In his letter to the editor of Aug. 28, Mr. Ray Anderson tries to argue there is some type of equivalence for the protests against Trump’s inauguration in 2017 and the occurrences of President Joe Biden’s inauguration on Jan. 6, 2021. No similarities exist.
Protesters after Trump’s 2017 inauguration did not storm the United States Capitol and beat the hell out of Capitol Police officers. Assaulting a police officer is a crime no matter who is doing the assaulting. Yes, even Black Lives Matter protesters.
Trying to prevent the peaceful transfer of presidential power in the United States is a crime. Trump had had his day in court by Jan 6. Sixty of them. He lost every case. Investigation after investigation has shown the 2020 election to be, in the words of Chris Krebs, Trump’s own chief of election security, “the cleanest election in American history.” On Jan. 6, Trump agitated and incited a mob that went to the Capitol and committed on his behalf an assault on a mass scale to try to prevent the certification of the electoral votes by the House of Representatives. People died. Police officers died as a result.
2024 will be another clean election, but Trump is already laying the groundwork for another round of “election fraud” claims. Trump is a non-stop liar and a conman.
Yes, Mr. Anderson, a speedy trial is a constitutional right. It is the right of the government (the people) as well as the defendant. Trump believes three years is reasonable. At least delaying his trials long enough to get back in power and snuff out the indictments against him and keep his criminal butt out of prison.
Data is clear and overwhelming. Blue states and even blue counties that had often significantly higher vaccination rates than red states or red counties had a much lower COVID-19 mortality rate. It is the job of the government to keep people as safe as they know how to with the information they have at hand. Not following Trump’s advice to inject bleach is one way.
Hillary Clinton says, “people need to be deprogrammed.” The far-right has fed America a steady diet of conspiracy theories and lies for decades starting with Ronald Reagan’s now 45 year-old union busting, trickle-down economics theory, which has created massive wealth inequality and political and social discontent.
Unlike the old Soviet Union, if Mr. Anderson wishes to leave the United States, he is free to do so. If that is his destiny, no brutal border guards or attack dogs will prevent his rendezvous with it.
But I don’t believe even deprogramming will break Trump’s MAGA cult fever dream. No, the march of time will be the only solution. The MAGA cultists will get old and irrelevant like former Nazis in 1950s West Germany and will, as sure as the sun rises, slip off this mortal coil.
Marty Ansley
Cinebar
