Momentum grows for immediate removal of president Trump from White House

All around support is mounting for the immediate removal of the president Donald Trump even as it is clearer than ever that major systemic changes are needed if genuine democracy is to be preserved in the United States.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, issued an ultimatum to Trump on Friday morning: Resign now or be impeached. In a letter to House members, she slammed Trump’s “horrific assault on our democracy,” and invoked the resignation of President Richard Nixon on the eve of his impeachment, saying Trump should do likewise.

Analysts, both Black and White, meanwhile, along with President-Elect Joe Biden, are putting an intense focus on the fact that had a crowd of ‘Black Lives Matter’ demonstrators entered the Capitol instead of the Trump thugs, hundreds might have ended up dead.

Racist and out-of-control law enforcement bodies and a justice system skewed to the wealthy and against Black and poor people are responsible for what happened and must be overhauled.

“No one can tell me that if that had been a group of Black Lives Matter protesting yesterday, they wouldn’t have been treated very, very differently than the mob of thugs that stormed the Capitol. We all know that’s true. And it’s unacceptable. Totally unacceptable,” Biden declared on national television.

The fascist thugs who carried out the attacks have mostly returned home, but they must be searched out, arrested, and punished. If Trump does not pay any price, and if his insurrectionist foot soldiers pay no price, a victory will have been scored by the fascists. That cannot be allowed.

Some 147 Republican lawmakers in the House and eight U.S. senators, led by Ted Cruz of Texas and Josh Hawley of Iowa, continued, after the insurrection, to push for overthrowing the results of the election. As graduates of Ivy League schools, the pair symbolizes the white-collar criminals who create death and destruction even though they keep their hands clean as people misled by them form the mobs that do their dirty work.

The two should be shunned and their careers ended by expulsion from Congress. But just as guilty are the wealthy capitalist interests like the Koch family and other business figures who fill their campaign coffers with the blood money squeezed from America’s workers. That dark money put those 147 House members in office and helped elect all the Republicans in the Senate who have enabled Trump for four years. White-collar criminal corporate leaders are to blame, too, for what happened in Washington this week. Campaign finance laws that allow corporate money to determine who is in office must be overhauled.

The idea that conservatives and right-wingers are law-abiding participants in our democracy is being increasingly exposed as false. Former Boston Police Commissioner Ed Davis told the Associated Press that the feeling among law enforcement was that conservatives would not riot or invade, unlike Black Lives Matter protesters—this despite the fact that BLM demonstrations have been mostly peaceful.

With news emerging that the Capitol Police repeatedly turned down assistance from other agencies and police forces Wednesday, even as the Capitol was under assault, questions are being raised as to whether only racist police preconceptions were to blame for the paltry police response on Wednesday or certain elements were actually in cahoots with the failed coup attempt.

As was seen on January 6, it was white supremacists and neo-Nazis who were in the vanguard of the invasion. Insurrectionists wore t-shirts emblazoned with “6MWE,” code for “Six Million Wasn’t Enough,” a reference to the number of Jews killed by the Nazis. Others wore hoodies emblazoned with “Camp Auschwitz, Work makes you free,” the slogan that greeted the victims at the entrance to Hitler’s death factory.

Vice President-elect Kamala Harris said the actions of law enforcement Wednesday highlighted the existence of unequal justice in the U.S. “We have witnessed two systems of justice: One that let extremists storm the U.S. Capitol yesterday, and another that released tear gas on peaceful protesters last summer. It’s simply unacceptable,” she tweeted.

“Had we fought with police officers, the reaction would have been different,” new Rep. Cori Bush told PBS. “I know; I’ve been there,” added Bush, a BLM leader since the Ferguson, Mo., police killing of Black man Michael Brown.

“When Black people protest for our lives, we are all too often met by National Guard troops or police equipped with assault rifles, shields, tear gas and battle helmets,” BLM’s global affiliate said in a statement.

“When White people attempt a coup, they are met by an underwhelming number of law enforcement personnel who act powerless to intervene, going so far as to pose for selfies with terrorists, and prevent an escalation of anarchy and violence like we witnessed today. Make no mistake, if the protesters were Black, we would have been tear-gassed, battered, and perhaps shot,” it added.

The Capitol Police performance, and the contrast, was unacceptable to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi too. Police Chief Steve Sund quit after Pelosi said she would fire him.

The Capitol Police met the Trump mob only in regular uniforms, not riot gear. At least one officer took a selfie with invaders. Another carried off Pelosi’s portable speaking stand. Some tore down the U.S. flag, replacing it with Trump flags and Confederate flags.

The spurning of prior aid offers from the FBI and other federal agencies, which were warning the Capitol Police of the threat from the invaders, white nationalists, and Trumpites is now coming under intense scrutiny. The 2,300-member police force arrested a few of the invaders afterwards, but they’ve also washed their hands of further probes and arrests, leaving that task to D.C. police and the FBI.

But the bigger issue now is that resignations of Capitol Police officials and probes of that department’s actions, while necessary, are far too little. It’s like arresting the bodyguard for not protecting his dead client and letting go of the people who organized and carried out his killing.

The New York Times reported that Trump and his family enjoyed watching the mayhem on television. The president of the United States enjoyed watching the coup he had unleashed, a coup that has now resulted in at least five deaths. The entire world saw how despicable his attitude was like an authoritarian emperor blackening the ideals of U.S. liberal democracy.

As he revelled in the scenes of his coup unfolding, Trump was ignoring the deaths of more than 4,000 Americans happening the same day because of his criminally neglectful handling of the coronavirus pandemic.

And so far, the criminal thugs who carried out the insurrection continue, largely, to go free. They are enjoying what they consider their grand success, free to plan their next assault on the rule of law and recruit thousands more whose only regret about what happened at the Capitol was that they were not part of it.

If Trump and his lawyers and enablers are not prosecuted, they will have enjoyed a victory. It will be a victory that will help fuel and grow a mass fascistic movement in America.

Trump cabinet members, like rats, are swirling the waters around the sinking ship, choosing to resign rather than stay in place and use their power, along with Vice President Mike Pence, to remove Trump immediately via the 25th Amendment.

Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao, wife of GOP Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, was the first to jump ship.

“As I’m sure is the case with many of you, it has deeply troubled me in a way that I simply cannot set aside,” Chao wrote in an open letter to her agency’s workers. But in another indication of Trump’s vindictiveness, when acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf revealed he asked Trump to call off the mob, Trump retaliated by yanking his nomination for the Homeland Security post.

Chao was followed in her resignation by Education Secretary Betsy DeVos who, until her resignation, carried out orders from Trump to do everything in her power to destroy public education.

Pelosi and incoming Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer have both endorsed the 25th Amendment option—and impeachment, too. So did 200 other lawmakers. The next House session is Jan. 11, when lawmakers could bypass committees and vote to impeach them.

(IPA Service)