Thing People Have Been Predicting for Long Time Finally Happens

After years of stomping all over the integrity of our highest office, months of claiming the election was stolen, and weeks of demanding legislators and his own vice president not certify the election results, Donald Trump spent a few minutes telling his followers to storm the capitol and they did. A woman has been shot, legislators have been evacuated, bombs have been found, and the national guard is being dispatched to deal with the mob currently engaged in massive sedition (and very probably treason). I’m pretty sure this is the part where the rest of Trump’s supporters will claim to have no idea he would do something like this, or that his followers would actually do it. This is the part where they wash their hands of their sin, and we should absolutely not let them.

American citizens cowering in fear as president's supporters threaten violence

There’s never been a good reason to support Donald Trump. From the beginning people have been warning about his authoritarian tendencies and how his demagoguery had the potential for very negative outcomes. Not because he had populist support, but because he was so clearly enveloped by the concept of MAGA and The Donald that there was almost no chance he wouldn’t put his own ego above the country. 

Other presidents have had populist appeal, but they’ve also valued the integrity of the republic above themselves. Previous presidents been smart and informed enough to recognize the harm one person can do to a system built with a lot of faith put in the people running it. Donald Trump isn’t smart or informed about anything. Donald Trump has never been about anything other than Donald Trump.

There’s a persistent belief on the right that people on the left are trying to correct their way of thought. That leftists believe if they just educate them, they’ll agree with them. People on the right think this is insulting because they too have surely reached their conclusions honestly and with careful examination of available evidence. 

The reason people on the left think people on the right need more education is because a bunch of people on the right supported a man who just called for rioters to storm the capitol to overturn the results of a democratically held election – that the president’s own cyber security head described as being incredibly secure with no evidence of fraud (and who Trump fired about a day later for saying just that) – and they did it. Those people stormed the capitol in an effort to help a selfish man hold onto power even if tears the country apart in the process. 

What evidence and careful examination would lead anyone conclude this outcome was a desirable one?

It’s not like nobody saw this coming. People have been talking for years about how dangerous Donald Trump is for this exact reason. At a certain point when everyone is telling you how something will turn out poorly, you don’t get to claim to be caught off-guard when it ends poorly. At the very least you don’t get to tell those of us who warned you that you’re just as informed and smart and selfless as we are. Well, I suppose you do, because chances are if you were supporting Donald Trump you don’t care much for reaching conclusions based on evidence anyway. But the rest of us don’t have to accept that, and we don’t have to accept you trying to distance yourself from this debacle. You were warned, you had your chance to do the right thing and you chose not to. Now you have to live with the consequences.