The last straw. "It's over"

     “There’s no question the president formed the mob. The president incited the mob. The president addressed the mob. He lit the flame.”

              U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney, (R) Wyoming

"Be wild," President Trump had urged. It was time for direct action to put the fear into Republicans.

Don Junior warned Republicans: "We're coming for you." 

President Trump, the Trump sons Don Junior and Eric, and the president's lawyer Rudolph Giuliani were all there to wind up the crowd. The situation was dire. 

Six battleground states had let Trump down when their election officials, legislatures, and judiciary decided that there was no fraud that would change the election result. The federal courts had let him down by ruling against his allegations. His Attorney General had let him down by saying there was no meaningful error in the election. Now his Vice President was letting him down by saying he could not unilaterally throw out votes from states that had chosen Biden. The Representatives and Senators who could choose to void electoral votes cast for Biden were refusing to do it. Good Republicans were letting him down, after all he did for them.

Constitutional government and persuasion had not worked. Elected officials needed to see and hear the direct fury of Trump's people.

Trump's lawyer Rudolph Giuliani told the crowd, "If we are wrong we will be made fools of. But if we are right, a lot of them will go to jail. So let’s have trial by combat!" The crowd roared approval.

Donald Junior thanked the "red-blooded patriotic Americans" in the crowd and urged them to "stand up to the bullshit." Republicans who were not willing to support Trump had a target on them.

   

 Don Junior said, "It should be a message to all the Republicans who have not been willing to actually fight. . . . This isn't their Republican Party anymore. This is Donald Trump's Republican Party. This is the Republican Party that will put America first. If you’re gonna be the zero and not the hero, we’re coming for you and we’re going to have a good time doing it!"

The rally did not target Democrats. Democrats were understood to be thieves who stole the election. Does anybody think Joe Biden could possibly have won eighty million votes, when the alternative was a great president like me, Trump asked? Of course not. Trump and his entourage focused on Republicans--weak, cowardly ones who failed to back up Trump. Republicans had the power to stop Democratic electors from being counted. It was a matter of power to assert anything they wanted. If they said they saw fraud and a landslide victory for Trump, no one could tell them that it wasn't there to be seen. 

Trump said, "We are going to have to fight much harder. And Mike Pence is going to have to come through for us, and if he doesn't, that will be a sad day for our country because you're sworn to uphold our Constitution. . . . We are going to cheer on our brave senators and congressmen and women and we are probably not going to be cheering so much for some of them--because you will never take back our country with weakness."

He said supporters should "walk down to the Capitol" to let Republicans know their political future was in Trump's hands. He would be watching to see who was naughty or nice. There was an army coming at them. Eric Trump had tweeted:

     "I will personally work to defeat every single Republican Senator/Congressman who doesn’t stand up against this fraud. "They will be primaried in their next election and they will lose."

The crowd moved to the Capitol.

Broken furniture, broken doors

The Capitol Police force was inexplicably lax. Possibly it was simply incompetence and lack of preparation, although this show of physical force had been announced months in advance. Possibly it reflects some White House influence, communicated through the Department of Homeland Security, to take it easy on the crowd and let them do their work. Mainstream media commentators note that it is inconceivable that a similar body of Black demonstrators would have been allowed to invade the Capitol, break down doors, climb walls, enter offices, and break up a session of Congress without mass arrests. 

Whether it was accidental or intentional, the effect backfired on Trump. It looked bad. It was frightening to the people in the Capitol. "This is a coup attempt,” Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) tweeted. 

The rioters circulated the Capitol building searching for legislators and were quoted asking, “Where the fuck are they?” They were sheltering in an undisclosed place, getting news that people were breaking down doors and had taken over the House chamber and were standing at the Speaker's lectern and sitting at her office desk with their feet up.

Trump and his entourage were sending a message of physical and political intimidation to Republican legislators. They didn't like it.

The day signaled another giant step in the break from Trump. Mitch McConnell urged Senators to stop claiming the election was stolen. Lindsay Graham called the senate objections to Biden's election "a uniquely bad idea." He said "When it's over, it's over. Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are lawfully elected."

Fox & Friends, the morning show that had reliably gushed over Trump, was different this morning. They had moved on. They talked with a frequent guest, attorney Jonathan Turley, about the 25th Amendment. The question on the table was what to do with a president who showed definite signs of manic mental instability and erratic behavior. Trump was dangerous. He had the nuclear codes and might do something crazy. Turley noted the two four-day waiting periods built into the Amendment. It was too late, he said, to exercise the 25h Amendment. We were stuck.

Fox & Friends Steve Doocy shook his head in dismay and worry. Stuck.