What happens next? When even Mitt Romney says: There was some discussion on news coverage after Congress returned that some GOP senators were abandoning Trump but other were doubling down. Will there be repercussions for Trump personally? I also read the Republicans were discussing removing him from office, but don't know how accurate that is. He still has two weeks. Does he get off scot free? “What happened here today was an insurrection incited by the president of the United States.”
What happens is a battle over the norms. Joe McCarthy was top of the world once. Communists were the ultimate enemies of the American people and anyone Joe McCarthy didn't like was a Communist. There were witch hunts and cabals and people turning on each other and loyalty tests. And then Joe McCarthy's power broke and he went from being king to being deposed king to being dead. Previously undiagnosed hepatitis? I mean, I'm the OSS? I'ma poisoning the shit out of Joe McCarthy. Be that as it may, the cabalists retreated, went underground, worked behind the scenes and eventually became Manafort & Stone, fomented the Brooks Brothers Rebellion, funded Breitbart and are kings again. In between, everyone argued about what it means to be American, what American values are. Both parties have spent 50 years appealing to authority through arguing that their "norms" are the real "norms" and the other guy is a stone deviant. You're seeing it now - there's 140-odd representatives insisting that democracy only applies when Republicans win, same as it ever was, sunrise sunset. There's 300-odd representatives insisting that "this is not who we are" even though everyone on the Internet thinks they should be saying "we're better than this." Everyone on the Internet is wrong: when you say "we're better than this" you're implying that we should CHANGE and when you say "this is not who we are" you're saying the OTHER GUY HAS CHANGED AND SHOULD BE SHUNNED. The basic problem of American democracy is that Republicans have been tugging the Overton Window to the right since Barry Goldwater while the Democrats have been doing their best to leave it where it is. Zero plus any infinitesimal number is not zero. The sensible move for the Democrats is to: - Make DC a state on the grounds that if DC was a state, they could have called out their own national guard - Move the inauguration window as close to zero as possible on the grounds that it does nothing but let hijinks ensue - Pass as permanent a law as possible that says the number of Supreme Court justices must equal the number of regional circuits on the grounds that partisan warfare led to loss of life - Permanently and federally permit absentee ballots on the grounds that attacking them fomented insurrection And then if they accomplish that, make Puerto Rico a state, too. The Republicans have pretty clearly snapped past the Overton Window. 45% of Republicans approve of the siege which means every normal Republican is now dealing with batshit conspiracy theorists on their primaries and the only way they can move forward is to double down on the dumbness or do everything they can to discredit the crazies. So what happens next is a whole bunch of "this is not who we are" vs. the terrorists as everyone competes to establish the narrative that makes them the normies.
I think the drift to the right away from more balanced centrist policy isn't just a US phenomena. From an outsider's point of view - Trump is just laughably incompetent. What happens if someone with guile and strategy and not at the whim of their own narcissism and fragility tries to do something similar?
Yesterday I finally changed my mind. I thought we should let Trump be gone and forgotten after he leaves office. I now think he and any enablers of this action, including police who let it happen, should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. This can't be tolerated. I also think any senator who kept up the charade after Congress reconvened in the evening should be expelled.
I usually don't care for your cynicism, but I'm afraid you're right this time around. It is hard to imagine a situation in which anything is done about this that has ramifications for the man or his family. They'll probably prosecute a few morons for trespassing and vandalism, etc, and that will be the last of it. Trump might even pardon everyone there, since they'd all be accused of federal crimes. The pardon power, according to the Federalist papers, was contemplated for two distinct reasons. Reason 1 is mercy. Reason 2 is blanket clemency for things such as insurrections (as was used in the Whiskey Rebellion and after the Civil War). Ironically, it would be one of Trump's only "normal" uses of pardoning (with the small caveat that the Framers didn't comment on what happens when it's the President himself inciting the rebellion).
I'd gladly sacrifice the prosecution of Trump and his toadies for a real and comprehensive fight against global warming. Statehood for DC and Porto Rico are two other things that I think would be worth not pershing Trump. A national health garantee is a third thing I'd trade for letting Trump slide. If the Biden administration goes after Trump it will be consumed and defined by that action. I don't like Donald Trump but exacting vengeance on him isn't all that important in the scene of things. I'd like to see him impeached so he can't hold office again. I wouldn't be upset if he prosecuted by one or many of the states. I look forward to seeing many of those who breached the capital building doing real time in federal prison. I hope the things that happened this week leave Trumpism a marginalized political movement going forward.
Trump's own Executive Order mandates a 10-year sentence for defacing or vandalizing government property: https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/executive-order-protecting-american-monuments-memorials-statues-combating-recent-criminal-violence/ It'd be nice to see all the low-level possession offenders serving time getting clemency and having their sentences commuted, while the Trumpistani terrorists rot in jail for a decade each...