Everyone Has a Manifesto Now

Violence, bizarro logic, and a coup that took four years to succeed.

Today marks the fourth anniversary of one of the darkest days in US history, the violent invasion of the US Capitol and attack on Congress fomented by Donald Trump as part of his attempt to hold onto power after losing a free and fair election. If I had told you on that day that the American people would return the architect of that travesty to the Oval Office, would you have believed me?

Within just a few months, the GOP and even Trump himself went from calling it a “heinous attack” and declaring that “the demonstrators who infiltrated the Capitol have defiled the seat of American democracy” (Trump’s own words, in an address to the nation the next day) to excusing and even celebrating its perpetrators. That is because Trump soon realized that by inverting the narrative, he could help propel himself back into power. And he was right.

In other words, as many have observed, that auto-coup ultimately succeeded, even if it took four years to do so.

Two weeks from today, when Trump is inaugurated for a second term, he may well make good on his promise to pardon those insurrectionists. Can a parade for them down Pennsylvania Avenue at taxpayer expense be far behind? In the current political climate, as Matthew Yglesias cannily noted, even the suggestion…