Despite the most unpatriotic and undemocratic Republican efforts to seal off the “truth” about Trump’s attempts to steal a free and fair election, details continue to emerge. But like all too many things “Trump,” the details leak out in a drip, with each drip hypnotizing the majority of the American public. “It’s just Trump,” they’ll say, as if it was inevitable that such an evil guy would do such evil things. It’s to be expected at this point. Nothing surprises them.
But no, the details emerging now, especially some that we reported on this week, including the nine different phone calls between Trump and Acting-A.G. Rosen, pressuring Rosen to find fraud, here, there, everywhere, are disturbing even some of the Republicans. (There was a time, including right now, under Biden, when a president wouldn’t dare call the Attorney General and ask about any specific case, especially his own case, such action alone would be grounds for impeachment.) Quaint, we know.
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch is once again out there, in the middle of Trump country (these are the people who elected Hawley), and – as they have before, they are bravely setting straight that this is all insane, and that history will throw these people in the trash bin:
Among the abuses Trump wanted his underlings to commit was to send a letter to Georgia officials falsely claiming to have identified “significant concerns that may have impacted the outcome of the election” in hopes of getting the results overturned. The refusal of top officials to carry out that and other plots infuriated Trump. During a Jan. 2 meeting, according to testimony, Trump lashed out at his acting attorney general, Jeffrey Rosen, telling him: “One thing we know is you, Rosen, aren’t going to do anything to overturn the election.”
And thank God for that. Amazing, but in that very statement, Trump gave the game away, “won’t do anything to overturn the election.”
The editorial then goes on to note the severity of Trump’s crimes, especially when compared to Nixon’s, and that history hasn’t been kind to Nixon. It will be worse, to Trump:
No rational American today would defend Nixon’s actions — and he was merely trying to get away with covering up an illegal wiretap, an objectively less damnable offense than trying to overturn a valid national election. With every new revelation, Trump’s attempted coup against democracy further dooms him to the trash bin of history. Those who still don’t understand that might well find themselves joining him there.
It gets so bad that one honestly wonders whether there is any line out there, at all, that Republicans aren’t ready to cross if it allows them to continue in Trump’s good graces. One thing is certain, until we see more editorials calling out the people enabling Trump, we’ll see nothing but more enabling.
The enabling is going to dictate the end game in all this. We have given up on Merrick Garland, prosecution doesn’t appear to be coming from DOJ. Congress is the only entity interested in investigating January 6th. We can only hope that at some point, they tip a bin of water over, drenching everyone enabling Trump and his followers.
The drip by drip isn’t working. The Post-Dispatch has enough information above to impeach and charge any president who considered what Trump did.
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