Continues to unfold.
The House of Representatives commission investigating the events of January 6th 2021 has dealt him a serious blow.
Their findings are being forwarded to the Justice department for further examination, which may lead to charges. Among them is the very serious matter of insurrection.
Trump had good people around who could tell him, ‘You lost. Get over it. Have to move on.’ And there were those who couldn’t stand up to him, who couldn’t say ‘you have to regroup, to examine what went wrong and correct it’. They just didn’t have it in them.
The voters know who they are.
Lots of Republican Senators are in that bunch.
Trump failed because he couldn’t adjust to reality. His message to those who were bitter and were left behind, though propelling him to the presidency in 2016, needed to be modified.
In a pluralistic society such as ours the emphasis is on inclusion, which presupposes dialogue, which presupposes tolerance. But Trump couldn’t see it.
I still remember his reaction to a reporter’s question about a former White House staff member, a lady, who had quit and was being critical of him. The reporter asked what he thought of her. Trump’s answer – ‘A dog.’
Trump failed because of his character.
There’s no way back now. He will not be president again. He should heed the advice of those who are now telling him not to run. But he won’t.
And so he will lose in the primaries to another Republican candidate.
His base deserves blame for his undoing. They did not examine the messenger carefully.
They chose to not be critical. They bought into the message of sectarianism and intolerance.
They thought Trump would be the magician who would empower them.
But there’s no easy way to empowerment in a pluralistic society. Compromise is the norm. Give and take. Gradualism.
It’s not about building walls but about building bridges. And it takes longer to build bridges.
Trump’s shortcomings ran deep.
On July 16th 2018, in Helsinki, Finland, early in the morning before meeting with Putin, Trump tweeted, ‘Our relationship with Russia has NEVER been worse, thanks to many years of US foolishness and stupidity…’. A bit lopsided to say the least. Had Putin not annexed Crimea in 2014, also grabbing Ukraine’s territory in the East?
And yet that same July 16th, at the press conference following the meeting with Putin, after reporter Jonathan Lemire asked Trump, ‘Every US intelligence has concluded that Russia did interfere (in the 2016 US elections). Who do you believe? Would you now, with the whole world watching, tell president Putin, would you denounce what happened in 2016, and would you warn him to not do it again.’
Trump replied, ‘… my people came to me, Dan Coats came to me and others, they said they think it’s Russia… I have President Putin (Putin stood nearby behind another lectern) … he just said it’s not Russia. I will say this… I don’t see any reason why it would be… I have confidence in both parties… I have great confidence in my intelligence people… but I will tell you that President Putin was extremely strong and powerful in his denial today. (Questions and answers as reported by the New York Times)
Trump failed because of his character, the same character who let himself be tricked by Putin.
We can only speculate what kind of a man Trump would have been if he had engaged in a productive dialogue with himself, where he showed willingness to acknowledge his flaws.
But he did not and that’s who we got for president.
That’s the man who faced Putin on our behalf and let him get away with the denial.
Had he not let Putin get away so easily, would there have been a war in Ukraine?
Putin didn’t just become a thug overnight, he has been a thug for a long time.
Seeing that an American president could so easily be bamboozled, surely contributed to his thinking that he could get away with invading Ukraine.
It’s been very traumatic for America to process Trump and his behavior.
We need to learn from it so we won’t make the same mistake again.
Oscar Valdes 