09 January 2021
Resign or Impeach
Donald Trump is left with few choices for his exit from the Presidency in 2021. He can continue to ignore his duties until the inauguration of his successor, Joe Biden. He can persist in his delusional attempts to lead a disaffected segment of the public in threatening the order which conscientious members of the public have been trying to establish in this country since its founding over 220 years ago, at the risk of impeachment or other removal from office. Or he can gracefully resign from office (an unlikely move).
I any case, he can take his whole crew of clowns with him, including Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell, Michael Flynn, Betsy DeVos, Kayleigh McEnany, Mike Pompeo, Louis DeJoy, William Barr and many others who should never be asked to join a normal administration. It is up to the rest of us thankfully to wave goodbye and learn the lesson that democracy is not automatic. Oh yes, elections can install a government of incompetent would-be autocrats, but there is more to fair and effective government than staging the trappings of democracy. Does the order that exists in Russia, for example, make its citizens proud of their ability to support individual rights and fulfillment?
Some of us really believed that what has happened to the U.S. over the last four years, and particularly in the first week of 2021, was not possible because of our commitment to laws and the institutions we have created to enforce them. Although much of that enforcement needs to be reformed, those institutions, we’ve learned, can still be hijacked by an ambitious manipulator of the communications media, like Donald Trump. Even his retreat from Washington, with his tail between his legs, won’t spare us from having always vigilantly to keep our republic.
