Trump Timeline ... Trumpocalypse

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

Wednesday’shttps://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2021/01/06/dc-protests-trump-rally-live-updates/?itid=lk_inline_manual_3 (attack on the Capitol) was the tragically predictable result of white-supremacist grievances fueled by President Trump. But his departure from office, whether immediately or on Jan. 20, will not solve the deeper problems exposed by this episode. What happened is cause for grief and outrage. It should not be cause for shock. What were too often passed off as the rantings of an unfortunate but temporary figure in public life are, in reality, part of something much bigger. That is the challenge that confronts us all.

Over these last days, I’ve thought about my experiences as a senator from New York on Sept. 11, 2001, and the 9/11 Commission Report that followed. The report’s authors explored the failures that opened the door for a devastating terrorist attack. “The most important failure,” they wrote, “was one of imagination. We do not believe leaders understood the gravity of the threat.”

Almost 20 years later, we are living through another failure of imagination — the failure to account for the damage that can be done to our nation by a president who incites violence, congressional leaders who fan the flames, and social media platforms that sear conspiracy theories into the minds of Trump’s supporters. Unless we confront the threats we face, we risk ensuring that last week’s events are only a prelude to an even greater tragedy.

Trump ran for president on a vision of America where whiteness is valued at the expense of everything else. In the White House, he gave white supremacists, members of the extreme right and conspiracy theorists their most powerful platforms, even claiming that there were https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/05/08/very-fine-people-charlottesville-who-were-they-2/?itid=lk_inline_manual_9 (“very fine people”)among the torch-wielding militia members who converged on Charlottesville in 2017. ...

So how do we move forward as a country? What does it say about us that so many were complicit, while those who sounded the alarm were dismissed as hysterical?

The generous explanation is that it’s hard to comprehend the danger of what seem like ridiculous conspiracy theories until you experienced that danger firsthand. This is a lesson I’ve learned myself. I’ve had my share of unpleasant experiences with people who believed I was evil incarnate — everything from being burned in effigy for fighting for health-care reform, to claiming that I was running a pedophilia ring out of a pizza parlor, to receiving a mail bomb from a rabid Trump cult member.

Fanatical ideas can lead to real, even deadly harm. That’s something the people of Michigan realized last year when armed militia members plotted to kidnap their governor. It’s something Nashvillians saw when a conspiracy theorist blew up an entire city block. Now, it’s something all of America has experienced.

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]