We’re in a fine fix

The news is not great. Last week President Trump incited a riot at the Capitol. There’s really no other way to interpret this, although the usual suspects (Fox, The Federalist Society, et al.) have made pathetic attempts to make this seem like a frat party that got a little rowdy, and, well, Hey! It’s the People’s House, you know, it wasn’t really trespassing , and the cause was righteous because the election really was stolen, blah, blah. It makes me sick to my stomach.

So, here’s what’s going on, and this isn’t even a comprehensive list. The last week has been a very long year.

• The House is introducing an Article of Impeachment to be voted on Wednesday if Trump hasn’t resigned or been 25th Amendmented out of office (not holding my breath).
• The leadership of the Capitol Police (plus the Sergeants-at-Arms of the House and Senate) have resigned.
• Two members of the Capitol Police have been suspended and one has been fired over their behavior last Wednesday.
• The FBI warns that there are plans for possibly violent protests at all 50 State Houses and Washington DC starting January 17th. The FBI further warns that the threat outstrips the Bureau’s capacity to respond, and that local police departments are probably on their own for this.
• A Secret Service agent is under investigation for having supported the insurrection last Wednesday;
• Cabinet members are resigning at the rate of one per day. Who’s going to be left to turn off the lights when this party’s over?
• Donald Trump is nowhere to be seen. His beloved Twitter has been taken from him (that could be a whole bullet point by itself). He has made no statement except for the hostage-like video he was clearly coerced by staff into making last Wednesday. Nor has Mike Pence made a statement. What the hell is that about? No one from the executive branch has made a statement or given a presser on the events of last Wednesday. The entire executive branch is AWOL.

There’s more, of course; but let’s just try to deal with those bits. The organizing principle seems to be that he entire GOP is reduced to this: they all think they’re in some reality TV show where they can do what it says in the script and then go home, pop a beer, and watch it all, without any consequences. The entire GOP is in cloud cuckoo land.

The choices before us

So, what do we do now?

Let’s talk about impeachment.

Should Congress

• Impeach Trump Wednesday and have Schumer invoke a rule that would bring the Senate back to Washington to take up impeachment immediately?
• Impeach Trump Wednesday and put it on the shelf for 100 days to give the Biden Administration some room to get some things done without distraction.
• Not impeach Trump, hunker down and try to make it until January 20th.

Let’s talk about the Inauguration, if we get to it without some sort of conflagration, which, sadly, is a big ask. But let us grant that we reach January 20th more or less intact. Should we

• Try to hold the Inauguration pretty much as usual on the Capitol steps but with a much smaller crowd because of COVID?
• Hold the Inauguration inside the Capitol or even the White House with only a few important people present for the cameras?

Let’s talk about how law enforcement at every level has been infiltrated by the crazies. That law enforcement agencies across the country, federal, state, local, have tilted right for a long time is a commonplace; but now they have plunged off the cliff. Most famously, the New York FBI office was rabidly anti-Hillary in 2016, and an internal message among individuals in the office was a celebratory "shit’s getting real" after the Trump victory. It may have been the risk of leaks from the New York office that forced Jim Comey’s hand to announce the reopening of the Hillary emails case just before the election, apparently against DOJ rules against the appearance of election interference.

But we didn’t need those examples to know the right-wing slant of law enforcement. What we didn’t want to hear but is now obvious (and there were voice screaming at us about this) that law enforcement had been infiltrated by white supremacists all over the country. The difference in how BLM protests and (mostly white) right-wing protests are handled by state, local, and federal police is now so obvious that…well, words fail, really.

Let’s talk about the ramifications of coordinated protests/attacks at 50 seats of government around the country.

The FBI has raised a five-alarm fire about plans to, well, what exactly? Do at 50 state houses what was done last Wednesday to Congress? That seems to be the case. Clearly, federal law enforcement doesn’t have the resources to protect 50 state houses at the same time it tries to provide adequate security for Biden’s inauguration. And with the infiltration of local law enforcement by white supremacists or, at least, Trump loyalists, this doesn’t bode well for what can happen in the states next week.

Let’s talk about the executive branch being as dysfunctional as it has every been in the history of this country. There are no adults left in the room.

Assessing the choices

First, it must be said to set the stage here about what might happen in Congress in the next week. GOP House members are already running for 2022. It’s not surprising that they are acting in fear of being primaried and being turned out in two years. It’s also the case that many of them fear for the safety of their families from the Trump brigades. So, there’s that.

About impeachment: It needs to be done. I don’t see any way around it now. His actions are nothing if not impeachable. Really, his abuse of power and foment of mob action is textbook impeachment stuff. However the Senate wants to manage it, it must deal with expeditiously the inevitable impeachment from the House.

About the Inauguration: I’m worried about Biden wanting it to be business as usual, to be held on the Capitol steps. I understand the desire to maintain the traditional symbolism of the transfer of power, but we are in extraordinary times. The important symbolic act is Biden receiving the oath of office from Chief Justice John Roberts. That can happen anywhere, inside the Capitol, in the White House, in a cave somewhere. It doesn’t matter. Just so Biden receives that oath of office.

Don’t make the Inauguration low hanging fruit for the crazies out there.

How screwed are we?

That’s an impossible question to answer. We have no idea how bad things could become, because we have underestimated at every step the threat posed by what is now the core of the Republican Party. Let that sink in. What was once called the alt-right, is now the Republican Party.