What just happened
- Joe Biden’s election victory was certified by Vice President Mike Pence in the US Senate shortly before 4am, hours after Trump supporters stormed Congress.
- Jon Ossoff, 33, was confirmed as the second Democrat to win a Senate seat from Georgia in two days.
- Kelly Loeffler, defeated in her Senate runoff in Georgia after positioning herself as Trump’s most ardent supporter, said she could no longer “in good conscience” support objections to the electoral vote count.
What happened? Four people died and the world looked on aghast as a crowd egged on by Donald Trump forced its way into Congress, yelled the slogans of Trump’s losing battle with the constitution and took selfies in the House Speaker’s chair. At least one unexploded IED and a truckload of weapons were reportedly found within the Capitol’s perimeter. Three senior White House staff quit, and CBS reported that by nightfall cabinet members were discussing using the 25th Amendment to remove Trump from office two weeks before he’s due to leave it anyway.
Was it a coup attempt? No. If you were watching cable news coverage of Capitol police fleeing intruders and House Representatives reaching for their gas masks, there were moments when you might have thought so; moments when breathless anchors reached for the coup lexicon. But real coups aim laser-like at army bases, TV stations and the levers of executive power. This was a last outing to the nation’s capital by credulous thugs who know they won’t be welcome there for at least the next four years. With the help of stunning security lapses that will be the subject of deep and laborious investigation, it turned ugly.
Should Trump stay in office? In principle, no. He’s lied for months about the election he lost, bullied state officials to doctor its results and goaded followers to march on Congress and disrupt the certification of Biden’s win. He remains Commander-in-Chief of the world’s biggest military, with two weeks left to misuse it on a whim. So it’s no surprise that his own most senior appointees may have discussed using their powers under the constitution to install Vice President Mike Pence in his place until inauguration day. And the parallel case for instant impeachment and removal for sedition is well-made by the conservative columnist Bret Stephens in the NYT:
“To allow Trump to serve out his term, however brief it may be, puts the nation’s safety at risk, leaves our reputation as a democracy in tatters and evades the inescapable truth that the assault on Congress was an act of violent sedition aided and abetted by a lawless, immoral and terrifying president.”
Will Trump stay in office? Almost certainly. He has now said he’ll go quietly even though he still refuses to accept publicly that he lost. Asked if he should be impeached, Senator Jeff Merkley (D., Oregon), told the New Yorker last night: “He will be removed officially by a ceremony a few days from now. Let’s put our energy into planning for a successful Presidency.” If that sort of view prevails among Senate Democrats, Trump is safe in the White House until 20 January.
Unanswered questions:
- Can the Republican Party hold together when split so bitterly between those who raised objections yesterday to the Senate’s ceremonial counting of electoral votes, and those who didn’t?
- Who ordered the deployment of the National Guard to restore order to the Capitol, and when, and why did they take so long to arrive?
- Will the 60-odd per cent of Republican voters who still believe the November election was stolen from them remain a potent political constituency, or will it shrink because of what the Trumpers did yesterday?
Quote of the day: “We gather due to a selfish man’s injured pride, and the outrage of supporters who he has deliberately misinformed for the past two months.” Mitt Romney in the Senate, after being heckled almost continuously from Salt Lake City airport to DC while sharing a flight with Trump supporters on Monday.
