Trump will not be attending Joe Biden’s inauguration on 20 January 2021. He will be the first president in 150 years not attending. But Pence, his Vice President, will be attending though.
It is speculated that Trump may attend a ceremonial farewell at Joint Base Andrews on the same day, that is “the base outside Washington where Air Force One is headquartered. The farewell could include a 21-gun salute.”
Because of Jan 6 storming at the Capitol, the mayor of Washington Muriel Bowser said: “We saw white extremists storm the Capitol building who were trained and organised. We all have to think about a new posture.”
This new posture is to transform the Capitol into a fortress, “complete with militarised red and green zones - red for maximum restrictions.”
It reports that “so far, about 21,000 armed National Guard troops - the number may grow to 25,000 - has been deployed to lock down the capital ahead of the inauguration, which has been drastically reduced in size and scale because of the coronavirus pandemic and now security concerns.”
Mind you, this is not the end of the insurrection. Trump has fanned the fire of their misguided mission, and security analyst Malcom Nance told congressional hearing last Wednesday that “massive quantities of weapons have been exchanging hands on public forums and in response to a prospective insurrection. This is only the beginning.”
Trump has effectively stirred the hornet’s nest and revived their insurrection hope, blasting wide open an insidious channel so that they may pour out their holed-up grievances onto public streets, buildings and arenas.
Another security expert Mr Ali Soufan puts it this way: “This is not only about the people who attacked (the Capitol) but also about the network that allowed them to operate so openly...that now they are actually, literally, threatening 50 capitals in the United States.”
Alas, this is as smooth a transition you can expect from a fuming sore loser, the President of United States no less.
Personally, I never thought I would ever see this day, where a grown man who was elected to the highest office of the land turning his back on a time-honoured tradition 150 years in the making.
If an analogy helps, imagine such transition of power as passing the sword of honour from the outgoing incumbent to the in-coming office-holder. The proper decorum is to hand the sword over with both hands outstretched, in a posture of humility, respect and support, because it is never about the person or his personality, but the office upon which the political foundation of a great nation is built.
Instead, Trump hands over the transition sword with the sharp end of it pointed at Biden and his administration.
It has to be said that democracy is about the people, that is, the tallied votes of the majority. And leaders are sworn servants to the people they serve, promising to uphold the highest principles of the land, and the first and foremost principle is to respect the virtue of the process involving the transfer of power.
But for Trump, he has epitomised everything that goes against the virtue of this process. He refuses to rise above the occasion, to act like a mature adult would. Even to the very end, it is still about him, his ego, his feelings, his delusion, his alternate reality. Three facts clearly point to this.
The first fact is the impeachment. It is his second historic charge in just one term. And it is not so much the impeachment charge I am talking about as the president’s inimical intention since Nov 4.
Yes, he is entitled to challenge the election results. That’s his right. But there must come a point of acceptance and submission, especially when even the Governors, Supreme Court and your own Vice President have all confirmed the electoral winner.
Surely, at some point of this challenge, one has to respect the institutional processes and safeguards built by the founding fathers. For it is the same process by which one is elected, and by that same process one is expected to accept the result and move on.
Cicero once said that courage is the virtue which champions the cause of right. For Trump, he champions only the cause of self. As such, he just can’t let go and move on. He cannot accept defeat. This is surely not what we as fathers would want to teach our child right?
The second fact is about what he did after 6 Jan.
Yes, he did condemn the storming of the Capitol. He said it was a “heinous attack on the United States Capitol.” And he was “outraged by the violence, lawlessness and mayhem.” This is where he claimed he had deployed the National Guards to restore law and order.
There are two ways of looking at this. You can read this as an act of remorse, that is, Trump is sorry for the violence he had stirred up (as he did call them to “fight like hell” by marching into the Capitol to “show strength”).
Or you can read this as an act of desperation to save himself, to distance himself from the criminal acts he had had a firm hand in.
Well, knowing Trump, there’s one thing he is consistent throughout - he has never accepted blame, or responsibility - not for the economy, not for his racist remarks, not for the lies he had spoken, and not for the nearly 400,000 pandemic deaths under his watch. Just to name but a few.
Journalist Bob Woodward once recounted what Trump said to him regarding allegations of inappropriate behaviour with women. Trump said: “You’ve got to deny, deny, deny and push back on these women. If you admit to anything, and any culpability, then you’re dead...You’ve got to be strong. You’ve got to be aggressive. You’ve got to push back hard. You’ve got to deny anything that’s said about you. Never admit.”
Bottomline, he never admits, he’s never wrong. And he’s in fact obsessed with being right, thinking that being right means to never admit wrong.
But, isn’t that the pubescent mind of child, bereft of self-awareness and self-introspection? In fact, let me just say that being right is not about never admitting wrong. It is on the contrary about embracing our humanity, our brokenness and fallibility, accepting our flaws, and then doing something about it, that is, doing something to change.
So, to me, his post-Jan-6 speech for law and order was one made to save his own skin. And if he had his way, Trump would rather let dead dog lies because he has and will never accept responsibility for the incitement on Jan 6, which has led to his impeachment.
And the last third fact is the most obvious of them all, that is, his petulant refusal to attend the inauguration. That effectively sealed the position of this president’s heart. It also confirms where he stands, even when all’s already said and done by deputy pence on 6 Jan.
Trump shuns the inauguration because he cannot accept legitimate defeat. Like he said: “You’ve got to push back hard. You’ve got to deny anything that’s said about you. Never admit.”
Let me end by quoting Obama when he gave his farewell speech 4 years ago. He said: “Each of us leaders, each nation, can choose to reject those who appeal to our worst impulses and embrace those who appeal to our best."
The same can be said of Trump’s supporters. You have to put religion aside, and think about it clearly, critically.
You have a choice to “reject those who appeal to (your) worst impulses and embrace those who appeal to (your) best.” Abraham Lincoln echoed the same sentiment when he said: -
“We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory will swell when again touched as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.”
That is indeed our nature, the better angels in us that need our intentional nurture.
Sadly, Trump in general appeals to the worst impulses in us. He has divided the country, and I am not saying it was not already divided during Obama and Bush administrations. But, Trump did nothing to bridge the gap. He in fact widened it, blew it wide open. He in fact nearly brought the system to breaking point. He thus pants after the populist storm and cherished/relished being in the eye of it, fanning the storm out of proportion.
(He had the sacred opportunity to close the gap, heal the wounds, but he was too self-obsessed to do that. He had missed a golden opportunity to unite America, even if one would to accuse Obama and Bush of having a part to play in it. The point of leadership is always about what you would do with what you are given, and not about how others have screwed it up before you. For no leader worth his weight in gold pushes away responsibility when they fall on his lap. He ought to have dealt with it, confronted it. For the buck stops with him. He thus ought to have resolved it, closed the gap, healed the wounds. That is the gold standard of leadership).
For that reason, his supporters have to wake up to the reality of Trump. Look at the mirror and see how you have changed in supporting him over the years. If he had lost to Hillary in 2016, I bet you would not even have bothered about this crooked businessman who treats women as if they were nothing more than an object of physical desire and exploitation.
And your unthinking affection for him has unfortunately broken the bonds of affection for humanity as a whole and has deadened the “mystic chords of memory” that only desire to be touched again by the better angels of our nature.
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