All he had to do was gracefully concede defeat and vow to do better next time …
All he had to do was what every losing presidential candidate has ever done during the last three centuries in this country …
All he had to do was show a modicum of respect for America and the values that have made her one of the most respected and durable democracies in the world …
All he had to do was act like any of a million children who have lost a heartbreaking ballgame and then walked to the middle of the field, doffed their caps, and shook hands with the victors ...
All he had to do was rise to the occasion for once in his miserable life …
Turns out, he didn’t have it in him.
Turns out, he’s too small … too petty … too insecure … too morally busted.
Instead, he dragged our country down to his pathetic level. He had to rage and whine. He had to make threatening phone calls and verbally assault anybody within earshot including his tepid, gross vice president. He had to stomp his little feet and clutch his tiny hands and spit. He had to start his own anti-social media company, where he was free to type any awful thing about anybody or anything that entered his polluted train wreck of a mind. He had to play the victim. He had to throw ketchup all over the wall, and be begged by even his most ardent lackeys and broken family members to call off the frothing dogs, who tore into our Capitol for hours and hours on January 6, 2021.
They were worried about his legacy.
Seriously.
On Tuesday, the guy who told an astonishing 30,573 lies during his chaotic and vicious presidency, including the biggest one of all, was indicted on felony charges for actively working to overturn the results of the 2020 Presidential Election, which he lost by more than seven million votes.
He asked for this — all of it — and on Tuesday, he finally got it.
I’ve argued in the past that these charges were too damn long in coming. I’ve pleaded with Attorney General Merrick Garland to get off the dime and move on this son of a bitch already, that time was running out.
I’ve posited that after being elected, President Joe Biden never wanted this to happen, so intent was he to govern with unity and across the aisle. Biden just wanted America to return to her former self and strive to be the greatest country on Earth.
“Our best days are ahead of us,” he’d plead. “I mean this from the bottom of my heart. I’ve been doing this a long time folks …”
The most effective way to move up and to move on was to put our hostilities aside and walk to the middle of the field and shake hands with the losers.
So by the time Indictment Day finally came around on Tuesday evening, I was surprised by my reaction: I was sad.
I was sad that it had come to this. I was sad that HE had made it come to this. I was sad that HE had so little regard for OUR institutions and for the things that had really made us great for so many years. I was sad that most of his damn party was somehow still with him, continuing to lower themselves into a well of good faith that should have long ago gone dry.
I hate that it has come to this, but now that it finally has, we must do everything we can to see it through. He must go to jail. He must be there for whatever is left of his terrible life.
It must be made clear that trying to throw out our votes in a free and fair election — an election that the indictment crisply spells out that he KNOWS he lost — is crossing a red-hot line.
All he had to do was the bare minimum of what we ask of our children, and he simply didn't have it in him.
Now he must pay.
He asked for this, and by God I hope he gets it.
D. Earl Stephens is the author of “Toxic Tales: A Caustic Collection of Donald J. Trump’s Very Important Letters” and finished up a 30-year career in journalism as the Managing Editor of Stars and Stripes. Follow @EarlofEnough
