Trump is no patriot. On Jan. 6, he rejoiced as violence against our democracy broke out | Opinion
Why would a businessman who’s made billions in the private sector run for president if he weren’t a true patriot?
That was the reasoning a dear friend presented to me circa 2018. I heard different iterations of that claim over the years when I covered politics, and later as a columnist, in red parts of Florida.
The scapegoating of immigrants, the crass language, his admiration for dictators — everything the flag-hugging president did was out of love for his country. It’s the other side — the media included — that gets him wrong.
When you hear that enough times, you start to question your own reality. Am I missing something? Is this a “Twilight Zone” episode where I’m the one who’s blind to Trump’s gifts to the country?
When you hear enough people, such as House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, who reportedly was “scared” during the Jan. 6 Capitol attack, minimize what happened that day, you have to question the parallel reality Trump and his loyalists live — or choose to live — in.
“I thought everybody in the country [bore] some responsibility based on what has been going on — the riots in the streets, the others,” McCarthy told reporters this week when asked if he thought Trump bore responsibility for the attacks.
Leader McCarthy, you’re wrong. The millions of Americans who recognize Joe Biden as the winner of the 2020 elections and the Republicans who have disavowed Trump’s election lies and called Jan. 6 for what it was — an insurrection — do not share that burden with spineless, opportunistic politicians like you. Not to mention Trump himself.
After the first committee hearing on the Jan. 6 Capitol riot Thursday night, it’s clear the former president carries at least some responsibility for inciting the attacks. His call for the Proud Boys to “stand back, stand by” spurred a growth in membership in the far-right group that plotted for weeks to stop the peaceful transfer of power. His tweet — “Big protest in D.C. on January 6th. Be there, will be wild!” — ignited preparations for the attack, according to the committee’s findings.
The likes of McCarthy — and everyday Americans who continue to pledge allegiance to a political figure — can discard these findings as a witch hunt or a deep-state conspiracy. They can rationalize how Trump’s Attorney General William Barr told the then-president his claims of election fraud were “bull----.” That Trump’s favorite child Ivanka “accepted” Barr’s assertion that there was no widespread fraud.
Once you acknowledge that Trump’s own offspring and the people closest to him couldn’t realistically be part of a conspiracy to bring him down, all you have left is a politician whose true allegiance is to his ego.
Only someone who puts his self interest above this nation’s founding document would refuse to call a single person or issue an order to protect the Capitol, according to the committee. Only someone who doesn’t understand — or doesn’t care — that he stands on the shoulders of Abraham Lincoln and George Washington would reportedly speak approvingly of rioters’ talk about hanging Vice President Mike Pence (Trump has denied saying that Pence “deserves” to be hanged).
It was Pence, Trump’s loyal apologist for four years, who acted like a president and ordered the National Guard to respond to the violence, according to testimony from Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Only if you tuned into FOX News Thursday night and refused to read any coverage of the hearing can you continue to believe Trump really wants to Make American Great Again.
Or you can say Milley, Barr, Ivanka Trump and many others are liars.
But you will also have to deny the blood spilled on Jan. 6, so much of it that U.S. Capitol Police officer Caroline Edwards testified she was “slipping in people’s blood.”
“I couldn’t believe my eyes, there were officers on the ground, they were bleeding, they were throwing up” she said.
You will also have to pretend Edwards’ traumatic brain injury didn’t happen. It was caused by rioters who pushed a bike rack on top of her head, knocking her unconscious. If you do that, take down your Thin Blue Line flag and peel off that Blue Lives Matter bumper sticker while you’re at it.
Or you can put American First, like Trump has never been capable of doing.
Isadora Rangel is a member of the Miami Herald Editorial Board.
