Anne Applebaum: “Trump’s adventure is over. He will spend the rest of his life in court.”
See,
Jesús Ruiz Mantilla, (Interview mit Anne Appelbaum), “Trump wird den Rest seines Lebens vor Gericht verbringen,” Die Welt, den 18. Januar 2021 (14:49 Uhr).
America seems to be suffering from some kind of collective Post-Traumatic Stress Syndrome (PTSD). It is as if the entire nation, having been held captive by a terrorist for four years, cannot believe that the power of the terrorist over them will go away when he is removed from power in two days.
How else can one explain all the speculation in the media about Trump’s continuing political and societal influence after he leaves office at noon on January 20, 2021?
He has committed countless crimes, for many of which he will be prosecuted after he is no longer president. Chief among them has been leading a vast national conspiracy to overturn the November 3 presidential election results and the U.S. Constitution. His seditionist efforts culminated with his incitement of an insurrectionist mob which led to five deaths in the invasion of the Capitol on January 6, 2021.
Accompanying this incitement to insurrection was a parallel effort by eight seditionist Republican Senators and some 141 seditionist Republican members of the House of Representatives to refuse, without any legal justification, to ratify the electoral college election of Joe Biden. Trump led this insurrection by elected members of the Senate and the House. Nothing like it had been seen since the secession of the Confederate states and the onset of the Civil War in 1861.
Among the riotous mob which invaded the Capitol on January 6, as Trump stood transfixed before live television images of what was happening–and refused to call off the mob or to send federal forces to defend the Capitol–were terrorists whose avowed intention was to murder Vice-President Mike Pence, Democratic Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, and other elected officials.
There is reason to suspect that such a plan, had it been executed, would have given Donald Trump the pretext he needed for invoking the Insurrection Act and declaring martial law. Michael Flynn and others had been proposing such action for weeks.
The irony, of course, is that Trump himself had incited the riot and the rioters were his supporters.
It may take Americans quite some time to recover from the trauma they have suffered under Donald Trump, including the incredible trauma of the events of January 6.
Many are still in the grip of the political terror Trump has unleashed and the fear he has sowed, not only among legislators but also large swathes of the population.
So, for many commentators and analysts, it may be too early for them to imagine a nation no longer under the spell of Trump, a spell comprised of a combination of cult-like belief and devotion, on the one hand, and political fear of Trump and his supporters, and in many cases fear of physical violence from his supporters, on the other.
It will take some time, perhaps, for everyone to recover from the traumatic experience of living through these events and under the political fear and terror that Trump has unleashed.
Those who can, however, like Anne Appelbaum, need to look at the reality of Trump’s vanishing power and diminishing influence, and begin to understand that Trump’s future will involve endless days in court, and probably in prison.
The Trenchant Observer