For four years, Trump’s critics have been accused of hysteria and hyperbole for describing his movement as fascist, authoritarian, or lawless. Today, as Congress attempts to certify the election of a new president, the president has vindicated those critics. In attempting this coup, Trump has also vindicated the Americans who voted decisively in November to remove him from office.

They stormed the doors, shattering glass. Office buildings near the Capitol were evacuated; the Senate was put on lockdown, as an unduly indulgent Capitol police force were unable to stop those conditioned for a coup from the top from streaming in to the august, hushed halls of legislature. Congress was disputing the results of the Electoral College certification for the third time in 120 years; facetious speeches in favor of nebulous theories of voter fraud were halted, the session adjourned, and senators donned gas masks. The months of waiting had simmered over and the end of the story had arrived. So, there you have it: When a conspiracy is deferred, it explodes.

Trump must be thrilled – he actually got to watch one of his fanatics die of a chest wound on the evening news. Talk about Reality TV! A red letter day for our death-delighting (look at all them covid corpses) president.

With any luck, the MAGA contingent that defies the curfew, hits the streets of DC tonight, and starts killing people, will also be something Trump can watch from home.

Pressure is building from many directions – government, industry – to finally invoke the 25th Amendment. Too bad you can’t use it to bring down every disgusting country-killer in Congress who colluded in the madness. They also bear responsibility for one of the most hideous days in American history.

He appeared to be past caring whether anyone listening heard that as a call to violence.

Several politicians, lying flat on the floor with gas masks on, are calling it an attempted coup.

The city is dealing with a large lawless mob. Curfews mean nothing to them.

All these years, Pence has, single-handedly, played two roles: Hamlet’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. A vacuous, barely noticed, fundamentally out of his depth idiot, a useful tool of kings and princes, he, like his Shakespearean precursors, will probably be killed when his usefulness ends. Trump clearly wants this quisling dead (along with a lot of other people), and he’ll probably get what he wants.

[A] protester in the Senate yelled: ‘Where’s Pence, show yourself!’

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Recall Tom Friedman’s opinion piece the other day. He warned that Trump, Cruz, Jordan, Hawley, were doing extremely dangerous things, playing with extremely dangerous forces.

Well, here we go.

The Capitol has been breached by Trump’s mob; it and the buildings around it are in lockdown.

… uh …

Sing it:

Two and two are four
Four and four are eight
Eight and eight are sixteen
Sixteen and sixteen are thirty-two

Footworm, Footworm,
Measuring the discostick
You and your excalibur
You’ll probably go far

Footworm, footworm
Rolling out the middle leg
Seems to me you’d stop and see
How elongate you are

So that July 27 story was the beginning of my love affair with Jon Ossoff, who has apparently won the other Georgia Senate seat. Jews like UD don’t take kindly to anti-semitism at the highest levels of our national life; I don’t know why, but it just rubs them the wrong way. I gave a generous donation to Ossoff’s campaign minutes after I watched the expanding nose ad, and I’ve given more money since then. Apparently it was well-spent.

There is an obvious irony in someone like [Senator Josh] Hawley, who has built his career on decrying the cultural corruption and moral emptiness of his Democratic opponents, embracing nihilism. Hawley has previously argued that the country needs to return to the virtuous roots of the early republic. His evident disdain for the basic principles of democracy means that nobody should have to take his arguments on that score seriously.

Quinta Jurecic, The Atlantic

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UPDATE: But hey look at this! Hawley turns out to be the true Trump heir; as they say in the song, Tomorrow Belongs to Me! A spectacular liar and coward and hypocrite, just like his political daddy, Hawley goes after “scumbags” who massed in front of his house and “threatened” his “infant daughter” and in this way whips up the forces of righteousness… Only it was all bullshit:

Police Slap Down Josh Hawley’s Claim Antifa Terrorized His Family

There was video. It shows a tiny group in front of his house making noise about Hawley’s now-notorious attack on democracy. A few of them went up to the house and tried to deliver a copy of the Constitution, but it was (not surprisingly) refused. Then they dispersed.

So here’s the deal. You don’t get to lead a revolution against American democracy without running the risk of experiencing a bit of static. We feel quite strongly about our democratic traditions here, see, and you’ve seriously upset us. So anyway okay be a revolutionary! Tear down the whole fuckin republic, lad! No one’s stopping you! But assume the burden of your radical subversion. As Esther Wang writes: “Man, if you’re going to try to pull some authoritarian, anti-democratic bullshit, at least don’t be a weenie about it.” IOW: You hate democracy! We get it! But you have to own your hatred. There will be sacrifices – for you and for your fellow plotters against America. Surely you understand that. And it starts now.

You gotta figure Kelly’s gonna do the Trump thing and insist she won by a landslide or something. It will be fun to watch. Meanwhile, Ossoff’s race remains a nail-biter.

Many of the 81,283,485 Americans who voted for Biden would have taken to the streets — I would have been one of them — and probably stormed the White House, the Capitol and the Supreme Court. Trump would have called out the military; the National Guard, directed by governors, would have split over this, and we would be plunged into civil war.

That is the sort of fire these people are playing with. Of course, they know it — which makes the efforts of Hawley, Cruz, Johnson and their ilk even more despicable.

Thomas Friedman, NYT.

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I think the coup-plotters find the prospect of the national violence they are trying to trigger exciting. Clearly many Trump voters find the prospect of national violence exciting. Kill and be killed. Let your hair down. “It’s the fantasy of violence that has captured the GOP,” writes Jeff Sharlet. ‘“If you don’t fight to save your country with everything you have, you’re not gonna have a country left,” [Trump said at a recent rally]. He appeared to be past caring whether anyone listening heard that as a call to violence.”

Cuz there’s nothing duller than domestic tranquillity.

When he looks out from the White House’s north windows, Trump can see the layers of fencing that have sealed him in his temporary home. But he can also see the steady progress that workers have been making on the inaugural viewing stand rising up on Pennsylvania Avenue. Fixed to its front is a huge American flag. The edifice is a visual reminder that in a healthy democracy, power is impermanent. Self-government depends on the Constitution, but also on acts of courage by people such as Raffensperger.

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What? You want me to put Raffensperger’s first name in brackets up there? No need. He’s like Cher, like Liberace, like Sting, like Pink, like Charo, like (this one’s for my sister) Morrissey. Raffensperger is so famous, so beloved, that everyone knows him by just one name.