought better of things.
And more disturbingly, 121 members of the House of Representatives voted against the certification.
We want to believe that those not on this list know the truth, but they flinch.
By them, Trump will be found innocent.
It is hard to believe that they did not learn the lesson of January 8, nor that of the first Trump trial.
Because history teaches us, or should have taught, that appeasement politics is wrong. We suffered two world wars for her.
What to expect
