Mary Trump Media

Donald’s first year back in office has made life harder and more expensive for Americans – the opposite of what he promised during the 2024 campaign. The impact of his ignorant and incompetent approach of economic policy is straining households across the country.

As The New York Times reported, grocery prices rose 0.7% from November, marking the greatest month-to-month increase since 2022. In December 2025 groceries were 3.1% more expensive than they were in December of 2024.

Since January of 2025, the price of fruits, vegetables, beef, coffee, cereal, and baked goods have all increased.

Adding to the strain, the latest data show that job growth slowed dramatically during Donald’s first year back in office. Recently on CNN, Economy Senior Reporter Matt Egan broke down the latest jobs numbers from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and discussed the effect that Donald’s policies have had on U.S. labor in 2025:

Job growth, it does remain soft, just 50,000 jobs added in December. That’s barely enough for what’s required to keep things stable in the job market, and we continue to get negative revisions to prior months. Both November and October were revised lower; October was revised sharply lower during the government shutdown. The US economy lost 173,000 jobs in October, according to the latest estimates from the government. That’s the most of any months since late 2020 during COVID-19. . .. A lot of the economically sensitive sectors, they’re losing jobs. Manufacturing lost 8,000 jobs in December. That’s the eighth straight month where that sector has lost jobs. Construction losing 11,000 as well. So, this is more evidence that that blue collar jobs boom that [Donald] promised is just not happening, at least not yet. And when you zoom out, 2025, it was a very weak year for the US economy when it comes to job growth. Less than 600,000 jobs were added. That might sound like a lot, but it’s the worst since 2020 during the COVID-19 recession. And if you exclude recessions, this is the worst year of job growth since 2003.

Let’s compare that to job creation in the four years Biden was president: 16 million jobs at the rate of over 300,000 jobs per month on average. In 2025, fewer than 600,000 jobs were created, about 50,000 a month. If the Trump regime continues to create jobs at that anemic pace, then after four years, only 2.4 million jobs will have been created which, as Matt Egan pointed out, is barely enough to keep the job market stable.

Unemployment has fallen slightly but remains high at 4.4%. These statistics mark a disappointing slowdown from 2024, when 2 million jobs were added during Biden’s final year in office. Economists cite Donald’s tariffs, the Republicans’ government shutdown, and of course, Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency [DOGE] which was responsible for firing or forcing out hundreds of thousands of civil servants as reasons for the resounding economic failure.

The Guardian reports that last year DOGE alone cost U.S. taxpayers $10 billion in paid leave given to more than 154,000 federal workers dismissed by the program and 670,000 furloughed workers received back pay. That does not seem the most efficient way to make or save money. The waste is made more egregious by the fact that the vast majority of those workers were forced out.

As Donald and his economy become increasingly unstable, his imperialistic ambitions grow. In a recent interview with The New York Times, he revealed that he wants to run Venezuela long-term and exploit its large oil reserves which will not be as easy as he seems to think. According to the International Energy Agency, Donald’s plan to cash in on Venezuelan oil will likely cost American taxpayers a fortune. The IEA’s Chief Energy Economist Tim Gould told an energy conference that Venezuela has a “dilapidated, antiquated oil infrastructure.” He added,

It strikes me as somewhat misleading when you see all this discussion about Venezuela having the largest oil reserves or resources. As we all know, they’re not easy to produce, they’re not easy to bring to market.

The CEOs of oil corporations who met with Donald at the White House last week know all of that as well. Donald cannot run his own country, let alone Venezuela. He’s destroying the American economy; do we really think he’s going to do any better with another country’s economy? I think we know the answer to that question.

2 days ago | [YT] | 2,121

Mary Trump Media

In the last year, the rapidity with which Donald’s Department of Justice has devolved into an institution that solely exists for the purposes of protecting his self-interest and going after his perceived political and personal enemies is difficult to process. But the dismantling of the DOJ is something Donald has been attempting to effect since he first came into office in January 2017.

The degradation of the once-hallowed Civil Rights Division of the DOJ is most recently exemplified by the agency’s response to the murder of Renee Good.

Last Wednesday, several videos captured ICE agent, Jonathan Ross firing three shots into Good’s car. Good was unarmed; clearly did not pose a threat; and she was trying to drive away from Ross. These facts are not in dispute and are documented from multiple angles.

Last week, the FBI blocked Minneapolis law enforcement from the investigation, an extraordinary step that is not standard operating procedure in cases involving lethal police shootings. Soon after, Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon made the indefensible decision that the Department of Justice would not investigate the killing of an unarmed American citizen by law enforcement.

According to MS Now, at least four leaders within the criminal section of the Civil Rights Division, which specializes in law enforcement abuse and would ordinarily investigate any fatal shooting by an officer, resigned in protest. With the assistance of Attorney General Pam Bondi, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, and Dhillon, the once-hallowed Civil Rights Division has been systematically ravaged during the second Trump Regime.

And it doesn’t end there.

Earlier this week, six federal prosecutors in Minneapolis and D.C. quit over the DOJ’s push to open a criminal investigation into Good’s widow. Let that sink in. The Trump Regime is investigating the surviving spouse of a woman killed by an ICE agent, not the ICE agent himself.

Investigative journalist Lila Hassan examined 59 instances in which ICE used deadly force. She found that “ICE agents never get indicted for criminal activity” even when video footage contradicted the agent’s story.

What purpose does it serve to shut out the state agency that is already on the ground? How does that help resolve anything?

Much more troubling is the Trump regime’s decision to open an investigation into a woman whose wife was murdered by an ICE agent. The justification offered is that she allegedly has ties to a leftist organization that supports peaceful protests against ICE and the Department of Homeland Security.

The corruption of Donald’s DOJ is matched only by the incompetence of its leaders.

A federal judge recently asked Lindsey Halligan, the so-called acting U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, to explain why she is still in that position. Back in November, another judge ruled that Halligan was serving unlawfully because she had exceeded the 120-day statutory limit for acting U.S. attorneys.

Halligan was appointed by Bondi in September after Erik Siebert, the previous officeholder stepped down over his refusal to indict James Comey. But the first judge determined that the clock started back in January when Siebert had been appointed.

The court determined that the clock began running in January, when Siebert himself was appointed. Pam Bondi then attempted to circumvent the rules by naming Halligan both U.S. Attorney and Special United States Attorney, underscoring just how desperate the Trump Regime has become to install sycophants and hacks in key government positions.

After replacing Siebert, Halligan brought charges against Comey and another of Donald’s perceived political enemies, New York Attorney General Letitia James. Both cases were dismissed due to Halligan’s illegal appointment Undeterred, she attempted to indict Comey a second time, only for a grand jury to refuse to bring charges again.

This chain of events is extremely rare. You may have heard the expression that a prosecutor can indict a ham sandwich. Lindsey Halligan cannot indict anything.

Discussing just how abnormal this is, MS Now‘s Senior Investigative Reporter, Carol Leonning’s broke down the implications:

It’s a massive humiliation for prosecutors when they fail to get one grand jury indictment and to go back and do it a second time… well, I don’t know how you say doubly humiliating. I don’t know how it could be worse to lose a second time. There are a lot of lawyers I’ve been talking to in the last 24 minutes since all of this broke. So many of them are either independently reaching out, calling, texting to say essentially a version of “Good God.” It’s so clear that the facts don’t add up. If in a one-sided presentation [ ] where only the assistant U.S. attorney is presenting the facts, there is no pushback from defense; there is no opportunity for the other side to say their point of view, their defense, their claims, their disputes with this information. If in that one-sided location, where an office that generally leans pro-government in a heavy way because it has a lot of defense folks, military folks that work there, if twice this body of grand jurors have said this does not compute, that is a stunning rebuke.

This kind of extraordinary humiliation beggars the imagination.

The recklessness of Donald’s DOJ continues. Jeanine Pirro, Donald’s U.S. Attorney for Washington D.C. and former Fox host, is facing backlash for investigating Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell. The alleged basis for the probe is the cost of renovations to the Federal Reserve headquarters, but I find it hard to imagine that Jerome Powell personally oversees day to day line items for construction expenses.

The real motive is obvious: political retribution. Donald is punishing Powell for refusing to lower interest rates, despite two critical fact s—first, the Federal Reserve is an independent agency not meant to be subjected to political pressure from the executive branch. Second, lowering interest rates at this very volatile time, during an already volatile period, one made far worse by Donald’s trade wars and insane tariff policies, would be profoundly dangerous to the U.S. and global economy.

Pirro’s willingness to attack Powell on Donald’s behalf is making GOP leaders uneasy. Republican Senate Majority Leader John Thune told reporters that the allegations, “better be real.” They’re not.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has privately warned Donald the investigation could destabilize financial markets.

A quick point of comparison: President Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey also desperately wanted to take over control of his country’s federal reserve. Before he attempted to do this, inflation in Turkey was approximately ten percent. After Erdogan installed a bunch of loyalists and inflation rose to 86%. It currently stands at slightly over 30 percent. That’s something for us to look forward to.

3 days ago | [YT] | 1,847

Mary Trump Media

Since the murder of Renee Nicole Good by ICE agent Jonathan Ross last week, Americans have been showing up and speaking out. Protests are growing in the streets of Minneapolis, where Good lived as well as in other American cities. Citizens across

the political spectrum are speaking out against an out-of-control regime and its out-of-control agency.

Good’s neighbors are showing up in large numbers to express solidarity. A Minneapolis resident contrasted ICE’s unlawful assaults on peaceful protestors to his father’s honorable military service:

My dad fought in World War II in the Battle of Bulge. He’d be rolling [in] his grave to see what’s happened to America now. And America needs to hold up a mirror to see what we’ve become. This is just so un-American to see Americans assaulting Americans like this. And these people here [at this protest] is what’s America, protesting the brutality of what’s happening in their cities and streets… My larger question is, who are these people? Where are they coming from? What training do they have? You know, are they Proud Boys? Are they Oathkeepers? Where are they getting these people from?

That is a great question. Where are these people coming from? We know for a fact that ICE was allocated $10.4 billion in fiscal year 2025, but, according to Phillip Bump at MS Now, the agency, thanks to last year’s budget bill received

far more than that: $45 billion over four years to expand its detention facilities and about $30 billion for staffing and bonuses. With just those increases . . . ICE stands to have a budget of about $30 billion during the fiscal year that began in October.

You would think this would be more than enough to provide for adequate, even exceptional training, but thanks to unrealistic quotas—the Trump regime demands 3,000 arrests daily—there is a growing need for new ICE agents, which has led to poor vetting (you could say it is the worst of the worst who are getting hired by the Department of Homeland Security, Customs and Border Control, and ICE) and subpar training. They understood nothing, apparently, about crowd control or de-escalation.

All these factors, plus the bloodthirsty intentions of the Trump regime, are a recipe for disaster. When you add in the deployment of an increasing number of ICE agents who believe they can do whatever they want (after all, we’ve been told by several members of the Trump regime, including JD Vance, that Jonathan Ross has “absolute immunity”), more senseless deaths are unavoidable. This is not supposed to happen in America—we’re supposed to fight fascism, not act like fascists.

Sadly, ICE is a fascist organization, an aggressive occupying force with Nazis both in its ranks and at its head. ICE agents are being ordered into American cities to police American citizens, not protect them. Their presence is intended to keep us quiet and afraid and divided.

But, as it turns out, Americans don’t like it when thugs in face coverings commit unprovoked acts of violence against unarmed protestors, especially if the victim is an American citizen. We strongly object when the perpetrator is not held to account, the victim is defamed, and more violence is promised against those exercising their First Amendment rights.

The ICE Out for Good campaign held demonstrations in Portland, Oregon, Houston, San Antonio, Omaha, Philadelphia, Boston, Washington DC, Seattle, and Los Angeles, among others. Americans are raising their voices and hopefully Congress is beginning to listen because Democrats and even a handful of Republicans on Capitol Hill suggest a strong and forceful congressional response is necessary.

With another government shutdown deadline on January 30th, Democrats are prepared to leverage DHS funding as a bargaining tactic. Senator Chris Murphy plans to introduce legislation that would require arrest warrants, ban agents from wearing masks, limit ICE’s use of firearms, and restrict border patrol operations to the actual border.

But none of that goes far enough and reforming ICE should not be the objective here. Democrats finally need to understand that tacking to the right on immigration and immigration enforcement is not the way to go. ICE is an agency replete with fascist thugs doing the bidding of a fascist regime to the great detriment of the American people. It needs to be completely dismantled. Now.

4 days ago | [YT] | 1,962

Mary Trump Media

The thin-skinned weaklings in the Trump regime do not take kindly to critics or criticism: they tend to go after their most vocal and popular adversaries with the goal of silencing them.

Recently, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth censured Arizona Senator Mark Kelly, a Navy veteran and former astronaut, over a public service announcement Kelly participated in. In the PSA, he and other veterans of the military and CIA reminded active service members that they must refuse illegal orders. That doesn’t sound controversial, does it? Hegseth and Donald, however, interpreted the message as an assault on their authority.

Hegseth’s censure letter accuses Kelly of sedition. On Twitter, he wrote in part:

In response to Senator Mark Kelly’s seditious statements — and his pattern of reckless misconduct — the Department of War is taking administrative action against Captain Mark E. Kelly, USN (Ret). The department has initiated retirement grade determination proceedings… with reduction in his retired grade resulting in a corresponding reduction in retired pay.

That is, of course, complete and utter nonsense. Fundamentally, what matters here is Hegseth’s position that telling soldiers not to follow illegal orders is a bad thing, probably because he and Donald want those currently under their command to do whatever they tell them to, legal or not.

Despite being one of five veterans who appear in that PSA, Kelly is the only one that the Trump regime has gone after.

Hegseth previously threatened to court martial Kelly, but as an ABC News report pointed out:

A court-martial would have been more complicated, and experts say could have raised constitutional issues.

In response to the baseless attacks being launched against him, Senator Kelly has demonstrated courage, conviction, and unwavering patriotism, all qualities Donald and everybody in his regime lack. After having received word that he had been censured for exercising his First Amendment rights, Kelly spoke to reporters:

They didn’t like it. That’s one of the reasons they have censured me. And at the end of the letter, they threaten criminal prosecution if they don’t like what I say going forward. Let me make it perfectly clear: This letter or anything that Pete Hegseth says or does to me is in no way going to affect the way I do my job and represent my constituents in the United States Senate. Ain’t happening. So, his option right now is he can continue with this kind of bullshit, or he can go take a hike.

Senator Kelly has decided to sue the Department of Defense for violating his first amendment rights; he is, in other words, doing exactly what anybody who is baselessly attacked by the Trump regime should do—stand up and fight the good fight.

In another media appearance, Kelly called out the glaring hypocrisy of Donald’s questioning Kelly’s patriotism when Donald himself has never served his country:

I’ve got a question for you. How many generations of Donald Trump’s family have served in the military? Zero. Now, for me and my family, service to our country is in my blood. My great-grandfather served in the U.S. Navy after immigrating from Ireland. Both of my grandfathers served during World War II. Both of my parents wore uniforms, my dad in the 82nd Airborne, and both of them as career police officers. And when it was our turn, my brother and I started as volunteer EMTs as teenagers before becoming Navy captains, pilots in the United States Navy, and NASA astronauts. Donald Trump? He deferred the draft five times because he had ‘bone spurs.’ Look, not everyone has to serve in our military. I get that. But when you’re going to question my patriotism, and lecture me about duty to this country, and threaten me with a court martial, four generations of service to this country earns me the right to speak. Five deferments earns nothing.

I admire Senator Kelly greatly. I truly appreciate the way he is standing up to these thugs. It is very important to me to point out, however, that there is one member of the Trump family who did serve his country – my father, Fred Trump, Jr. During college, dad participated in the Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC). After graduating from Lehigh University, he served as a second lieutenant in the National Guard. Because of that, what little respect my grandfather had for my father diminished even further—he considered such things a waste of time. Donald, the guy who received five deferments during the Vietnam War, had no respect for my father, his service, or service of any kind. That is who Donald is and always has been.

The reason Donald gave for deferring his service was fictional—he never had bone spurs. Much more important is the reality that because of those five deferments, five other young men served in Donald’s place.

It turns out that going after a popular swing state Democrat who is willing to fight back and stand his ground was not a particularly smart move on Hegseth’s part. Since the Trump regime’s attacks on him, Kelly has seen a massive surge in donations. In November and December, he was the top earner on the Democratic fundraising platform ActBlue and he isn’t even up for reelection this year.

Kelly is showing Democrats how it’s done: Don’t back down; don’t capitulate to them; don’t empower them by acting afraid. Instead, stand up. Hegseth and Donald are not fit to shine Mark Kelly’s shoes. Kelly is making it clear to the rest of the country that he understands that.

4 days ago | [YT] | 4,469

Mary Trump Media

I have been trying to organize my thoughts about everything happening, both domestically and internationally. What we are witnessing now is exactly what we should have been prepared for since 2016. For years, there has been ample evidence pointing to this outcome, if only more people had been paying attention.

The problem now is not so much understanding what is happening, although we still need to help some people catch up. The problem is how to navigate the constant onslaught of news, all of which feels urgent, all of which feels as though it demands immediate attention. That is because it does. Every piece of it matters.

This is not accidental. Much of it is intentional. The goal is to demoralize us, exhaust us, overwhelm us, and stoke fear. They want us disorganized. They want it to be nearly impossible to fully process the relentless stream of horrors. And perhaps most perversely, they are energized by our reactions. The Trump Regime thrives on chaos.

Since January 1st, so much has happened that it is difficult to keep it all straight. Part of the problem is that Democrats currently have no power.

In The Sun Also Rises, Ernest Hemingway’s Mike Campbell is asked how he went bankrupt. He replies, “Gradually, then suddenly.” That is where we are now. We have entered the “suddenly” phase.

In America, since 2015 or 2016, events have unfolded gradually and then all at once. The first Trump administration was horrific. The years that followed were also devastating in different ways. But it feels as though on January 1, 2026, we fell off a cliff. There was no longer any pretense that the guardrails still existed. They had not merely failed. They had been obliterated.


There have been illegal strikes on boats in the Caribbean, killing civilians. On January 3rd, Donald ordered a strike on Venezuela with the explicit goal of removing and kidnapping President Nicolás Maduro and his wife. In the process, roughly one hundred people were killed. All of this violated international law. In the aftermath, we learned that Maduro, arraigned in a New York City courtroom, was being charged as a narco-terrorist.

Whether those allegations are true is beside the point. It is not the role of the United States to remove the head of state of another country. Maduro is not a legitimate president. Like Donald, he lost an election and decided otherwise. The difference is that Maduro remained in office, while Donald eventually slunk away. None of this excuses Maduro’s actions. It does, however, make clear that it is not the prerogative of a foreign power to kidnap and prosecute him. If it were, perhaps someone could intervene here in America.

The hypocrisy is staggering. This assault occurred against the backdrop of Donald pardoning Juan Orlando Hernández, the former president of Honduras. Hernández was a convicted drug trafficker who laundered millions of dollars, funneled enormous quantities of drugs into the United States, and was sentenced to forty-five years in prison. Donald, who claims to be horrified by the impact of foreign drugs on Americans, chose to pardon him.

Donald has made it clear that he intends to “run” Venezuela for years. He refers to himself as the acting president of Venezuela, which he is not. He has even suggested he would like to be called “El Presidente,” a detail that would be merely embarrassing if it were not also revealing.

In a meeting with oil executives, Exxon CEO Darren Woods raised concerns about the dangers of operating in Venezuela under Trump’s so-called plan. Woods, who has experience navigating Venezuela’s instability, attempted to raise legitimate concerns. By the end of the meeting, he felt compelled to flatter Donald. Even so, Donald reportedly remains furious and may retaliate by cutting Exxon out entirely. Revenge has become a governing principle.

Meanwhile, there is massive unrest in Iran. Protesters are being met with state-sponsored violence. People are being killed. Donald is openly considering military strikes there as well, ostensibly out of concern for Iranian protesters. At the same time, he is actively encouraging violence against Americans who are peacefully protesting ICE.

Last week, an American citizen, Renee Nicole Good, was killed by ICE agent Jonathan Ross. In the immediate aftermath, Donald, J.D. Vance, Kristi Noem, and others in the regime blamed the victim. They labeled Goode a paid agitator and a domestic terrorist. They claimed she used her car as a weapon against the agent, a claim contradicted by video evidence. Donald described her as vicious and disorderly. None of this is true. These lies exist alongside increasingly frequent signs of Donald’s cognitive decline. He appears confused, vindictive, and unmoored from reality.

The Department of Justice is now opening an investigation into Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, who has long been in Donalds crosshairs. Powell’s offense is refusing to cut interest rates. He understands that doing so in the middle of a volatile, self-inflicted trade war would drive inflation higher and further damage the economy. Donald despises competence.

None of us can pay attention to everything all the time. Some people will have to try, but for most of us, picking our battles is essential.

There are areas where we do have influence. We can protest ICE. We can organize. We can protect one another while doing so. We cannot meaningfully shape foreign policy in the short term, but we can stay informed without letting it destroy us. We can contact our representatives. We can support candidates who are willing to stand up to a fascist regime bent on destroying both democracy and international norms.

We also cannot allow ourselves to be endlessly distracted. Much of what is happening is designed to pull our attention in a dozen directions at once, yet it is all deeply serious. That includes the Department of Justice missing its December 19 deadline and releasing only 0.6 percent of more than two million documents in the Jeffrey Epstein files.

The details matter. This moment demands more than vigilance. It demands a reckoning with the system that allowed someone like this to ascend. Returning to what existed before is not enough. The American government, as it once functioned, no longer exists in any meaningful sense. It must be reimagined from the ground up.

This moment requires courage. It requires truth. It requires supporting people who are willing to offer both to the American people. Those are the people we must elevate. Those are the people we must put in power.

5 days ago | [YT] | 4,995

Mary Trump Media

I know what it is to live entirely for and with what I love best on earth. I hold myself supremely blest — blest beyond what language can express; because I am my [wife’s] life as fully as [s]he is mine. No woman was ever nearer to her mate than I am: ever more absolutely bone of [her] bone and flesh of [her] flesh. I know no weariness of [her] society: [s]he knows none of mine, any more than we each do of the pulsation of the heart that beats in our separate bosoms; consequently, we are ever together. To be together is for us to be at once as free as in solitude, as gay as in company. We talk, I believe, all day long: to talk to each other is but a more animated and an audible thinking. All my confidence is bestowed on [her], all [her] confidence is devoted to me; we are precisely suited in character — perfect concord is the result.

—Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre

There is a human impulse during dark times to turn away from the light, especially when the darkness encroaches in a way that feels inescapable. Luckily, the opposite impulse also exists; despite the increasing onslaught of deliberate cruelty, lost ground, and assaults on our very understanding of who we are over the last year, our better instincts prevail—our instincts not only to subsist and survive, but to thrive.

At the very beginning of 2025—January 20th to be exact (not an insignificant date)—I was presented with an alternative to the shuttered, circumscribed, and lonely life I had come to live. For reasons I still haven’t figured out (if past is prologue, I had no reason to believe that I would ever find somebody with whom I could share my life in a way that was joyous and loving and mutual), I allowed myself to embrace that alternative.


In October, the two of us were married in front of a small group of some of our family and closest friends. Today, I continue to be stunned by my greatest good fortune. I am married not only to the love of my life but to my best friend. Because I opened myself to the possibility that was held out to me almost a year ago, my other relationships have deepened in new and unexpected ways. I am happy in a way I never would have dared imagine.

There is more to the story, of course—including the reason for my not having spoken of my marriage publicly before this—and times continue to be challenging. The first eleven days of 2026 represent an escalation of the horrors we experienced as a country since January 20, 2025, that is as shocking as it is predictable. For that reason, it is more important than ever to remember there is always light and hope and love to be had if we allow ourselves to let it in. We must always let it in.

6 days ago | [YT] | 5,900

Mary Trump Media

What should happen next after the fatal ICE shooting in Minneapolis?

1 week ago | [YT] | 9,721

Mary Trump Media

Today is, of course, January 6th. Five years ago, Donald incited an insurrection against his own government, encouraging a mob to attack the U.S. Capitol, and endangering the lives of every single person in that building. His actions led to chaos, violence, and the deaths of at least seven people. Dozens of Capitol police officers were injured, some of them grievously. Many of them remain traumatized to this day.

Donald and the Trump regime desperately want to pretend either that January 6th was a positive thing, or to pretend that it never happened at all. It is up to all of us to make sure that we never forget the horrors that were inflicted on this country and on our democracy on that day, all because Donald could not accept that he lost the 2020 election to his opponent, Joe Biden, by almost eight million votes. The narcissistic wound occasioned by the loss was too deep for him to process. Thus the big lie was born and then perpetuated by the Republican Party.

By tradition, January 6th is the day Congress counts and confirms the state’s electoral votes and certifies the results of the presidential election. Up until 2021, this had always been standard operating procedure. The election had already been held; the votes had been counted; and the winner declared. The moment, presided over by the vice president, is essentially ceremonial.

Before the proceedings began, Donald sent out a tweet at approximately 8:00 a.m. that consisted of nothing but lies about the 2020 election, lies he’d been telling every day since he lost. One of those tweets read in part,

States want to correct their votes, which they now know were based on irregularities and fraud… All Mike Pence has to do is send them back to the States, AND WE WIN. Do it Mike…

Of course, the election was legitimate and Mike Pence had no authority to send anything back to the states. By phrasing it the way he did, Donald led many people to believe that Pence actually did have the authority to overturn the results, a lie which ultimately put his life in danger. After a gallows, complete with noose, was erected outside of the Capitol building, the mob called for Pence to be hanged.

Later in the day while Congress was in session, Donald held a rally at the Capitol Ellipse, further perpetuating the lie that the election had been stolen from him. He ended the speech this way.

“We fight. We fight like hell, and if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore. So let’s walk down Pennsylvania Avenue.”

And the crowd did. With their weapons and their Confederate flags, their zip ties, and their bear spray, they assaulted the officers and began forcing their way into the Capitol building.

When I initially heard that Donald had planned to walk to the Capitol as well, I didn’t believe it. He is a physical coward and there is no way he would have put himself in any kind of danger. Then it dawned on me that he knew these were his people. They might be out for the blood of Pence and then-Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, but they would protect him.

The assault lasted hours. As the violence escalated, the crowd became a mob, and the situation became increasingly grave. The Secret Service attempted to evacuate Pence, but he refused to leave, unsure if he could trust them. He remained within the Capitol building for hours.

During all of this, Donald did nothing except watch the events he put into motion on television. He was urged by those in his inner circle to do something to defuse the situation, not realizing he was getting exactly what he wanted. Those insurrectionists, the people in that mob, were fighting for him; they were fighting to restore him to a presidency he believed belonged to him because he was incapable of accepting the truth and, at least to a degree, had come to believe his lie.

At 6:00 PM, after the riot had ended, Donald posted another tweet in which he referred to the insurrectionists as “great patriots.” Slightly over four years later, squaring the circle of that egregious lie, he pardoned the almost 1500 traitors who had assaulted local law enforcement, threatened the lives of every person who stood in their way, and desecrated our nation’s Capitol.

Donald spared no thought at at all for officers who were injured and the five who lost their lives as a direct result of his insurrection. According to The Washington Post, Officer Brian Sicknick suffered two strokes hours after two men sprayed him with a powerful chemical irritant. Four other officers who served that day died by suicide in the days and months following the event.

We do not discuss mental health in this country and we have a tendency to ignore mental illness. The amount of trauma those officers, as well as members of Congress, and others in the Capitol suffered on that day was exacerbated in the aftermath of the insurrection when the Capitol police officers were betrayed by their government, and Democratic members of Congress, along with a handful of Republicans, were betrayed by their Republican colleagues.

Now, the Republican Party acts as if none of it happened. It is as if those police officers did not risk their lives, did not suffer grievous injuries, did not have their lives and careers upended while protecting the people who have since turned their backs on them. As Donald and the cowards in the Republican Party would have us believe, the real heroes in this story, the true patriots, are the insurrectionists.

Republicans in Congress could have chosen to protect democracy over the one man who has done more to weaken our institutions and destroy our constitutional order, but they chose Donald Trump. In the years since that horrific day, the corporate media, along with the Republican Party, Donald, and his inner circle, have done Yeoman’s work in trying to normalize the greatest betrayal of this country since the Civil War.

We cannot allow that to stand. It is up to us to remember how many people were involved in protecting our Capitol and the people in it, how many people tried desperately to hold the insurrectionists to account, and how much damage has been done by Donald and the Republicans in Congress not only to our democracy, but to our sense as Americans of what our country stands for.

We must remember the lengths they have gone to to undermine the American people’s faith in free and fair elections, in the rule of law, and in justice of any kind.

We are the keepers of these memories, and we can never allow the memory of that tragic, horrific, treasonous day to fade.

1 week ago | [YT] | 5,317