November 8, 2016: Donald Trump Is "Elected" President

November 8, 2016: A Presidential election is held. The Democratic Party's nominee for President was Hillary Clinton. She was, perhaps, the most qualified candidate the Presidency has ever had. The nation's First Lady for 8 years. A U.S. Senator for 8 years. The nation's Secretary of State for 4 years.

But some people could never forgive her for being a woman, for being a liberal, for being married to former President Bill Clinton, or for staying married to him through all his infidelities.

The Republican Party's nominee was Donald Trump. He was, beyond any question, the most underqualified candidate ever nominated for President by a major party. He had never held public office, either elective or appointive. He had never served in the armed forces, much less held a command in them, like some other men who were not previously politicians. This, alone, should have convinced people that he wasn't fit to be President.

As if that wasn't enough: He was a pathological liar, a known bigot, and a damn fool. Having grown up watching the New York local news, and having seen him on it for over 30 years, I could legitimately tell people that, in spite of being 70 years old, which would have made him the oldest first-time President ever to that point, he was not in mental decline: He was always an idiot.

Even the main argument in his favor, that he was a successful businessman, should have worked against him. For one thing, running a government -- national, state or local -- and running a business are two very different things. Businessmen don't know a damn thing about governing. In other words, even if Trump were a good person with good intentions, he would still have been a lousy President, because he wouldn't have known what the hell he was doing.

For another thing, he wasn't a successful businessman. He was a real estate mogul, and lost money on just about every building he built. He built and operated casinos, and lost money running them. How the hell do you lose money running a casino? And he bought a professional football team, the New Jersey Generals of the United States Football League, and ended up destroying the entire league.

As they used to say on the TV show Match Game, Dumb Donald is so dumb!

But not completely dumb. He tapped into the anger that some people had at Hillary. And he let the nation's bigots -- whether they hated people because of race, religion, gender, sexual orientation, or any  other category -- know that he hated the same people, and would hurt those people at the benefit of those who hated them. It would be government by spite. Essentially, he was giving them permission to be openly bigoted again.

And there were enough people who ate that up that, when combined with those people who, whether they liked Trump personally or not, or whether they thought he was intelligent enough or mentally stable enough to be President or not, were going to vote for the Republican nominee no matter what, because they wanted tax cuts, deregulation and right-wing judges, that he had a chance.

In the election, Clinton won 65.8 million votes, to Trump's 62.9 million. She won 48.2 percent of the popular vote to Trump's 46.1 percent. Gary Johnson, a former Republican Governor of New Mexico, nominated by the Libertarian Party, won 4.5 million votes, or 3.3 percent. Jill Stein, a doctor and the nominee of the Green Party, openly appealed to the supporters of Senator Bernie Sanders, Independent of Vermont, who finished a distant 2nd to Clinton in the Democratic Primaries, and got 1.4 million votes, or 1.1 percent.

So, nearly 63 million people saw that he was unqualified, dishonest, stupid, and bigoted, and voted for him anyway. Or, as someone else put it, not everybody who voted for Trump considered themselves racist, but they knew that he was, even if they weren't willing to publicly admit that, and they did not consider that fact to be a dealbreaker.

But, fairly or not, it's the Electoral Vote that matters. Clinton won 20 States, plus the District of Columbia, for 232 Electoral Votes. Trump won 30 States, plus 1 Electoral Vote in Maine, for 306. In the end, there were "faithless electors" who voted for candidates other than those for whom he popular votes in their States said they should, so the final count was Trump 304, Clinton 227.

Two Electors in Texas refused to vote for Trump. One voted for a Republican former Congressman from that State, Ron Paul, who had run for President in 2008 and 2012, and whose son, Rand Paul, was now a Republican Senator from Kentucky, and had run for President in this election. Another voted for Governor John Kasich of Ohio, another of the Republicans that Trump had defeated in the 2016 Primaries. An Elector in Hawaii refused to vote for Clinton. Instead, he voted for Sanders.

And 4 Electors in the State of Washington refused to vote for Clinton. Three of them voted for former General and Secretary of State Colin Powell, who had considered running for President in 1996, and had endorsed Clinton in this election.

The other voted for Faith Spotted Eagle, at the time a 68-year-old member of the Yankton Sioux Nation in South Dakota, who had been among the leaders of the attempt to block oil pipelines being built through Native land in her State. She thus became the 1st Native American ever to receive an Electoral Vote, and along with Clinton 1 of the 1st 2 women to receive one. She had run for the State House of Representatives in 2006, coming in 3rd in a Democratic Primary, and went on to repeat this performance in 2018.

Trump won 6 States that the outgoing President, Democrat Barack Obama, won in 2012: Pennsylvania, Michigan, Ohio, Wisconsin, Iowa and Florida. And some of those votes were close enough to be suspicious: Trump won Michigan by 10,704 votes, Wisconsin by 22,748, and Pennsylvania by 44,292. 

Those 3 States were won by a total of 77,744 votes -- less than the seating capacity of MetLife Stadium. In Michigan, Johnson got 172,000 votes, Stein 51,000. In Wisconsin, Johnson 106,000, Stein 31,000. In Pennsylvania, Johnson 146,000, Stein 50,000.

Had Hillary gotten another 11,000 votes in Michigan, 23,000 in Wisconsin, and 45,000 in Pennsylvania, it would have swung the Electoral Vote in her favor, 278-260 (not counting faithless electors).

And as the votes climbed high into the night to light the sacrificial rite, I developed a headache. That's right: Donald Trump literally makes me sick.

Why did Hillary "lose"?

Say what you want about Trump, and I have. But, however despicable, his racist/populist campaign was very effective. It brought out people who had never voted before, because even the Republican nominees weren't bigoted enough for them. Had any other Republican been nominated, these people wouldn't have voted at all.

Trump also had outside help: Vladimir Putin and the Russian government, and Julian Assange and his WikiLeaks (pro-Russian, and therefore nicknamed "RusskiLeaks"), fabricated statements that spoke to the "Crooked Hillary" lie, and a bunch of gullible people believed it. Furthermore, Russians hacked America's voting machines. This is not, as Trump called it, a hoax: The U.S. Senate confirmed this. The Republican-controlled Senate, mind you.

Then there was James Comey. The Director of the FBI, in effect, turned the election with 2 weeks to go by revealing... nothing at all, but raising suspicions about Hillary. Comey went on to get fired by Trump anyway, for apparent disloyalty. He is the one guy who has gone through this who became hated by both sides.

Then there was the media. They were absolutely terrified of being called "liberal," and of the charge that the election was "rigged." So they weren't willing to call Trump out on his crimes and lies, as they had been against the many lies told by John McCain in 2008 and Mitt Romney in 2012.

Then there were those media outlets that actually promoted Trump, because they either had a financial interest in a close election, or actually wanted a conservative to be President, or wanted the "entertainment" of a Trump Presidency. For the ratings, therefore for the money. You know, like when the entertainer Ronald Reagan was in office. In each of these cases, you people know who you are. And we will not forget.

As usual, conservatives said CNN was against Trump. That's insane: They wanted Trump. But if Ted Turner -- who, I'd heard, was already not well -- were still running CNN, Trump would have been properly investigated well before he was going to make it official, and would have been arrested by the FBI when he got to the bottom of the damn escalator at his candidacy announcement at Trump Tower.

But the biggest culprits of all were the progressive purists. The people who wanted Sanders, but didn't go along with him when he endorsed Hillary. The people who voted for Stein instead. The people who voted for Johnson instead. The people who were stupid enough to actually consider Trump to be more progressive than Hillary. And the people who stayed home, and didn't vote at all. Stein's vote totals, let alone Johnson's, in what turned out to be the 3 key States -- Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin -- were greater than Trump's margin of victory.

"The left" -- a term conservatives throw around, as if they have a clue as to what it means -- does this at least once every generation:

* In 1948, they refused to vote for Harry Truman, and instead voted for Henry Wallace. That time, the Democratic nominee won anyway.

* In 1968, they didn't get Robert Kennedy or Gene McCarthy, so they refused to vote for Hubert Humphrey, a champion of liberalism for 25 years, and mostly stayed home. And we got Richard Nixon.

* In 1980, they didn't get Ted Kennedy or Jerry Brown, so they refused to vote for Jimmy Carter, and mostly stayed home. And we got Ronald Reagan.

* In 2000, they didn't get Ralph Nader, so they refused to vote for Al Gore, and either stayed home, or voted for Nader anyway. And we got George W. Bush.

* In 2016, they didn't get Bernie Sanders, so they refused to vote for Hillary Clinton, and either stayed home, or voted for Jill Stein. And we got Donald Trump.

In 1968, 1980, 2000 and 2016, each time, the left caused the election of the President who was the least like the one they wanted. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me four times, and I'm a progressive purist.

Hillary got more votes than any Presidential candidate had ever gotten, to that point, except for Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012. So don't tell me she was "unpopular." That is a lie. And don't tell me she was "a flawed candidate." They all are. And no candidate has ever been more flawed than Trump. Does the Democratic nominee have to be without flaws? It wouldn't matter: The Republicans would make flaws up. And Hillary proved to be more popular than he was. But the Constitution says Electoral Votes matter more, and those went for Trump -- suspiciously.

In spite of the vote for Trump, the Democrats actually gained 6 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives, and 2 seats in the U.S. Senate. Among the new Senators elected were Democrats Kamala Harris of California, Tammy Duckworth of Illinois; and Republican John Kennedy of Louisiana. He may have been a Senator named John Kennedy, but, to paraphrase the late Senator Lloyd Bentsen of Texas, this Senator was no Jack Kennedy.

As they usually do with the winner of the Presidential election, Time magazine named Trump its Person of the Year for 2016.

On October 22, 2018, at a campaign rally, at the Toyota Center, home of the NBA's Houston Rockets, for the re-election of Senator Ted Cruz of Texas -- who, during the 2016 campaign, opposed Donald Trump, and Trump called his wife ugly and said that his father was involved in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy -- Trump told the crowd, "You know what I am? I'm a nationalist. Okay? I'm a nationalist. Use that word. Use that word."

An idealist might say that he wanted to draw a contrast between himself and "globalists," people who want to bring the world together; that a "nationalist" was someone who was for his own country first. A cynic would say that "nationalist" was short for "white nationalist," and that "globalist" really means "Jew," and that both terms are bigoted.

The problem is that it doesn't really matter if Trump is bigoted: The bigots believe he is, and thus they believe that he's with them, and that's why they chose him. Therefore, either he is a bigot, which would be a terrible thing; or he isn't one, and he's just playing the bigots to gain and keep power, in the biggest confidence game in world history, which is a different, but still terrible, thing.

On May 31, 2017, I wrote the following:

It's almost June. Let's take a look at Donald Trump's report card, shall we?

Math: F. He doesn't know that tax cuts don't increase revenue.

English: F. His grammar and spelling are atrocious, and what's "covfefe," anyway? (He had just issued the tweet that contained that word. Although he was complaining about the "press," and could have meant "coverage," as of November 8, 2022, we still don't know for sure what it meant.)

Science: F. He denies that climate change is real.

History: F. He doesn't know that antagonizing allies is not a good thing. He doesn't know that allying with dictators is bad, too.

Civics: D. He seems to slightly grasp the fact that he needs Congress to pass his plans, but doesn't seem to understand that people, including journalists, are constitutionally entitled to question and criticize him.

Geography: F. He doesn't know that Israel is in the Middle East. He doesn't know that Palm Beach is not in D.C. He doesn't seem to know that Trump Tower is not in D.C., either, and, thus, neither is his wife. (This was before he used a Sharpie on a map to make a statement he made about a hurricane affecting Alabama as well as Florida "correct.")

Physical Education: F. We went from an athlete to... this.

Sex Education: F. He still hasn't learned that you don't grab a woman by any body part unless you have her consent.

Home Economics: F. Did he sew that toupee himself?

Arts: F. It's not that he has BAD taste, it's that he has NO taste. No wonder he once sold "Trump Vodka": Vodka has no taste, either! Also, it's Russian.

Recommendation: Expulsion. Granted, this won't teach him anything, either, but it will leave the country better off.

If you had told me on the night of November 8 into 9, 2016 that Trump's tenure in office would lead to the deaths of over 1 million Americans, I would have believed it. But I would have guessed it was due to some stupid war he got us into, not an epidemic that his supporters would have been too goddamned stupid to protect themselves from. I would have guessed they wouldn't have cared about protecting others, but not even themselves? They stockpile guns and food for self-preservation, but won't wear a mask for that reason? Dumb Donald is so dumb, but his fans are still dumber.

Now, Joe Biden is the President, and things are so much better, in every way. Some of the problems of the Trump Administration are still there. But at least now, we've got a government that's working on them.

More things in America have been named after Donald Trump than any President other than George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln. However, he named most of them after himself, and before he went into active politics. There are no schools or roads in America named for him. And, after calling American servicemen who died in service to their country "losers" and "suckers," there will never be an American military base or ship named for him.

As of November 8, 2022, the Donald J. Trump Presidential Library only exists online. That is somewhat appropriate, since brick-and-mortar libraries, and museums, encourage learning, while Trump said, the day after his "win," "We won with the poorly educated. I love the poorly educated!"

(UPDATE: On September 30, 2025, it was announced that the library would be built at Miami Dade College's Wolfson Campus in downtown Miami.)

Trump followed Theodore Roosevelt as the 2nd President born in New York City, and Franklin Roosevelt as the most recent President born in, or representing, New York. But, infamously, he moved to Florida to take advantage of its lower taxes.

(UPDATE: Trump appointed Senator Marco Rubio, who ran against him in the 2016 Republican Presidential Primaries, to be Secretary of State in his 2nd term. This made Rubio Florida's highest-ranking politician ever.)

Trump played himself in movies and on TV shows before running for office. He was played by Alec Baldwin on Saturday Night Live from 2016 to 2020. Thereafter, on the show, James Austin Johnson played both Trump and Joe Biden.

In a Christmas 2013 episode of the YouTube series Epic Rap Battles of History, Trump was played by "Nice" Peter Shukoff, in the Jacob Marley role. Ebenezer Scrooge was played by Zach Sherwin. The "three spirits" were played by "Epic" Lloyd Ahlquist as J.P. Morgan, as "Christmas Past" (even though he would still have been in Scrooge's future); DeStorm Power as Kanye West, as "Christmas Present"; and Peter again as the Grim Reaper, as "Christmas Yet to Come."

But when Trump ran for President in 2016, it was Lloyd who played him, against Kimmy Gatewood as Hillary Clinton. In 2020, Lloyd played him again, against Peter as Joe Biden. (UPDATE: In 2024, Lloyd played Trump again, against Kimberly Michelle Vaughn as Kamala Harris.)

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November 8, 2016, like all modern U.S. Election Days, was a Tuesday. The baseball season was over. Football was in midweek. These 6 games were played in the NBA that night:

* The Brooklyn Nets beat the Minnesota Timberwolves, 119-110 at the Barclays Center. Andrew Wiggins scored 36 points for the T-Wolves, but Brook Lopez scored 26 to let the Nets to victory.

* The Atlanta Hawks beat the Cleveland Cavaliers, 110-106 at Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland. (It's now named the Rocket Arena.)

* The Memphis Grizzlies beat the Denver Nuggets, 108-107 at the FedEx Forum in Memphis.

* The Dallas Mavericks beat the Los Angeles Lakers, 109-97 at the Staples Center in Los Angeles.

* The Sacramento Kings beat the New Orleans Pelicans, 102-94 at the new Golden 1 Center in Sacramento. Anthony Davis scored 34 in defeat for the Pels.

* And the Portland Trail Blazers beat the Phoenix Suns, 124-121 at the Moda Center in Portland. Damian Lillard scored 38 to lead all NBA players on the night.

And there were 10 games played in the NHL:

* The New Jersey Devils beat the Carolina Panthers, 3-2 at the Prudential Center in Newark. The Devils won a game in a shootout. And yet, Trump's win made this only the 2nd-most-shocking event of the night. Certainly, I approved of this one a lot more.

* The New York Rangers lost to the Vancouver Canucks, 5-3 at Madison Square Garden.

* The Detroit Red Wings beat the Philadelphia Flyers, 3-2 in a shootout at the Wells Fargo Center (now the Xfinity Mobile Arena) in Philadelphia.

* The San Jose Sharks beat the Washington Capitals, 3-0 at the Capital One Arena in Washington.

* In an "Original Six" matchup, the Montreal Canadiens beat the Boston Bruins, 3-2 at the Bell Centre in Montreal.

* The Los Angeles Kings beat the Toronto Maple Leafs, 7-0 at the Air Canada Centre in Toronto. (It's now named the Scotiabank Arena.)

* The Pittsburgh Penguins beat the Edmonton Oilers, 4-3 at the PPG Paints Arena in Pittsburgh.

* The Nashville Predators beat the Ottawa Senators, 3-1 at the Bridgestone Arena in Nashville.

* The Winnipeg Jets beat the Dallas Stars, 8-2 at the MTS Centre in Winnipeg. (It's now named the Canada Life Centre.)

* And the Arizona Coyotes beat the Colorado Rockies, 4-2 at the Pepsi Center in Denver. (It's now named the Ball Arena.)

November 3, 2020: Joe Biden Is Elected President

November 3, 2020: On that day, in my usual blog, Uncle Mike's Musings, I wrote, "This may turn out to be the most important day in American history. Vote like the whole world depends on it. Because it might."

Joe Biden was elected the 46th President of the United States, defeating Donald Trump. It wasn't called for 4 days, because several key States were close. It wasn't certified by Congress until January 7, 2021. It was supposed to happen the day before, but this was one of the few times that it was ever in doubt. And there was an unprecedented attempt to prevent it. That attempt failed. It was finally made official on January 20, Inauguration Day, when Biden was sworn in as President.

Biden won 81,268,924 votes, to Trump's 74,216,154. Biden won 51.3 percent of the popular vote, to Trump's 46.9, and 1.8 for scattered other candidates. Each major-party candidate won 25 States, with Biden also winning the District of Columbia and 1 Electoral Vote in Nebraska; while Trump also won 1 Electoral Vote in Maine. (Maine and Nebraska allow their Congressional Districts to vote separately from the State as a whole.) Biden won 306 Electoral Votes, to Trump's 232.

Biden won nearly all the close States: Arizona by 10,457 votes, Georgia by 11,779, Wisconsin by 20,682, Nevada by 33,596, New Hampshire by 59,277, and Pennsylvania by 80,555. However, if Trump had won all of those States except Pennsylvania, with its 20 Electoral Votes, Biden still would have won.

Trump won the white vote, 58 percent to 41; but lost the black vote, 87-12; lost the Latino vote, 65-33; and lost the Asian vote, 63-36. He won Protestants, 60-39; but lost Catholics, 52-47, despite his opposition to abortion; lost Jews, 76-22; and lost people who professed no religion, 65-31. He lost gay people, 67-30; and straight people, 50-48.

Voting by age was interesting. People old enough to remember the police bashing antiwar demonstrators in the 1960s and 1970s, and old enough to need Social Security and Medicare, would seem to lean Democratic. But many people get more conservative as they get older, and prefer to see police beating up protestors.

So Trump won people age 65 and up, born 1955 or earlier, by 52-47; and people 50-64, born between 1956 and 1970, by the same margin. These were people for whom the defining Republican President was Ronald Reagan. Trump lost people 40-49, born between 1971 and 1980, by 54-44; 30-39, born between 1981 and 1990, by 51-46; and 25-29, born between 1991 and 1995, by 54-43. These were people for whom the defining Republican President was the failed George W. Bush.

Trump lost people 18-24, born between 1996 and 2002, for whom he was the defining Republican President, the only Republican to be in charge of the economy since they were first eligible to go to work, by 65-31.

Kamala Harris became the 1st female, the 1st African-American, and the 1st Asian-American to be elected, and later the 1st of each of those to serve, as Vice President of the United States. The Democrats kept control of the U.S. House of Representatives, and gained a 50-50 split in the U.S. Senate, which becomes a 51-50 majority in the Democrats' favor -- except that 2 Democratic Senators, Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kirsten Sinema of Arizona, have often stood in President Biden's way when it came to his agenda.

Among the new Senators elected were Democrats John Hickenlooper of Colorado, and Georgia's Raphael Warnock (the pastor at Martin Luther King's church in Atlanta) and Jon Ossoff; and Republican Tommy Tuberville of Alabama.

Tuberville beat Democrat Doug Jones, a civil rights lawyer. Tuberville had been the head football coach at the University of Mississippi, and then at Auburn University. I had figured that he had no chance, because Auburn fans would vote against him because he was a lousy coach, and University of Alabama fans would vote against him because he'd coached Auburn. But Tuberville appealed to religion, guns, and white supremacy, and won.

In the end, Biden didn't win because 250,000 Americans had died from COVID-19 -- a total since quadrupled, though Biden's efforts have held it down to less than it would have been if Trump had stayed in office. He won due to the get-out-the-vote effort in the key States, whose apparatus was already in place before COVID.

Biden won because he was the opposite of Trump. Because, while Trump appealed to bigotry and anger, Biden appealed to what Abraham Lincoln called "the better angels of our nature." Because he wanted to bring America healing, which is what America wanted. Because he spoke to "the soul of America." As he, a Catholic, is a student of St. Francis of Assisi, who is believed to have said:

Where there is hatred, let me sow love.

Where there is injury, pardon.

Where there is discord, union.

Where there is doubt, faith.

Where there is despair, hope.

Where there is darkness, light.

And where there is sadness, joy.

In contrast, as a man named Anthony Citrano wrote of Trump, 2 months before the election, "It's almost impossible to believe he exists. It's as if we took everything that was bad about America, scraped it up off the floor, wrapped it all up in an old hot dog skin, and then taught it to make noises with its face."

Conservatism, still led by Trump, is a darkness. Liberalism, currently led by Biden, is a light. And, for now, America wants light.

The editors of Time magazine usually name the winner of the Presidential election as their Person of the Year. For 2020, they named both Biden and Harris.

Having only James Buchanan before him, Biden is easily the greatest President born in Pennsylvania. He is the only one with a connection to Delaware.

Due to his long political career, actors have played Biden since well before he became President. In 2016, Greg Kinnear -- who has also played the only other Catholic to become President, John F. Kennedy -- played Biden in Confirmation, about the Clarence Thomas-Anita Hill conflict. On Saturday Night Live, he has been played by Kevin Nealon in 1991, as the Thomas-Hill conflict was ongoing; Jason Sudeikis from 2007 to 2017, Woody Harrelson in 2019, John Mulaney in 2020, Jim Carrey in 2020, Alex Moffat in 2021; and, in the 2021-22 season, James Austin Johnson has played both Biden and Trump.

Shortly before the election, an episode of the YouTube series Epic Rap Battles of History featured "Nice" Peter Shukoff playing Biden, and "Epic" Lloyd Ahlquist playing Trump.

UPDATE: On September 6, 2025, Biden announced that his Presidential Library would be built in his home State of Delaware, although he got no more specific than that. The State's largest city, Wilmington, has offered the Daniel L. Herrmann Courthouse as a potential location. From 1916 to 2002, it served as Wilmington City Hall, and New Castle County's Administration Building and Courthouse. It is currently used as offices by a law firm.

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November 3, 2020, like all modern American Election Days, was a Tuesday. The baseball season had ended. Football was in midweek. And, due to COVID pushing things back, both the NBA and the NHL were still closer to the finish of their 2019-20 seasons than they were to the start of their 2020-21 seasons. So there were no scores on that historic day.

March 27, 2020: Trump Approves Genocide -- of Americans

March 27, 2020: Donald Trump, having put Vice President Mike Pence in charge of America's response to the COVID-19 pandemic, says that he instructed Pence not to reach out to Governors who aren't "appreciative" of his Administration's efforts to slow the spread of the coronavirus in their States.

He mentioned Gov. Jay Inslee of Washington and Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, both Democrats who had been critical of the White House's actions to combat the deadly pandemic.

Trump said that Pence "calls all the Governors. And I tell him, I'm a different type of person, and I say, 'Mike, don't call the Governor of Washington. You're wasting your time with him.'"

It should be noted that Inslee had run to be one of Trump's 2020 opponents, but his Presidential campaign never made it out of 2019. Whitmer, however, did not run against Trump.

So, basically, Trump was operating like an old-time big-city "political machine" Mayor: Only picking up the garbage, plowing the streets, and fixing the potholes in the neighborhoods that voted for him. He was denying funding to Governors of Blue States.

States likely to have more minorities than Red States.

In other words, Trump was deciding who was going to get proper care, based on race.

In other words, Donald Trump was committing an act of genocide.

I doubt that any of the previous 44 Presidents -- or 43, since Grover Cleveland had nonconsecutive terms, and thus gets counted twice -- would have denied aid to Governors who "weren't nice to him."

Calvin Coolidge and Herbert Hoover had thin views of a President's constitutional power. Lyndon Johnson had a similar need for ego-stroking. And Richard Nixon could be as petty as hell. But even they would have chosen to overcome those issues, and tried to save as many lives as they could. If they failed, so be it: At least they would have tried. They could be accused of trying the wrong thing, but not of an unwillingness to try something.

Trump? He did not do his best and see it fail. He made a conscious choice. He turned Franklin Roosevelt's reassuring words upside-down: "The only thing you have to fear is me!"

It was all a part of the method to his madness: Deny that the problem existed, because admitting it would make him look weak, something he was desperate to avoid at all times, but especially at this point, when he was running for re-election; then, help his own people, and only his own people, to lead to victory.

Either he was too dishonest to be President, or too incompetent to be President. Of course, it could be that he was both. But look at these statements, gathered by Representative Lloyd Doggett, a Democrat who has represented a District based on Austin, Texas since 1995:

January 22, 2020: "We have it totally under control. It's one person coming in from China. It's going to be just fine."

February 2: "We pretty much shut it down coming in from China."

February 10: "Looks like, by April, you know, in theory, when it gets a little warmer, it miraculously goes away."

February 25: "I think that's a problem that's going to go away… They have studied it. They know very much. In fact, we're very close to a vaccine." (The 1st vaccine available to the public was made so on December 11. That was 290 days later. That was not "very close.")

February 27: "It's going to disappear. One day, it's like a miracle, it will disappear."

March 4: "If we have thousands, or hundreds of thousands, of people that get better just by, you know, sitting around and even going to work -- some of them go to work, but they get better."

March 5: "I never said people that are feeling sick should go to work."

March 6: "You have to be calm. It'll go away."

March 10: "Just stay calm. It will go away."

March 12, "The Day Everything Stopped": "You know, you see what's going on. And so, I just wanted that to stop as it pertains to the United States. And that's what we've done. We've stopped it."

March 13: "No, I don't take responsibility at all."

March 14, asked to rate his response on a scale of zero to ten, apparently taking responsibility for this gross misperception: "I'd rate it a ten."

March 24: "I'm also hopeful to have Americans working again by that Easter, that beautiful Easter day." (Never mind that Easter is a Sunday and a holiday, and most Americans wouldn't have been working.)

March 24, talking about the Governors and Mayors who needed more hospital beds and more tests: "They have to treat us well, also. They can't say, 'Oh, gee, we should get this, we should get that.'"

March 26: "We've had a big problem with the young, a woman Governor from, you know who I'm talking about, from Michigan." (At the time, Whitmer was 48 years old.)

March 27: "I love Michigan, one of the reasons we are doing such a great job for them during this horrible pandemic. Yet your Governor, Gretchen 'Half' Whitmer, is way in over her head, she doesn't have a clue. Likes blaming everyone for her own ineptitude!"

March 27: "We're doing a great job for the State of Washington, and I think the Governor...he's constantly chirping and I guess complaining, would be a nice way of saying it."

March 30: "Stay calm, it will go away. You know it -- you know it is going away, and it will go away, and we're going to have a great victory."

March 30, keeping in mind that the State of New York also had a Democratic Governor, Andrew Cuomo: "I think New York should be fine, based on the numbers that we see, they should have more than enough. I mean, I'm hearing stories that they're not used, or they're not used right." (Whenever Trump says things like "I'm hearing," or "People are saying," that means he is making it up.)

April 1, about Governors who were pleading for medical gear and ventilators to treat surging coronavirus hospitalizations: "They have to treat us well, also. They can't say, 'Oh, gee, we should get this, we should get that.'"

April 6: The U.S. death toll passed 10,000, nearly all of those within the previous month.

April 9, when asked if his coronavirus response could have been better: "I couldn't have done it any better." That statement was almost certainly the truth: Almost any other President could have done it better, but he couldn't have. This is why Trump lies, about everything, about big things and small things alike: Because the truth hurts him.

April 11: The U.S. death toll passed 20,000. That's doubling the number of deaths in just 5 days.

Trump did one, and only one, smart thing in regard to COVID: He never let the media show the dead bodies. That was the lesson he learned from the Vietnam War: If people never see the bodies or the coffins on TV, they won't get angry, demonstrate in the streets, and demand a different President.

So, unless you knew someone who died from it, the death of 250,000 Americans before Election Day -- a quarter of a million -- wasn't real, only the annoying restrictions were. The Democrats were for the restrictions.

March 27, 2020 would have been my father's birthday. He had Bacehlor's and Master's of Science degrees from what's now known as the New Jersey Institute of Technology in Newark. On the one hand, he would have appreciated that, in March 2020, Americans were talking about science and not sports. On the other hand, he would have hated the reason why. "You ninny!" would have been the least of his utterances at Trump.

UPDATE: As of April 26, 2023, 1,130,662 Americans had died from COVID. The Brookings Institution estimated that 784,672 of those people -- about 69 percent -- died as a result of Trump's inaction.

Seven hundred eighty-four thousand, six hundred seventy-two people:

* That's 20 percent more Americans as died in the Civil War, North and South combined.

* Half again as many Americans as died in World War I and World War II combined.

* 13 times as many as died in the entire Vietnam War.

* 98 1900 Galveston Hurricanes.

* 174 Iraq Wars.

* 261 9/11s.

* 327 Pearl Harbors.

* 355 Johnstown Floods of 1889.

* 522 Titanics.

* 563 Hurricane Katrinas.

* 655 Lusitanias.

* 854 Jonestown Massacres.

* 1,595 Cocoanut Grove Fires of 1942.

* 2,615 Great Chicago Fires of 1871.

* 3,089 Hurricane Sandys.

* 4,671 Oklahoma City bombings.

* 5,374 Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fires of 1911.

* 8,437 Malbone Street Wrecks of 1918.

* 30,183 Sandy Hook Massacres.

* And 196,190 Benghazis.

All because Trump not only refused to give the aid that was needed, where it was needed, but also refused to use the pandemic plan left for him by President Black Man.

The blood of 784,672 Americans is on Donald Trump's hands -- and that's only counting COVID, not including everything else he's done.

As of March 27, 2026, the CDC estimated that 1,231,440 Americans had died from the disease.

*

March 27, 2020 was a Friday. COVID had already forced everything to be shut down. There were no scores on this day.

January 6, 2021: Insurrection At the Capitol

January 6, 2021: Treason was committed by supporters of the sitting President of the United States, and possibly by the President himself.

These facts are not in dispute:

* September 29, 2020: President Donald J. Trump, having been nominated by the Republican Party for a 2nd term, was debating the Democratic Party's nominee, former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. Trump was asked about right-wing groups, including the one calling themselves the Proud Boys: "Proud Boys, stand back, and stand by."

* November 3: Election Day. For most of the night, Trump led in Electoral Votes and popular votes.

* November 4: After midnight on Election Day, things began to change, because votes on the West Coast, which were always expected to favor Biden, began to come in. Biden surpassed Trump in the popular vote, and the Electoral Vote became very close, as several States saw Trump's lead in them shrink, and eventually turn toward Biden.

* November 7: Most major news outlets admit that Biden has a lead in the State of Pennsylvania that is so large, Trump cannot possibly retake it. Therefore, if every other State still in doubt still falls to Trump, Biden will still have the 270 Electoral Votes necessary to win the election. Joe Biden is now the President-elect.

Biden makes a victory speech that night in his hometown of Wilmington, Delaware. Trump refuses to concede.

* December 7: The Republican Party of the State of Arizona -- a state narrowly won by Biden -- sends out a communication, asking supporters if they were willing to give their lives fighting over the election results.

* December 14: The Electoral College meets. Biden wins their vote, 306 to 232.

* December 19: On his Twitter account, Trump announced the following: "Statistically impossible to have lost the 2020 Election. Big protest in D.C. on January 6th. Be there, will be wild!"

* December 27: Trump has a conference call with officials with the U.S. Department of Justice, who tell him, "DOJ can't and won't snap its fingers and change the outcome of the election." Trump tells them, "Just say that the election was corrupt and leave the rest to me and the Republican Congressmen." He again tweets a promotion of the scheduled January 6 rally.

* January 3, 2021: Trump orders Secretary of Defense Christopher C. Miller to "do whatever was necessary to protect the demonstrators" on January 6. Not the Capitol Building. Not members of Congress. The demonstrators.

* January 4: Secretary Miller orders prohibiting the deployment of members of the District of Columbia National Guard with weapons, helmets, body armor or riot control agents, without his personal approval. In other words, the only protection the Capitol Building complex will have for the certification of the Electoral Votes will be the U.S. Capitol Police, under the control of the Congress, not the President as Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces, as would be the U.S. Army or the D.C. National Guard.

* January 5: Secretary of the Army Ryan McCarthy -- reporting to Miller, who reports to Trump -- issues orders to D.C. National Guard Commanding Major General William J. Walker: He must seek approval from McCarthy and Miller before preparing to respond to a civil disturbance. Previously, he had the authority to respond without such permission.

* January 6, 2021:

** 3:23 AM: Ron Watkins posts a tweet accusing Vice President Mike Pence of orchestrating a coup against Trump, and links to a blog post calling for "the immediate arrest of VP, for treason." The idea appears to be that Pence isn't doing enough to keep Trump (and himself) in office, because, as Vice President, it is his duty to read and certify the Electoral Vote totals, and he has already told Trump that he will do his duty.

Watkins is the son of Jim Watkins, operator of the white supremacist website 8chan. Both are major figures in the QAnon conspiracy group. (Ironically, Jim's ex-wife and Ron's mother is Korean. Jim met her while serving in Korea in the U.S. Army.)

** 8:17 AM: Trump tweets: "States want to correct their votes, which they now know were based on irregularities and fraud, plus corrupt process never received legislative approval. All Mike Pence has to do is send them back to the States, AND WE WIN. Do it Mike, this is a time for extreme courage!"

Here, the ALL CAPS are Trump's, not mine. At least 55 lawsuits attempting to get various States' vote totals disqualified have been filed, and all of them have failed, due to lack of evidence. As I said, I am listing facts that are not in dispute. The fact that Trump has launched accusations of voter fraud is not in dispute. The fact that none of his accusations has yet been found by any court to have any merit is also not in dispute. It is possible to believe that there is merit to these cases, but, as of January 5, 2022, no court has found any such merit.

** 9:00 AM: The "March to Save America" rally begins at the Ellipse, to the south of the White House. Among the speakers is Representative Morris "Mo" Brooks of Alabama, who says, "Today is the day American patriots start taking down names and kicking ass!"

** 10:50 AM: Rudy Giuliani, former Mayor of New York, and one of the lawyers helping Trump sue to overturn the election, begins speaking at the rally. He repeats conspiracy theories that voting machines were "crooked," and calls for "trial by combat." This is a tradition dating to the Middle Ages, essentially a sanctioned duel, in which the winner -- who kills the loser -- must have been the one who was right, since God allowed him to be the one to live.

** 10:58 AM: A Proud Boys contingent leaves the rally, and marches toward the Capitol Building, a mile and a half southeast down Pennsylvania Avenue.

** 12:00 Noon: Trump begins his speech, lasting over 1 hour. He repeats his allegations of a stolen election. He criticizes Pence by name 6 times. He accuses fellow Republicans of not doing enough to help him. He says, "We fight like hell. And if you don't fight like hell, you're not going to have a country anymore."

He says he will walk with the crowd to the Capitol. Of course, as he usually does, he breaks his word, and heads back to the White House. Why should he risk anything, when he's got thousands of people willing to do it for him?

** 12:05 PM: Representative Paul Gosar of Arizona tweets that Biden should concede, and demands that this happen by the next morning.

** 12:20 PM: An officer of the Federal Protective Service, the security agency for federal government buildings other than the White House and the Capitol, writes in an email, "POTUS is encouraging the protestors to march to capitol grounds and continue protesting there." "POTUS" meaning "President Of The United States."

** 12:28 PM: A FPS officer -- I have no way of knowing whether it is the same one -- reports 10-15,000 people moving toward the Capitol.

** 12:49 PM: Capitol Police respond to a report of possible explosive devices at the headquarters of both major parties' National Committee headquarters. Molotov cocktails and homemade napalm are found. No bombs are detonated.

** 12:57 PM: FPS officer report that the Capitol Police barricade on the west side of the building has been breached.

** 1:00 PM: The ceremony to certify the Electoral Vote begins. Sometime before this, Pence had released a letter stating that the Constitution of the United States prevents him from unilaterally interfering with the vote count. Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund calls Robert J. Contee III, Chief of the Metropolitan Police Department of Washington (a.k.a. "DC Metro Police" or just "DC Metro"). Contee deploys 100 officers to the Capitol complex.

** 1:10 PM: The earliest DC Metro officers arrive. Meanwhile, Trump's speech finally ends, with these words: "We're going to try and give them the kind of pride and boldness that they need to take back our country."

** 1:12 PM: As required for an objection to be heard in such a case, one Republican Congressman, Gosar, and one Republican Senator, Rafael "Ted" Cruz of Texas, object to certifying the Electoral Votes of the State of Arizona. (The States' votes are read alphabetically: Those of Alabama and Alaska, which went for Trump, were accepted as certified. Arizona, which went for Biden, was next.) The joint session of Congress breaks up, and members go to their separate chambers to debate the objection.

(Cruz had opposed Trump for the 2016 Republican Presidential nomination, heard Trump call his wife ugly and accuse his father of being involved in the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy, and not only did nothing to defend them, but became one of Trump's leading supporters.)

** 1:30 PM: Capitol Police are overwhelmed, and retreat up the steps of the Building.

** 1:49 PM: Chief Sund requests assistance from General Walker. Walker loads Guardsmen onto buses in anticipation of receiving permission to deploy from Secretary McCarthy.

** 1:51 PM: Michael D. Brown, former Director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and now a radio talk show host, tweets that the people breaching Capitol security are not pro-Trump right-wing protestors, but left-wing protestors in disguise: Antifa, Black Lives Matter, and others. Given the pro-Trump paraphernalia they had, they would have been, to borrow a Winston Churchill phrase, very well disguised. These claims are soon repeated by others, including Todd Herman, guest hosting for the ailing Rush Limbaugh.

You might remember Brown as the FEMA Director who botched the response to Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans in 2005, and was told by President George W. Bush, "Yer doin' a heck of a job, Brownie."

** 2:05 PM: The 1st death of the proceedings occurs: Kevin Greeson, 55, of Athens, Alabama, suffers a heart attack on the West Front of the Capitol. There is no indication that he had participated in any violence. The accusation that his heart attack was caused by a taser left in his pocket going off is unfounded, as is the accusation that he stole a portrait from the Capitol, as none of the protestors had yet made it inside.

** 2:12 PM: The 1st rioter enters the Capitol, Dominic Pezzola, through a window he had broken on the northwest side.

** 2:13 PM: Pence is removed from the Senate chamber to a nearby office. The Senate is gaveled into recess.

** 2:14 PM: Capitol Police Officer Eugene Goodman leads a mob to backup in front of a set of Senate doors while Senators attempt to evacuate. In so doing, he may have saved several lives, including Pence's.

** 2:22 PM: A conference call of D.C. leaders, including Mayor Muriel Bowser, Metro Police Chief Contee, and Capitol Police Chief Sund, calls Secretary McCarthy, and asks for additional D.C. National Guard support. Sund says, "I am making urgent, urgent, immediate request for National Guard assistance." 

** 2:23 PM: A police lieutenant sprays the crowd with a chemical substance, possibly tear gas. Julian Khater sprays a chemical substance of his own, hitting Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick, a 42-year-old native of South River, Middlesex County, New Jersey, who had publicly expressed support of Trump.

** 2:24 PM: Trump tweets, "Mike Pence didn't have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our Country and our Constitution, giving States a chance to certify a corrected set of facts, not the fraudulent or inaccurate ones which they were asked to previously certify. USA Demands the truth!"

At this point, several videos of the attack captured a chant of "Hang Mike Pence!" Supporters of the President wanted to hang the Vice President, for doing his duty to the Constitution, instead of maintaining loyalty to the President.

Yes, it really happened. No, they were not kidding.

At the same time, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, Democrat of California, is removed from the House Chamber by her protective detail. Her life was definitely in danger: Within a few minutes of this action, Dawn Bancroft, a gym owner from Doylestown, Pennsylvania, made a selfie video claiming, "We got inside. We did our part. We were looking for Nancy to shoot her in the friggin' brain, but we didn't find her."

On the one-year anniversary, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer revealed that he was targeted: He was "within 30 feet" of "nasty, racist bigoted insurrectionists," and heard one of them yell, "There's the big Jew, let's get him!"

** 2:44 PM: A rioter attempts to force entry into the Speaker's Lobby next to the House Chamber. She is shot by a Capitol Police officer. Her name is Ashli Babbitt, from the San Diego area. She had shown signs of mental illness and violent tendencies as far back as 2015. She had accused Pence of treason, and called for the resignation of Chief Justice John Roberts, and she had now been shot and killed committing an act of treason. She was 35 years old, and the 1st "martyr" of the QAnon movement.

** 2:49 PM: Governor Ralph Northam of Virginia, a Democrat, offers the use of the Virginia National Guard, stationed across the Potomac River from Washington, for the protection of the Capitol. His offer is refused by Secretary McCarthy.

** 3:04 PM: Secretary Miller finally approves the activation of 1,100 DCNG soldiers. But he still doesn't approve their deployment.

** 3:05 PM: House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy of California, a Republican, does a live interview with DC TV station WUSA-Channel 9. He says he called Trump to urge him to calm people down, but Trump did nothing.

** 3:10 PM: Dave Rorher, Deputy Executive of Fairfax County, Virginia, dispatches County police to cross the Potomac and aid the Capitol Police.

** 3:13 PM: Trump tweets, "I am asking for everyone at the U.S. Capitol to remain peaceful. No violence! Remember, WE are the Party of Law & Order -- respect the Law and our great men and women in Blue. Thank you!" The violence was already over 2 hours old.

** 3:15 PM: Governor Northam calls Speaker Pelosi, and tells her he's sending the Virginia National Guard, no matter what Trump and his lackeys want.

** 3:37 PM: Governor Larry Hogan of Maryland, a Republican, orders mobilization of his State's National Guard, because he anticipates it being called.

** 4:05 PM: Biden holds a press conference, and calls on Trump to "demand an end to this siege."

** 4:17 PM: After watching the events unfold on TV, and after receiving requests from his own children -- Ivanka was upset with not the violence, but the "optics," and Donald Jr. told White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, "He's got to condemn this shit, ASAP" -- Trump uploads a video to his Twitter account: 

I know your pain. I know you're hurt. We had an election that was stolen from us. It was a landslide election, and everyone knows it, especially the other side.

But you have to go home now. We have to have peace. We have to have law and order. We have to respect our great people in law and order. We don't want anybody hurt.

It's a very tough period of time. There's never been a time like this where such a thing happened where they could take it away from all of us -- from me, from you, from our country. This was a fraudulent election, but we can't play into the hands of these people. We have to have peace.

So go home. We love you. You're very special. You've seen what happens. You see the way others are treated that are so bad and so evil. I know how you feel, but go home, and go home in peace.

** 4:26 PM: Rosanne Boyland, 34, of Kennesaw, Georgia, a recovering drug addict who wanted to become a drug counselor, but was addicted to QAnon, collapses at the Capitol, and is taken to a hospital. She dies that night. The cause is later determined to be an amphetamine overdose.

** 4:32 PM: Secretary Miller finally approves the DCNG's deployment.

** 5:08 PM: General Walker finally gets Secretary Miller's permission to deploy the DCNG, over 4 hours after the violence began.

** 5:40 PM: The Capitol Building is cleared of rioters, but not before portraits are stolen, Pelosi's office is broken into, and some rioters had even smeared their own excrement on the walls. Some carried Confederate flags inside the Building.

It was noted that this was the worst attack on the Capitol since August 24, 1814, when the British Army burned it (and the White House) as part of the War of 1812, but even they did not walk around the Building with their own flags. And no one dared bring a Confederate flag into the Building during the American Civil War of 1861 to 1865, either. Yet, now, it had been done.

** 5:45 PM: Ashli Babbitt is pronounced dead.

** 6:09 PM: Rosanne Boyland is pronounced dead.

** 7:00 PM: Facebook, which also owns Instagram, removes Trump's posts from both platforms. Twitter, Trump's favorite social media platform, follows, 2 minutes later with a temporary ban.

** 8:00 PM: The Capitol Police declare the Capitol Building to be secure.

** 8:06 PM: The Senate reconvenes, with Pence presiding, and debates the objection to the Electoral Votes from Arizona.

** 9:00 PM: Pelosi calls the House back to order.

** 10:00 PM: A few hours after texting his brother that he had twice been hit with what he thought was pepper spray, but was "in good shape," Officer Sicknick collapses from what is later determined to have been a stroke. He is taken to a nearby hospital.

** 10:15 PM: The Senate votes 93-6 to reject the objection to Arizona's Electoral Votes.

** 11:30 PM: The House votes 303-121 to reject the objection to Arizona's Electoral Votes.

* January 7:

** 12:15 AM: The recording of the Electoral Votes continues. When Pennsylvania's are read, Representative Scott Perry of that State and Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri file an objection.

** 12:55 AM: The Senate rejects the Pennsylvania objection, 92-7.

** 3:10 AM: The House rejects the Pennsylvania objection, 282-138.

** 3:36 AM: The Electoral Vote is certified: Biden 306, Trump 232, just as had been presented to Congress. Despite the shock of the day, I had stayed up, watching the whole thing, and noted that the time of the certification was reminiscent of the 1970 hit by the band Chicago: "25 or 6 to 4."

** 9:30 PM: Officer Sicknick dies, after being attacked by a Trump supporter. So much for "law and order" and "Back the Blue." This finalizes the death toll from the insurrection: 5, 2 of them not directly due to violence.

* January 8: Trump tweets that he will not attend Biden's Inauguration. This is his last tweet, as Twitter permanently bans him, citing "the risk of further incitement of violence." Meanwhile, FBI Assistant Director Steve D'Antuono calls a press conference, saying that there is no evidence that Antifa members were part of the crowd storming the Capitol.

* January 13: The House impeaches Trump for the high crime of "Incitement of Insurrection." The House does this, knowing full well that the Senate will acquit him, and that the Senate trial won't begin until after Trump leaves office, anyway. There have now been 4 impeachments of a President by the House in the 232-year history of both offices, and 2 of them have been of Trump.

* January 20: Biden is inaugurated as the 46th President of the United States. Trump, for once as good as his word, did not attend: He left the White House in the morning, and was already on the ground at Mar-a-Lago, his Palm Beach, Florida retreat, when Biden was sworn in.

Donald Trump tried to overturn the result of the election. It was an attempted coup d'état, and he didn't care who got hurt in service to him. Not even his own Vice President.

The Capitol Insurrection was a greater threat to American democracy than the attacks on Fort Sumter in 1861, Pearl Harbor in 1941 and the World Trade Center in 2001 combined. Their side accuses us of trying to smear their patriotism by "making every day January 6." Why not? After all, their side smeared our patriotism by making every day September 11.

Hundreds of people have been prosecuted as a result of the Insurrection. Through January 6, 2022, the 1st Anniversary of the attack, none of these have been people in the Trump Administration. Trump himself has not been formally charged with anything.

What have we learned, Charlie Brown?

UPDATE: Apparently, not much. On October 28, 2022, a man named David DePape broke into Pelosi's San Francisco home in the middle of the night. She was not there, but her husband, real estate developer Paul Pelosi, was. As the Speaker of the House, she has a security detail; as the spouse of the Speaker, he does not. He, like his wife, was 82 years old at the time.

DePape, only finding him, and perhaps not knowing who he was, yelled, "Where's Nancy? Where's Nancy?" and attacked Paul with a hammer. Paul managed to call 911, and DePape was arrested, and was found to have all kinds of right-wing conspiracy material at his residence. He had come to kill the Speaker, just as the Insurrectionists had. Paul had a fractured skull, but, despite his injuries and his age, surgery to correct the damage was successful.

Finally, on August 1, 2023, Trump was indicted in federal court in the District of Columbia, on 4 counts of conspiring to defraud the government and disenfranchise voters, and corruptly obstructing an official proceeding, including charges connected with the Insurrection. The trial was scheduled to begin on March 4, 2024. 

In cases that appear not to be connected with the Insurrection:

* On March 30, 2023, Trump was indicted by the State of New York, on 34 counts of fraud. On May 30, 2024, he was convicted on all 34 counts.

* On June 8, 2023, Trump was indicted in federal court in Florida, on 40 counts relating to the possession of classified government documents. As of Trump's conviction in New York, the Florida trial had yet to be scheduled.

* And on August 14, 2023, Trump was indicted by the State of Georgia, on 19 counts relating to attempting to overturn the Electoral Votes given to Biden in that State. As of Trump's conviction in New York, the Georgia trial had yet to be scheduled.

Trump managed to get these last 3 trials, and his sentencing for his fraud conviction, delayed until after the election. In the meantime, the Supreme Court ruled that he had immunity for all "official acts" as President.

On November 5, 2024, the American people voted that launching an insurrection to overturn the results of an election was no reason to disqualify someone from being elected President again. Trump has promised to pardon the 1/6 terrorists.

*

January 6, 2021 was a Wednesday. Believe it or not, all sporting events scheduled for the day went forward. Baseball was out of season. The NFL was between its regular season and its Playoffs. The NHL hadn't yet started, due to COVID restrictions knocking the 2019-20 and 2020-21 seasons out of whack, and needed another 7 days.

But the day featured 11 NBA games, including the Washington team, but they were not scheduled to play in Washington. If they were, then it would likely have been postponed.

* The New York Knicks beat the Utah Jazz, 112-100 at Madison Square Garden. Julius Randle matched his uniform number with 30 points, and also had 16 rebounds.

* The Philadelphia 76ers beat the Washington Wizards, 141-136 at the Wells Fargo Center (now the Xfinity Mobile Arena) in Philadelphia. Bradley Beal scored 60 for the Wiz, but the Sixers got 38 from Joel Embiid and 28 from Seth Curry.

* The Charlotte Hornets beat the Atlanta Hawks, 102-94 at the State Farm Arena in Atlanta. Gordon Hayward scored 44 points for the Hornets.

* The Orlando Magic beat the Cleveland Cavaliers, 105-94 at the Amway Center in Orlando. (It's now named the Kia Center.)

* The Boston Celtics beat the Miami Heat, 107-105 at the FTX Arena (now the Kaseya Center) in Miami.

* The Oklahoma City Thunder beat the New Orleans Pelicans, 111-110 at the Smoothie King Center in New Orleans.

* The Indiana Pacers beat the Houston Rockets, 114-107 at the Gainbridge Fieldhouse in Indianapolis.

* The Milwaukee Bucks beat the Detroit Pistons, 130-115 at the Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee.

* The Phoenix Suns beat the Toronto Raptors, 123-115 at the Footprint Center (now the Mortgage Matchup Center) in Phoenix.

* The Los Angeles Clippers beat the Golden State Warriors, 108-101 at the Oakland Coliseum Arena.

* And the Sacramento Kings beat the Chicago Bulls, 128-124 at the Golden 1 Center in Sacramento.