“There’s a reason we expect presidents of the United States to say that they support the peaceful transfer of power.
Donald Trump has never committed to it, and we saw the bitter fruit on Wednesday afternoon when, shockingly, pro-Trump rioters stormed the U.S. Capitol and disrupted the counting of electors.”
…
“The rioters themselves bear ultimate responsibility for their acts, but Trump egged them on.
He fed them poisonous lies about the election, including lunatic conspiracy theories worthy of QAnon that, if true, would justify violent revolution.
He encouraged them to come to Washington and said they wouldn’t stand for his “landslide” victory getting taken away.
He whipped them up on Wednesday with one of his typically high-octane speeches about how the election was stolen from them, and urged them to march on the Capitol to give “weak” Republicans the “pride and boldness they need to take back out country.”
When the mob overwhelmed security and made its way on the Senate and House floors, sending Vice President Pence and lawmakers fleeing, Trump tweeted about how he’d been wronged by Pence’s entirely correct view that he lacks the power as vice president to unilaterally declare him the victor.
It was only a couple of hours later that Trump released a pro forma video calling on his supporters to go home, but, of course, repeating all his same attacks on the integrity of American democracy that motivated the rioters in the first place.
Trump has been engaged in a grotesque, but utterly characteristic, display of failed leadership since he insisted late on election night that he’d won big.”
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2021/01/06/trumps-disgusting-coda-455632