Since Jan. 6, 2021, we have been forced to live with the unfathomable: A president of the United States encouraged an attack on the Capitol designed to undermine the very democracy he was elected to protect and preserve. Adding insult to injury, after witnessing with our own eyes Donald Trump telling an angry mob that they must "fight like hell" or they "won't have a country anymore," and then directing them to go the Capitol and "stop the steal," the American people were asked to wait a full 2 ½ years for Trump to be held accountable. Trump has now been criminally indicted by a grand jury at the E. Barrett Prettyman U.S. Courthouse in Washington — just a stone's throw from the Capitol crime scene — for his attempt to end our representative democracy and override the expressed will of the American voters. But the alternative is almost unthinkable. Since John Adams yielded the presidency to Thomas Jefferson more than 200 years ago, the peaceful transfer of presidential power has been a hallmark of our constitutional form of government. It is a thing of democratic beauty — if not an outright miracle — proving the viability of successful self-governance. If Trump's alleged crimes went unaddressed, it would give future aspiring dictators the green light to do it all again. That is a circumstance our nation could not long endure. And that is what make this indictment as important as it is historic. Read more of Glenn Kirschner's analysis here. For live coverage of the indictment, read our live blog. |
