The words of President Donald Trump that have been circumventing the media since last week have the power to destroy the fragile state that is American Democracy long after he leaves office. During his four-year tenure as 45th President of the United States, the American people and government have been placed as subjects in his shrewd plan to disrupt equality and safety as we know it. 

Trump’s week-long streak of heightened gaslighting began as the Washington Post released an hour-long phone call of a desperate Trump attempting to manipulate the Georgia GOP officials, including Georgia’s Secretary of State, Brad Raffensperger. On the tape he begs Raccensperger to find the votes to overture his landslide loss in the Georgia to Joe Biden in the Presidential Election. As the call elongates, Trump rambles on about how so many other states will follow suit in listening to his false claims saying, “I mean there’s turmoil in Georgia and other places. You’re not the only one, I mean, we have other states that I believe will be flipping to us very shortly.” 

Trump’s inflexibility on his false claims about the ballot numbers, as well as his swirling rabbit holes of delusion (including his belief that he, “won this election by hundred of thousands of votes”), goes to show that his position in power is not only dangerous those who work alongside him in the Republican Party, but to the people he should be governing over.  

Now, let’s cut to today. I’m sitting at my desk in quarantine making the final edits to my article that was meant to be solely on this issue. My phone once again gets another notification from The Washington Post…“U.S. Capitol is on Lockdown as protestors clash with police and breach the building.”

I listen to Biden behind his pedestal call upon President Trump to “demand an end to this siege.” I wait as well, I expect disappointment, and rightfully so. 

The President’s response to the intruding extremists of Capitol Hill was posted to his respective social medias at around 4 in the afternoon. The minute-long video filmed in his rightful location outside the walls of the White House. Trump made it clear that he sympathizes with the motives of his supporters, giving them enough satisfaction to fuel the rioting into Tuesday evening. 

Like some bad conservative poetry, after every line of “controlling” the riots Trump eggs them on more and more to his own satisfaction. Watching this lame excuse for an apology video felt almost a form of deflecting his own faults onto the people of America, once again. 

Frankly, I am tired of seeing Trump’s actions being covered up or labeled as something less than they are: his words and actions, not just this last week, but over the last four years are blatant defenses of white supremacy. His ease and reaction to immediately shield his extremist supporters from the criticism of the media is disgusting compared to his blunt racism he demonstrated during the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020. 

What happened today is not worthy of any counterargument, as I cannot bring myself reason with a President and person who supports the ideologies and actions of domestic terrorists for his own influential gain. My opinion of the way that Trump has contributed to the slowly approaching destruction of Democracy will not shift. The way our country’s citizens engage with one another in regards to our political beliefs has been completely deconstructed by Trump and will take years to heal. 

It sadly looks like it will not be during 2021. 

Stay safe.