This Trump eruption is a call for tinpot tyranny. Following up on his repeated verbal embraces (and pledges of legal support and pardons) for the Capitol Hill rioters, whom he instigated to try to stop a sacred vote-counting procedure while they called for the execution of his own vice president, this new verbal tack is a dangerous provocation. It is a provocation based on the flat-out lie, mathematically and judicially identified as such beyond all shadows of doubt, that somehow the 2020 election was stolen from him.
When someone who once held the most powerful post in the free world acts and speaks so repeatedly in ways designed, with malice aforethought, to undermine the very framework of our (small “r”) republican government, well, then, it’s time to believe he is serious. It deserves careful pushback, not silence.
If the vast number of Republicans show they are no longer afraid of criticizing Trump when asked about his dangerous statements, they might attract a second look from all those independents who, despite marked dissatisfaction with the current Democratic leadership, still refused to vote for Republicans in November because the party was too morally compromised by Trump.
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