Time to isolate Trump
BarcelonaPresident Donald Trump has taken his incredible spiral of denial of reality too far, that is, his lack of acceptance of his electoral defeat. What he has done is inconceivable, a full-fledged attack from within, from the very institutional summit, on the democracy of the world's greatest power: he has used his office to incite the masses to storm the chamber of representatives of the people's sovereignty. There are no precedents for such events, neither in the United States nor in many other latitudes. And the best known precedents transport us to dire times in contemporary history. The comparison between Trump's conspiratorial populism and the fascisms of the 20th century is no longer a trivialisation. The drift of the still president has gone beyond all limits. Despite the fact that some barbarism was bound to happen, the vision of the Capitol being invaded by armed Trumpian extremists has left half the world in a state of shock, and embarrassed the bulk of American society, which does not recognise itself in such a bleak spectacle. Among those who do not recognise themselves, as far as we are starting to see, there is also a considerable and relevant part of voters and members of the Republican Party, within which we can already speak of a fracture.
Although Trump only has until January 20 to serve as president, and although after inciting chaos and confrontation to indecent extremes, with the result of four deaths and the discrediting of a bicentennial democratic system, he has said that he will facilitate a transition of power, his credibility is null. Because, at the same time as saying this, he continues to claim - and therefore to lie - that he has been robbed of victory at the ballot box and is incapable of condemning or making the slightest self-criticism for the regrettable events that have occurred, for which he is ultimately responsible. In view of this, then, the time has now come to put an end to a president who has proved to be detrimental to democratic coexistence in the United States. The Democratic Party's request to activate the 25th Amendment to the Constitution to immediately remove a president who is, in effect, "incapable of performing the powers and duties of his office", is along these lines. To move it forward, however, would require the votes of two-thirds of the House of Representatives and the Senate. Despite the division that is emerging in the Republican ranks, it is difficult to see how it could prosper.
Trump, however, represents a danger to the U.S. right now: what he may do in his delusional drift is unpredictable. Be that as it may, in the event that he holds on to the presidency until the end, what would indeed have to prevail, with the participation of the Republicans who are opening their eyes -even if only with the legitimate expectation of preserving their future and rebuilding their space-, is the isolation of an anti-politics politician who will go down in history as the president who led an attack on the Capitol, on the seat of freedoms, on the essence of the spirit on which the American nation stands. Such a president has to remain a stain, an error, a cause of shame. He can't be given any leeway to remake himself. He cannot come back. Now is the time to isolate him.
