There’ve been a few stories on Daily Kos recently (here and there) about how the press was aware that The Orange Loser was a little ill-tempered and grouchy behind the scenes. (I won’t write his name because he wants it everywhere.) The blame is then aimed at reporters and book authors for not reporting TOL’s tantrums and straight-jacket-worthy fits. Instead, they saved it all for their retrospective books coming out now.
I disagree. I thought it was covered. Even so, I don't think any of it was surprising. If you could look back at Daily Kos during the transition, or at the MSNBC nightly news shows, there was a lot of reporting of what The Orange Loser was up to. I remember after Biden was declared the victor, one MSNBC guest said the next three months until Biden was inaugurated were going to be the scariest of our lives. People were scared. I definitely was.
Although it is completely logical to think that if only the behind-the-scenes spectacles had been described more explicitly, the Congressional GOP would’ve immediately rushed to impeach and remove him in haste. I think this belief is unsupportable. They knew. Word got around even if the reporting was restrained. Even after the insurrection, they didn’t act. TOL taunted Kevin McCarthy during the breach, and McCarthy’s support for him afterward proves that. TOL’s cult would’ve ignored the reports.
Comical attempts to reframe the insurrection as simple tourism or a retro-hippy lovefest show the Congressional GOPs’ cowardice facing The Loser and his followers. It was exactly because of such scenes that they were afraid of him. They knew he was in crush-kill-destroy mode. On his best days, he was taking names and settling scores, which oddly, is exactly what MS-13 does. His die-hard vindictiveness still has prominent GOPpers more cowed than Devon Nunes’s. The most they’ve always been willing to do is look for ways to politically exploit TOL’s popularity and power, waiting for the right time to backstab him like a 20th-level-thief, the last part is still yet to be proved and cow-chickens are known to be defective.
My point is, like everybody—and I mean everybody—following the reporting at the time, I knew what he was a Nutsy-Nazi with the disposition of The Tasmanian Devil with a stubbed toe. We knew that behind the scenes, the mean, vindictive, spoiled, sore loser with self-restraint issues would’ve been fit for an exorcist. We saw him replacing people in key military & intelligence positions. We saw his calls for insurrection on Twitter, for dogs’ sake. TOL didn't hide his intentions in any way. You knew he was demented by how he didn’t even bother to make his voting conspiracies consistent, even back-to-back. I believe it's only in hindsight that we revise the helpless, frightful experience of having to wait for his scheme to hatch like Xenomorph from the chest of Uncle Sam. We say we must not have known because we don’t want to remember how helpless we were, and how it happened seemingly with so little resistance.
I think the press did its job. Beyond the feelings of paralyzed passivity, we avoid the reality that what the press reported didn’t really matter. That is the most traumatic part of the TOL experience. With all mechanisms of presidential restraint circumvented (congressional oversight, department appointments), ignored (the emoluments clause), or hurdled (impeachment), we should face the lesson that even when we knew how unstable and terrible he was, we couldn’t do anything.
Let’s take a lesson from it: TOL has taught us that the only real check on presidential power is the conscience and sense of shame of the person holding the office. TOL had no conscience and was, literally, shameless. The latter quality includes his ignorance of history and his place in it. By comparison, Nixon—for all his corruption and avarice for power—seems not to have been clinically sociopathic. (I’m as surprised about that as anyone.) He was shamed into resigning. To have been impeached would’ve put him through misery. TOL shamelessly went through two impeachments.
We need more checks on presidential power. Some actions like sedition, treason, and insurrection should automatically forfeit the presidency to the VP or Speaker of the House, who will assume the duties of the presidency at least until the impeachment and trial of the president. If he’s able to clear his name at the impeachment, then he’s reinstated. For other charges, the president should be indictable in courts of law. If it’s found during the trial, that it’s too much of a distraction, then the VP should take over until the president has been acquitted.
Besides whether the press did its job, what I want to know is: why and how did the coup fail? Why didn't TOL invoke the Insurrection Act? My guesses: it partially had to be due to TOL's own personality. Namely, he’s an incompetent, lazy ass who has the judgment and leadership skills of a hyena with a lobotomy.
I remember being relieved when TOL went golfing after Biden was declared the victor. And no, I don’t think he did that as a fake-out. At the least, I think he had to cheat out a couple of golf victories to show himself he still had his edge. Yet, I both knew the coup was coming; also, I was just as certain at that point that it would fail. (Try to imagine Hitler relaxing on a golf course as the Russians approached Berlin, and you’ll understand why I was relieved.)
Crucially, TOL is also devoid of charm. Dictators during their rise to power weren’t just about bullying, vengeance, and bluster. They all had a charming side; until they had absolute power, then they shed their magnetism and charisma like a muddy coat. TOL was never, ever, charming because he was born into power. He never had to build or consolidate it. Also, after his defeat, he lost any semblance of self-control. His supporters loved him because he was “tough,” i.e. tough on other people but an undisciplined snowflake on himself.
But just what constraint prevented him from invoking the Insurrection Act? Wildest guess is he didn’t get any support from the judges and justices he appointed. I’m certain he still can’t understand why they let him down after he appointed them for life. The Loser can’t think in nontransactional ways. He can’t understand any excuse for not reciprocating his favors. The real answer is, of course, he couldn’t fire them. If he could they would’ve been as chicken of him as anyone else in his party.
It must’ve been a terrible blow to his coup when he also couldn’t get swing states to change their results. Lacking those and with military support iffy, he needed either for the Senate or Mike Pence to reject the election results. Then those didn’t happen. I’m sure, that still puzzles him. Bewildered and enraged, he lost his nerve to invoke the Insurrection Act. After that, I think his only remaining purpose for the insurrection was to take revenge, mostly on Pence (who he targeted,) and on the Congress in general. Yes, It’s completely in TOL’s personality to stage a coup he knew would fail just from vindictiveness. His black heart really is with MS-13. That’s my guess on why martial law never happened. He realized it would go badly for him under the circumstances.
TOL arrived in office with good instincts for power, having wielded economic power and celebrity fame for his whole life. Yet, he wasn’t capable of learning anything else about it. He was out of his element dealing with political power, which he could neither build nor consolidate.
I don’t think he’s not going to succeed in taking power again, because he still can’t learn. From his rallies, it’s apparent that he can’t pick up his game. I think he bores even his diehard followers now. At this point, he’s much older, more tired, and dependent on the same bag of tricks that pushed his rise to power. He’s pathetic, but he stopped being tragic fifty years ago. Now he’s too sad to even for comedy relief.