Charles M. Blow: Relief, but Lingering Rage

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Charles M. Blow
@CharlesMBlow
Read my column, “Relief, but Lingering Rage,” and let me know what you think.

Opinion | Relief, but Lingering Rage
The fractured Trump administration is now behind us, but the wound is still fresh.
nytimes.com
5:07 PM · Jan 20, 2021

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/20/opinion/biden-trump.html

I watched as Donald Trump left the White House on Wednesday, tacky and lacking in grace and dignity — consistent with his life and presidency — and I watched as Joe Biden was inaugurated as the 46th president of America.

I had many feelings as I observed this pageant of customs. The first was the feeling of having — remarkably, improbably — survived a calamity, like stumbling out of a wrecked car and frantically checking my body for injuries, sure that the shock and adrenaline were disguising the damage done.

To be sure, Trump has done real and lasting damage to this country. He has tested the rules we thought might constrain a president and found them wanting. He has shown the next presidential hopeful with authoritarian tendencies that authoritarianism can gain a foothold here.

Trump taught us, the hard way, that what we took for granted as inviolable was in fact largely tradition, and traditions are not laws. They have no enforcement mechanism. They are not compulsory.

There is the feeling of releasing resistance, of allowing the tension in the neck to relax and the shoulders to drop. It is the feeling of exhaling. It is the feeling of returning to some form of normalcy — a normal presidency, a normal news cycle, a normal sleep habit.

But embedded in that feeling is the knowledge that normal is a removal of Trump’s outrageous behavior and incompetence, not a return to fairness, equity and equality. Those things didn’t fully, truly exist before the Trump presidency. Normal wasn’t working even then.

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1. Accountability for everyone involved with attacking and trying to

Overthrow our Democracy should be arrested, tried, and imprisoned if warranted. Everyone includes the former president and Congress members.