2021-01-07latimes.com

A sitting president encouraging a mob to, at a minimum, harass political opponents is among the most authoritarian acts Trump has committed. And then his supporters went one better by invading the Capitol building and temporarily halting congressional proceedings not through civil disobedience -- chants and sign waving -- but by storming the chambers and the offices of elected members of Congress, forcing everyone inside to retreat to more secure confines.

All it needed was arson to become a Reichstag moment.

...

Early Thursday morning, an exhausted Congress finally finished its business and certified Biden as the next president. It was not a display of unity in the face of historic attack, however. Even with the chaos fresh in their minds, Trump's enablers continued to push the lie that he had been cheated out of victory, and they contested the certification of electors from several states. Yes, a few Republican senators and House members abandoned this folly in the wake of the violence it helped trigger, but the vast majority did not, including House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Bakersfield). And those who did have a change of heart still bear responsibility for their role in feeding the atmosphere of lies in the first place.

It was as though they view the election process as nothing more than a game, or a process to be manipulated with no concern for the consequences.



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