Rabbi Pruzansky's Blog

By two metrics, President Trump’s defeat* in the last election was predictable and should have been anticipated.

First, no President who has been impeached (or nearly impeached) has ever won re-election. It is true that only two (Andrew Johnson and President Trump) were eligible for re-election, and only Trump ran; the other two (Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton) were already serving their second terms. But more to the point, in each instance of impeachment, the party of the impeached president lost the subsequent election. In other words, the Democrats took back the presidency in 1976, the Republicans in 2000, and the Democrats in 2020.

The only exception was 1868, in which the Republicans held the White House. But that election was an outlier, in any event, as was the impeachment. The main instigators of impeachment against the Republican Johnson (a former Democrat) were his fellow Republicans. Oddly, House Democrats overwhelmingly voted not to impeach, and all the Democrats in the Senate voted to acquit. It was one weird time. Even though Ulysses S. Grant was elected as a Republican, he was perceived as the antithesis to Johnson.

It emerges that in each instance of actual impeachment, including 1868, the impeaching party lost seats in the House in the subsequent election (2000, 2020), as if the voters were rebuking them for expending their energies on futile gestures. (Nixon resigned before impeachment and Republicans were clobbered in the 1974 midterms, just three months after he left office.) Yet, notwithstanding the political difficulties caused to the impeachment advocates, it has to date been a foolproof method of removing a president (or the subsequent nominee from his party) from office. Perhaps it so sours the political atmosphere that even an acquitted president is tainted by the experience. 

Is there a message in this for a potential 2023 Republican House majority? One would hope not, and it would be healthy for the republic if impeachment never occurred unless there was a reasonable chance of conviction in the Senate. But as long as impeachment is perceived as an effective political tool, regardless of acquittal, we should expect it whenever the political stars are aligned properly (i.e., a House and President of opposing parties).

Second, there is another metric, and this is extrapolated from the wonderful book by the esteemed presidential historian Tevi Troy, entitled “Shall We Wake the President? Two Centuries of Disaster Management from the Oval Office.” It is a history of presidential responses to the range of catastrophes (natural and man-made) that bedevil society and presidents constantly and usually unexpectedly. The upshot is that no president has ever been re-elected having weathered even one catastrophe during the election year or the year immediately preceding. And President Trump was forced to deal with three, none of his making. By the same token, presidents who are faced with calamities early in their terms (FDR-Pearl Harbor-1941, George W. Bush-Arab terror of 9/11-2001) are re-elected. Strange but true.

The calamities take the form of pandemics, terrorist attacks, weather catastrophes, economic collapses, blackouts, civil unrest (riots) and other such misfortunes.

Let’s look at the history of the last century. Woodrow Wilson not only failed to deal with the Spanish Flu, he actually never addressed the matter publicly (!), even though more than 600,000 Americans died (the equivalent today of 1,900,000 souls). His only private comment was his refusal to allow the pandemic to delay the transport of American troops to the European battlefield (even though soldiers were dying because of the pandemic), and his insistence that the war effort take precedence and the public not be informed about the crisis. Oddly, for this and other reasons, Wilson remains a progressive hero who greatly expanded the power of the presidency, except, obviously, as it could be used to limit the ravages of a pandemic.

Indeed, this book (published in 2016) is an amazingly prescient primer on how to deal with a pandemic, and the recommendations for the average citizen read like they were written six months ago. It makes for informative but eerie reading.

In any event, Wilson did little to stem the pandemic; his party lost in 1920. Although the stock market Crash occurred in the first year of Herbert Hoover’s term, not much had changed by 1932, and he lost his re-election bid. Although the Depression returned with a vengeance in 1937, that was the first year if FDR’s second term and he did not pay a political price for that in 1940.

This is not to suggest that every time the White House changes hands the culprit is a mismanaged crisis. It does imply that a mismanaged crisis will doom a president or his party’s chances in the next election if the crisis is close enough to the election.

Moving forward, LBJ and the Democrats were doomed by the mass riots that erupted in the summers of 1967 and 1968. An inability to control the streets (notwithstanding a president’s fairly limited resources in this regard without a request from local officials) is a sign of chaos and anarchy, and disheartens the good citizens. Jimmy Carter struggled through a recession, a hostage crisis and (during the primaries in 1980) a failed rescue attempt. Ronald Reagan’s recession occurred in the second year of his tenure, as did the Tylenol tampering scare. But Reagan handled both with aplomb and swept to victory in 1984. By contrast, George Bush suffered from a terrible recession in 1991 and 1992 (and broke his word and raised taxes) as well as the mismanaged Hurricane Andrew response in August 1992, and lost his bid for re-election.

Interestingly, Dr. Troy uses as an example of a potential catastrophe averted the Y2K panic in 1999. Bill Clinton prepared well, with committees, reports and actions, so when the calendar changed to 2000, nothing happened. The irony is that, for all the trepidation, no one knows if anything would have happened, but it is good to be prepared. His party lost in 2000 anyway (see impeachment, above) but I do not believe much can be learned from those historically rare but recently more common scenarios in which the presidential victor wins the Electoral College but loses the popular vote. That path to victory is so narrow that each such election is unique.

George W. Bush had to deal with the housing crash, and then economic collapse, in 2007 and 2008, and his party lost the White House in 2008. The outlier, here as in many areas, is Barack Obama, who won re-election despite a tepid economy and the ravages of Hurricane Sandy just a few weeks before Election Day in 2012. In our ultra-modern society, millions of homes (hey, including mine) lost power for well over a week in late October. He paid no price for it, perhaps because then Governor Christie lavished praise on Obama when the latter paid a short visit to the devastated south Jersey area. It would seem that when the president is let off the hook (maybe because the state needs federal dollars) he escapes electoral judgment in the voting booth.

That brings us to the current election. President Trump was not only impeached, but he also had to deal in 2020 with a pandemic, a concomitant economic collapse, and widespread race rioting that lasted months that wreaked havoc on American cities, all of which engendered the sense that the country is anarchic, ungovernable and uncontrollable. It is unthinkable that he could be re-elected with that litany of catastrophe hovering over the electorate. And even with all that, the election results were, shall we say, disputable, worthy of a Roger Maris-like asterisk. (I will re-evaluate this in 30 years, like Major League Baseball did for Maris.)

One other point that emerges from this fascinating and quite readable study is that when disaster strikes, the president will always receive conflicting recommendations from a variety of aides and Cabinet secretaries as to the best course to take. (This is underscored in GWB’s “Decision Points Theater in his presidential library’s where the observer is confronted with the four major crises of the Bush Administration and the range and divergent recommendations he received for each one. The observer is invited to then choose one – and behold the results. Hindsight is 2020.)  When these contradictory and momentous opinions are proffered, the president must have the mental acuity to weigh each one and its consequences, as well as consider the impact of any particular choice on living human beings and on foreign policy.

It is highly pressurized, requires quick analytical and decision-making skills and in almost every case, does not (and cannot) follow a preordained or drafted script. And these decisions cannot be delegated to others, as different agencies will have different priorities and approaches. One would hope the president would possess that type of intellectual perspicacity.

And the reality is that a president can make a wise and rational decision – and the results are still calamitous. There are guidelines but no playbook that can account for every situation.

You wouldn’t wish this job on anyone – and yet so many seem to want it. That being said, let us wish the incoming president health and wisdom to make virtuous and just decisions.

      What a debacle, a series of terrible miscalculations and awful judgment exhibited by all sides of the political divide in America. It has all the markings of a banana republic.

      Who put into President Trump’s head the preposterous idea that the Vice-President has the right to reject the votes of state certified electors? Whoever did is guilty of malpractice or worse. The Twelfth Amendment to the Constitution authorizes the Vice President (in his capacity as President of the Senate) to “open all the certificates” as provided by the States, and then the votes are counted. How that can be construed as certifying, confirming or being allowed to reject said certificates is a mystery. That the President believed whoever told him that reflects poorly on him.

      As stated before, President Trump did not incite or cause an insurrection – the guilty are the perpetrators – but as president he bears responsibility for whatever happens on his watch, especially when, based on the previous paragraph, the rally itself was pointless. Nothing he said can be fairly interpreted as a crime or as dispatching a small mob (most of the participants in the rally went home, so by last summer’s standards, what happened could be called a “mostly peaceful protest”). President Trump showed appalling judgment in not denouncing the attack in real time, something that might have inhibited some of the protesters. The mob should be punished, like all mobs, and politicians of all stripes should denounce political violence of all sorts even when committed by their own supporters. The attack was a horrible stain on American democracy.

     That stain was deepened by the subsequent reaction, including the bans on the free speech of a variety of individuals, including the President, by private companies that benefit from federal regulations that insulate them from liability. That is an evil wind coursing through American society. The ease with which basic freedoms can be suppressed – and the past year has seen the heavy hands of government and major corporations crushing fundamental liberties – should frighten every American, and every citizen of the free world. What happens in America sets an example for the world. It is not only that the world’s dictators are laughing at the dysfunctional American government but more that governments that look to America for democratic guidance will now feel emboldened to repress their populations whenever it suits them.

     Worse is the sham impeachment that took place, something vindictive and absurd. The motivation for impeachment and conviction should be removal of someone unfit from office. A President who is days away from leaving office who cannot be “removed” from office should not be subject to impeachment. The argument that the Democrats seek to bar him from ever running again doesn’t hold water. As I read the Constitution (Article I, Section 3), impeachment and conviction “shall not extend further than to removal from Office and disqualification to hold or enjoy any Office of honor, Trust or Profit under the United States.” (This assumes that political office is one of “honor, trust or profit.” Well, maybe profit.) More to the point, such “disqualification” is a consequence of “removal.” It doesn’t stand alone, otherwise it would permit Congress to impeach and try any politician simply to exclude them from seeking office.

     For example, could a Republican Congress have impeached Joe Biden in 2018, two years after he left office, for a High Crime (having been credibly accused of rape), only to prevent him from running in 2020? Such a thought is ludicrous or Richard Nixon could have been impeached even after he resigned in 1974. (Pardons are ineffective against impeachments [Article II, Section 2]). As a constitutional enthusiast, I look forward to this being litigated in the courts.

     Worst of all is an impeachment without an investigation, hearing, witnesses, testimony or any resembling a fair trial. The rush to judgment has all the markings of a Communist show trial. It sets such a dangerous precedent that one can look forward to impeachments whenever the House of Representatives and the White House are controlled by different parties. Since impeachment is a political act, and all presidents do something that the other party doesn’t like, impeachment can become routine, and a routine waste of time since it is unlikely that any Senate would ever convict.

     And then there is something raised the other day by a Florida congressman, unwittingly channeling the Jewish legal principle of “Ain eid naaseh dayyan” (a witness cannot be the judge). A witness cannot be a judge because of the obvious lack of objectivity that engenders in the “judge.” The blurring of the roles makes fairness impossible. The House effectively sits as a Grand Jury that hands up an indictment of the president. Here the Grand Jury consisted not only of witnesses to the alleged crime but its purported victims as well! Does the victim of a crime ever sit on the jury? Of course not. Potential jurors are routinely excluded if they were ever crime victims so as not to prejudice them against the defendant, much less the victim of the crime being tried. Additionally, in impartial hearings, the accused has the right to defend himself; the rush to judgment here precluded that.

     Why then did the Democrats sprint to impeachment? I don’t buy the notion of wanting to disgrace Trump as the only president ever to be impeached twice. Impeachment has lost is stigma. Bill Clinton did quite nicely for himself after his presidency, and Donald Trump won more votes in his re-election bid than in 2016. (In fact, he is the only president in history to have lost* a bid for re-election while garnering more votes than in his initial election. Go figure.) It is another line in a biography, and for as many people who feel that Trump is thereby dishonored, the same number will feel he is a wrongly persecuted hero.

     My speculation is that the Democrats did this to discredit any attempt to investigate potential fraud in the past election. They will immediately respond that any such allegations instigated a treasonous attack on the Capitol and that anyone who makes the argument or raises questions is similarly treasonous. This will enable them to hasten to make mail-in ballots the norm, the simplest route to fraud.

     Yes, yes, I have heard that there was “no evidence of widespread fraud,” and nothing that would “overturn the results of the election.” Here is why Trump couldn’t legally prove his case of fraud:  For all the shenanigans that people testified to (mail trucks of fake ballots delivered, suitcases of ballots being brought out after hours, ballots of the dead and missing, keeping observers far away so as to render them useless, etc.), he cannot prove that those ballots were for Biden. Ipso facto, the results of the election cannot be overturned, nor is there evidence of widespread fraud. But anyone who believes that there was no fraud because the courts so ruled must also believe that OJ was innocent of double homicide. The judicial system doesn’t always get it right; it is sufficient for a civil society that it gets it right most of the time.

     If the Democrats want to enshrine in law mail-in voting, you will know the fix is in. The fairest electoral system would require a national voter ID, which the Democrats have always ridiculously claimed disadvantages minorities. Why that is so is another mystery; anyone who flies on a plane has to produce identification. In Israel, every citizen has an ID number and such is presented before voting and duly recorded. This way people only vote once, and priority is given to voters who are alive. That would ensure a fair system – mail-in balloting combined with election month is a formula for perpetual mistrust of the system by one side or the other.

     Of course it won’t happen. That is the price of the dysfunction and corruption that afflicts all sides of American politics today with no signs of abatement.

      Rep. Mary Miller, a new Republican Congresswoman from Illinois, was lambasted  by the customary caterwaulers for saying at a (not the) Capitol Hill rally the following: “Each generation has the responsibility to teach and train the next generation. You know if we win a few elections, we’re still going to be losing unless we win the hearts and minds of our children. This is the battle.” So far, so good.

     Then she added: “Hitler was right on one thing. He said ‘Whoever has the youth has the future.’ Our children are being propagandized.”

     Less than a week after she assumed office, there were ubiquitous calls for her resignation. A rabbinical organization with which I am affiliated, the Coalition for Jewish Values, came to her defense in a way, rejected calls for her resignation but noted her unfortunate reference to Hitler, for which, by the way, she promptly apologized.

     It is not a good look to be citing Adolf Hitler in any context but to inform that he was beyond evil, a sick, perverted, malevolent mastermind of the greatest genocide in history. Miller’s context was apt, in that she was underscoring that evil (i.e., Hitler) can easily triumph if the minds of the youth are corrupted, and she openly stated that Hitler was one of the most evil dictators of all time. It was a strong point made inartfully, but the point she made, well taken as it is, could have been substantiated by quoting the Bible or 100 lesser thinkers.

     The broader point is that incessant references to Hitler, Nazis, Storm Troopers and the like have become too prevalent and banal in American society. To seek the resignation of all those who misuse these terms would leave almost no one standing in public life. In the Wall Street Journal the other day, Peggy Noonan, after asserting that she has fought off the temptation for years, finally compared President Trump to Hitler. Arnold Schwarzenegger, better body-builder than politician or thinker, compared last week’s riot at the Capitol to “Kristallnacht.” Nancy Pelosi this past summer compared federal law enforcement officials trying to restore order in America’s riot torn cities to “Storm Troopers.” AOC compared ICE detention facilities to “concentration camps.” Parenthetically, none of these four individuals have been asked to apologize or to resign.

     Here in Israel, it is also not unknown for the epithet “Nazi” to be hurled at police officers, politicians, bureaucrats and the occasional cab driver.

     Good grief. Perhaps some ground rules are in order as to the use of Nazi metaphors.

     Hitler was a genocidal mass murderer without any redeeming features at all. For twenty years, he planned the mass incarceration and then extermination of an entire people. He murdered six million Jews, and scarred several million other survivors and refugees. While doing so, he ignited a world war that consumed tens of millions of other lives.

      Anyone whose deeds do not rise to that level should never be mentioned in the same breath as Hitler. All that does is diminish Hitler’s evil. To compare President Trump – the best president for Jews and Israel ever, not that Jews show any gratitude for it – is obscene; memo to Peggy Noonan and thousands of others. If you need to compare Hitler to someone, compare him to his rivals Stalin and Mao (each of whom murdered more people than did Hitler).

      President Trump, whatever his personal flaws, did not round up millions of innocent people for extermination. Harsh tweets, even harsh rhetoric, are not the same as cattle cars and gas chambers, and the mere suggestion is repugnant to one whose relatives experienced cattle cars and gas chambers.

     Furthermore, on Kristallnacht (November 9, 1938, the “Night of the Broken Glass,”) several thousand Jews were murdered, tens of thousands were arrested and sent to concentration camps, hundreds of synagogues and thousands of businesses throughout Germany and Austria were burned, ransacked and looted. The riot at the Capitol was despicable – but Kristallnacht? The hyperbole is appalling and disgusting, especially coming from a native Austrian. (To me, even calling it an “insurrection” is over the top, just politics. Did the invaders try to seize the government? Did they have a plan to form an alternative government? Did they have any plan at all? t is disgraceful enough that the Capitol was invaded by a motley crew of misfits, clowns, pillagers, and violent trespassers. They should all be in prison – like all rioters and looters – but insurrection?) It is that type of exaggeration that induces publicity seeking polemicists to compare it to Kristallnacht, an insult to Jews who lived and suffered through it and the thousands who then fled Germany in its wake.

     Are law enforcement officials “Storm Troopers” as Pelosi termed them? Well, were these officers trying to restore order or create mayhem? Were they rounding up innocent people for detention, slave labor and execution, or were they trying to protect innocent people and their homes and businesses? The answer is clear, and the epithet Pelosi used was reprehensible, not that she will called to account for it.

     Are ICE detention facilities “concentration camps” as Cortez labeled them? Such a characterization can only emerge from someone who is completely unfamiliar with concentration camps where innocent people (not lawbreakers) were forced into slave labor, malnourished, received no health care, and died in huge numbers when they weren’t being executed. Jews in concentration camps were not held for brief periods of time until their status could be clarified, and then freed.

       Godwin’s Law lives: the longer any discussion goes on, the likelihood grows that someone will compare someone or something to Nazis. Users demonstrate emptiness of thought and an absence of values and historical perspective. Unfortunately, Jews too are not strangers to misappropriating Holocaust references and shooting them at their perceived political foes.

     We need a moratorium on Nazi references, especially when used by politicians as propaganda for their views. Any act that does not reach the level of genocide or potential genocide is not “Hitler, Nazi, or the Holocaust.” Perhaps the only enduring lesson we can learn from Hitler is how easily pure evil can be diluted until it seems trivial, which can only lead to the proliferation of more evil.

     If it is not genocide, leave Hitler and his henchmen out of the discussion. Try to make your points using logic and reason rather than a conversation-stopper born of ignorance.

Capitol Crimes

And while I’m on the subject of a Third World country…

Everyone should acknowledge the truth of Chazal’s statement (Avot 3:2) that we should always “pray for the welfare of the government; but for fear of government men would eat each other alive.” It certainly seems that way. When government is perceived as illegitimate and fear of authority dissipates, there is no limit to what mayhem even decent, and certainly indecent, people can perpetrate.

It needs to be underscored that the assault on the Capitol was wrong, despicable, deplorable, and beyond the pale of a civilized society. It does typify what is common in Third World countries. To the extent that President Trump was responsible, he deserves criticism. It doesn’t undo the good that he accomplished in his four years as president, but the leader is responsible for what happens on his watch and especially an assault on the seat of American democracy.

It was inexcusable, which is not to say it was unprecedented. Let’s get real. Democracy is not in danger.

In January 1952, thousands of Israelis surrounded the Knesset to protest the impending negotiations about reparations from Germany. Egged on by an irate Menachem Begin, who urged his supporters to sacrifice their lives along with him, the Knesset chamber filled with tear gas. Lawmakers had to be evacuated. There was pandemonium in the streets. Numerous arrests were made. Democracy in Israel was assumed to be tottering on the brink of collapse. Begin was eventually banned from the Knesset for three months.  The talks with Germany began. There are persistent rumors (OK, I can verify it personally) that democracy in Israel survived.

American democracy will not be aborted by several hundred protesters who briefly occupied the Capitol, and once there, had no plan to actually do anything. It was less a revolution than an empty, pointless, but deadly gesture.

In 1932, tens of thousands of outraged veterans descended on the Capitol and squatted on the grounds. This was the Bonus Army, impoverished former soldiers protesting that their pensions in government bonds would not be payable until 1945. In the nadir of the Depression, they needed the money now. They, too, were deemed a grave threat to democracy, although too decorous to actually enter the Capitol building. Following orders, Army Chief of Staff Douglas MacArthur directed his soldiers to fire live ammunition at the Bonus Army in order to clear the Capitol. They did. Two veterans were killed, and although democracy endured, this violent act probably cost MacArthur a chance at the presidency. His second-in- command, Dwight Eisenhower, fared better.

We should spare ourselves the apocalyptic talk, most (but not all) of which is politically motivated.

The justified condemnations of yesterday’s protest stand in stark contrast to the tolerance, even celebration by many of yesterday’s critics, of the riots, protests, and looting that swept through American cities this past spring and summer and lasted months. Those riots found enormous support especially among those who detest President Trump. It is a curious stance.

Consistency – intellectual and moral – demands that the black supremacist (BLM) riots of the summer of 2020 warrant the same passionate criticism of the Trump supporter riots of 2021. That it didn’t bears some analysis, and sheds light on the real threats to democracy in America.

Many rabbis and Jewish organizations, livid over the assault on the Capitol, were quite sympathetic, even supportive and some quite enthusiastic about the summer’s devastation in urban America. They saw no real problem, and even downplayed and ignored, the targeted attacks on Jewish businesses and synagogues (in Los Angeles, for example) and were very indulgent of the assaults, the homicides, the looting of hundreds of stores, the arson against homes and workplaces, and the chaos that ensued. They even excused the non-wearing of masks and the nonexistence of social distancing at these riots, holding that racial justice is more important than even protecting life from the ravages of Coronavirus. Some even opined that riots and protests were not contagious because…well, because they are just not.

In essence, these leaders, media personalities, activists and politicians all reasoned that political violence for a worthy cause is commendable if the grievance is construed as legitimate. And now they are shocked when another group asserts the same rights. If the black supremacists, Antifa and their allies were permitted to vent when aggrieved by some perceived violation of their rights, it should not be surprising when whites, supremacists and others, also seek to vent when they are aggrieved by some perceived violation of their rights.

What democracy might not survive is a persistent double standard in society. Few of the black supremacist rioters and Antifa looters were arrested, and of those who were, slightly more than none are being prosecuted. Theirs was a just grievance, apparently. But when millions of Americans have probable cause that there was significant fraud in the recent election, the elites determine that such a grievance is not legitimate. That position will clearly not persuade the offended.

Yet, the black supremacists and the white supremacists are mirror images of each other (the common denominator is that both dislike Jews). Blacks and others who feel targeted by the police and recklessly attacked were offended, and took to the streets, occupying large areas of Seattle, Portland and other cities. Washington DC, for all the hand-wringing and pieties heard yesterday, has been a war zone for months. Americans who feel that the government has taken away their freedoms, businesses, jobs, ability to earn a living, closed its schools to their children and saw their champion, President Trump harassed, harangued, and victimized by phony charges since before he took office and now defeated by fraud (so they say), are also offended.

Once political violence is legitimized at one end of the spectrum, the genie is out of the bottle. Let’s face it – political violence often works. Occupy Wall Street was a favorite cause of President Obama. The summer’s riots changed the election dynamic, was perceived as weakening Donald Trump, and encouraged and (to an extent) funded by Democrats and other left wingers. (Recall, for one example, Amy Klobuchar raising money to bail out rioters.) Arab terror weakened Israel sufficiently that it provoked the disastrous Oslo Accords. Of course, too much violence fails; thus the 2002 war in Israel against the terror infrastructure. Riots in the wrong place at the wrong time (like the Capitol riots) dishearten and disgust even those supportive of the cause. Besides being wrong and criminal, they are also counterproductive. The double standard, though, “violence for thee but not for me,” must surely grate on the protesters.

It is reasonable and proper to denounce political violence as a tool for everyone, and to prosecute anyone who engages in it. Anyone. Period. That should be obvious and those who properly wish to condemn yesterday’s riots while giving a pass to previous riots are misguided and pursuing an agenda. Too many people are afraid to accept this simple reality, and even now hide behind the contention that the Capitol riots are somehow different (because of venue?) and should not be compared to other political violence. That is wrong and short-sighted.

The more serious problem evinced by all these riots is the utter disconnect in America between the common people and the ruling class. It is felt both by the black supremacists (media darlings) and many white Americans (media villains). That will not be easy to heal. The polarization in society is that profound and the mutual contempt of both sides for each other stunning.  Each side points to the extremists in the other side and denies the existence of their own. There is no Democrat presently in a leadership position who has the slightest interest in outreach, another Obama legacy. The latest, frivolous impeachment talk, with Trump’s term ending in less than two weeks, demonstrates that what they seek is blood, not harmony. The “threat” to American democracy of the Capitol crimes will grow in the retelling, from riots to insurrection to a coup attempt, and all for a disgraceful scene whose purpose and objectives remain murky. Did the rioters really think Congress would stop tallying the electoral votes? Hard to believe.

What should Trump have done? I doubt that he even suspected that any of his supporters would invade the Capitol. He should have addressed the nation, as follows: “I feel cheated, robbed of an election that I won by all metrics. But no legal recourse has succeeded. I don’t concede but accept the conclusion and will leave office on January 20.” It would be a different world had he said this yesterday, instead of the speech that he gave, which was a terrible miscalculation.

He is best off not attending the inauguration. It would be a gigantic distraction. Neither President Adams did, so did they loathe their successors (Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson, respectively). And he completely destroyed his quixotic quest for another term in 2024, and just as well.

What is the way forward?  It is not simple. The world has yet to realize the extent of the damage to individuals, families and society of the social media platforms that bring out the worst in people and are addictive. It encourages spontaneous outbursts instead of sagacious deliberations. That has to change.

Fighting for a lost cause is futile and vain; the only lost cause that was ever worth fighting was the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. The challenge to the Electoral College vote was such a lost cause not worth fighting, even if the primary request for a bi-partisan commission on election integrity is prudent. Mike Pence and Mitch McConnell were wonderful – statesmanlike and forceful – and putting country over party loyalty. Americans could use more of that, less demonizing of the other side, and an end to the political zero sum game that the parties have played for decades.

One indication will be whether yesterday’s appalling acts are seen as aberrations that reflect poorly on the participants and no one else, or are used as a club with which to pound all Republicans for the foreseeable future. I suspect I know the answer to that question.