I write this a little over six weeks after Donald Trump left the White House. He left without acknowledging his defeat to President Joseph Biden or attending President Biden’s inauguration. Trump is determined to spend the rest of his life claiming he won the election and was cheated out of a 2nd term.

This past weekend he spoke at a conference for conservative Republicans (CPAC) and hinted that he would attempt to regain the White House in 2024.

I began the Trump Chronicles shortly after he won in 2016. His election horrified most of us and I determined to write a blog that called him to account. In those four years I wrote 153 blog posts that called out his his lies, his prejudices, and his determination to profit on the backs of all of us.

Simply put, I’m tired of writing about him. I don’t know his future but I pray that he will pay for his crimes against the American people. If his behavior places him in prison I will not rejoice but will instead feel relieved. I doubt I’ll write about him again.

I’m writing this in the midst of the Senate trial to decide the future of President Trump after his second impeachment.

Those of us who support his removal claim that he broke his Presidential oath of office where he promised this: “I do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.” On January 6, 2021 we believe he betrayed his oath when he called on his supporters to storm the Capitol and prevent the Senate from accepting the American peoples’ decision to elect Joe Biden.

Trump’s defenders claim that he is not guilty, that he didn’t incite his followers, and he didn’t call for the overthrow of the 2020 election.

Now imagine if this had happened four years earlier. In November of 2016 President Obama was prepared to leave office after two terms. He (as well as many of us) believed that Hillary Clinton would defeat Donald Trump and were horrified to learn that while Hillary won the popular vote, Trump won the electoral vote and would be our next President.

So what if President Obama, in his last few weeks in office, claimed the election was stolen and called on his supporters to storm the Capitol on January 7, 2017 to prevent the Senate from certifying the 2016 election. It doesn’t matter if his intent was to remain in office or mandate that Hillary be installed as President.

Can we imagine that Republicans in Congress would have allowed this to happen without consequences? Assuming that President Obama’s attempt to overthrow the 2016 election failed (as did Trump’s attempt to overthrow the 2020 election), does anyone seriously believe that President Obama would have been given a pass because he was no longer in office?

Of course not. The Republican Party does not believe in fairness or justice. They believe that whatever they do is permissible because they are always right and fairness doesn’t matter.

They’re wrong. Rev. Martin Luther King once said that “The Arc of the Moral Universe is Long, But it Bends Toward Justice.” History will not be kind to Trump, but history will also not be kind to his supporters.

History will recognize that Trump’s supporters in the Senate cared little for justice or fairness and cared only for their desire for job security. They will be remembered as cowards.

I pray their cowardice will, ironically, cost them their jobs.

Four years ago I placed a marker for President Trump. I recorded several indications of how our nation was doing and suggested that we could compare how we did in the last four years.

Interestingly, President Trump did well in several of them. Looking at the stock market we’ve seen increases in the Dow Jones Industrial Average (19,732 to 30,930), the NASDAQ (5540 to 13,197), and Standard and Poors (2263 to 3748). Despite the volatility of employment over the last year, the unemployment average rose from 4.7% to 6.7%. And the number of Americans employed rose from 123,570,000 to 158,130,000.

On the other hand his approval rating has dropped from 38% to 34% (it never hit 50%). The federal deficit rose from $590 billion to $3.3 trillion while the federal debt rose from $20 trillion to $27 trillion. The percentage of Americans was 11% and I was not able to find the current percentage.

The failure of the Trump Administration was, in the end, not economic. Here are my thoughts on why his administration failed:

• He wasn’t able to keep several of his promises: His 2016 campaign centered on building a wall on the Mexican border (and have Mexico pay for it). While there has been some building, the wall he promised never happened and Mexico didn’t pay a penny (or peso). He promised to repeal the Affordable Care Act and replace it with something cheaper and better. He was unable to repeal it and never developed a better plan. He promised coal miners that he would “bring back coal” and that never happened. He promised to “win” a trade war with China that did nothing more than impoverish farmers who suffered from China’s retaliation to Trump’s tariffs on Chinese goods.
• Many Americans grew weary of his lies: He lied about things that were obvious. He claimed that more people attended his inauguration than did President Obama’s in 2012. He claimed that he would have won the popular vote in 2016 were it not for illegal votes. Whenever asked about white supremacists or organizations who supported him he claimed to know nothing about them (e.g. David Dukes or the Proud Boys). Lying is always dicey but having to explain to your children that it’s not OK to lie when the President does makes for difficult conversations
• Democratic voters were too complacent in 2016 and vowed not to make that mistake again: Many of us never expected that our nation would elect Donald Trump. We scorned him during the Republican primary and expressed surprise that he won the nomination and we never expected he would beat Hilary Clinton. Enough Democrats didn’t bother to vote, falsely thinking their votes weren’t needed. Chastened by that experience they made certain it wouldn’t happen again
• COVID-19: This probably made the most difference. President Trump made a point of ignoring the wisdom of his predecessors and that included a playbook for a possible viral infection. The Obama administration successfully battled Ebola in 2014 and learned a great deal about global pandemics. Their hope to pass their wisdom to treat the next pandemic fell on deaf ears and when COVID-19 showed up on our shores the Trump administration had no plan. He attempted to blame the Chinese (hoping this would solve it), insisted that it won’t last long, and argued that wearing face masks were not necessary. Meanwhile thousands of Americans fell ill, died, or grieved loved ones who died. President Trump’s decision to ignore COVID convinced many Americans that he was no longer trustworthy to lead our nation.

Since his defeat in November he has shown himself to be far from a gracious loser. Two weeks ago we saw him ignite an assault on the US Capitol.

We can only hope that Americans from future generations learn the lessons of history and never again elect someone who has such disregard for our nation.

Last Wednesday the House of Representatives voted 217-192 to impeach President Trump for the second time, and according to the Constitution it now moves to the Senate to convict. While it only takes a majority of the House to impeach it takes a 2/3 vote of the Senate to convict and remove him from office.

While Presidents Andrew Johnson, Bill Clinton, and Donald Trump were impeached, none of them were convicted and removed from office. This may change soon.

I hope so.

President Trump’s allies argue that he has only a few days left in office and there is no point in removing someone from an office that he no longer holds.

On its face it does make some sense, but I argue that he still needs to be removed.

President Trump continues to claim that he won the 2020 election and has been robbed of a second term. He and his allies claim that voter fraud, uncounted ballots, and various other conspiracy theories cheated him of his reelection. While he hasn’t conceded defeat he has claimed he will run again in 2024. A conviction will ensure this won’t happen as he will be barred from running from another office.

More importantly, a conviction will send the message that nobody, even the President, is above the law. Our Founding Fathers wrote volumes (not only in the Constitution but also in the Federalist Papers) that they didn’t choose to overthrow King George III only to replace him with a homegrown tyrant. It’s often said that the mark of a true democracy isn’t the inauguration of the the first President but the inauguration of our second President. In other words the peaceful transition of power from one President to another makes us a true nation of, by, and for the people.

Since this happened for the first time in 1800 (when George Washington passed the mantle to John Adams) it hasn’t always been easy and several times a current President has been forced to watch his successor take the oath of office when he lost his bid for reelection.

But for the most part the outgoing President has shown graciousness and a respect for our nation. President Trump ended this. Not only has he refused to accept the will of the voters he has demanded that others break the law to keep him in office.

I hope we’re all aware of his threat to the Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (a Republican) that if he didn’t “find” 11,780 votes he would face criminal charges. Fortunately Mr. Raffensperger didn’t take his threat seriously.

But on January 7th it became much, much more serious. On that day Congress was set to meet to accept the electoral votes and certify that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris were properly elected as President and Vice President. We’re learning more about this each day but I think we can all agree that President Trump emboldened his supporters to march on the Capitol and, frankly, occupy it. Not only did they wish to stop the certification they intended to keep President Trump in office.

Four years ago the majority of us voted for Hillary Clinton to lead us. She won the popular vote but lost the electoral vote (much like President Bush in 2000). We were hurt, angry, and afraid but we accepted the results and prayed that President Trump would govern better than we feared.

He didn’t. By any standard he made us worse and I have no desire to list his failures. But nobody can argue that he was unprepared for COVID-19. He blamed China, he blamed the Democrats, he made fun of those who wore masks, and refused to listen to the smartest people in the room.

President Trump hoped to follow the fascist playbook: Find a way to power and declare that yourself president for life. He hoped to whip up the mob to prevent Congress from certifying the election. And then he planned to stay. He had no mechanism to have the vote certified for him. He also presented no evidence of voter fraud.

He wished to be Donald the First. Gratefully he didn’t succeed. Now we must ensure he can’t make another attempt.

We all knew that President Trump wouldn’t leave office easily or in a way that brings honor to our nation and traiditions. As a matter of fact I wrote about this last April.

In that post I feared that he would encourage his sycophants to surround the White House on January 20, 2021 to prevent his exit from the White House. I hadn’t thought Trump would encourage his minions to storm the U.S. Capitol on the day that they convened to accept the votes of the Electoral College.

It was a scary day and you can read a good timeline here. It began with a rally at the White House with President Trump telling the inciting the crowd to march to the Capitol. He promised to join them, but once the rally was over he returned to the White House.

We’ve seen the horrific scenes know that four people died and the Capitol was desecrated. The last time this happened was in 1814 and this was an invading force, not our own citizens.

The President’s actions are, simply put, sedition.

I doubt the President planned it, but he has taken no responsibility for it. After four years he still hasn’t learned that his words matter.

If there is a silver lining here, it’s this: we can pretty much ensure that President Trump won’t be able to call his people to action to surround the White House on January 20th.

It’s going to be a long 9 days.

In the summer of 1981 many of us began to read about and hear of a troubling trend. Gay men in New York and San Francisco began to report cases of Karposi Sarcoma and Pneumoscystis Pneumonia. It was odd because the only people who suffered from these diseases were those with compromised immune systems. At the time this population had no reason to believe they were immune compromised. Eventually we learned that a previously unknown virus called HIV or human immunodeficiency virus caused these diseases. Within a few years we all called it AIDS (acquired immunodeficiency syndrome).

In the next several years AIDS decimated not only the gay male population but also intravenous drug users. We found the presence of the virus in blood, seamen, and saliva. AIDS also devastated children with hemophilia, most famously Ryan White (1971-1990) and people who needed blood transfusions like Arthur Ashe (1943-1993).

Reactions varied. President Ronald Reagan (1911-2004) answered with silence and said nothing about AIDS until 1985. Others, like Rev. Jerry Falwell (1933-2007) saw AIDS as a self inflicted wound: God used AIDS to punish homosexual activity.

For years many people lived in fear of AIDS, particularly when we weren’t sure how it was spread, how to test for it, and how to treat it. Nearly everyone knew someone who contracted AIDS, including my godfather, Duane LaDeau (1935-1993). But there was also widespread fear among health care workers, EMT’s who were on the front lines of caring for very sick people.

But eventually we learned more about the virus. We learned how it was spread, how to protect ourselves, and how to best treat the virus. There’s still no cure but people with AIDS can live nearly normal lives and we who care for them know what to do to avoid infection.

As for COVID-19 we’re still in our earliest days. Every day we’re learning more about the virus, how to avoid infection, how to safely care for those infected, and how we can look to slowing and stopping the spread.

But here’s the problem: in the 1980s our President and leading “Christians” found ways to avoid dealing with AIDS (either by ignoring it or blaming the victim). We now have a President who encourages behavior that will increase both the infection rate and the death rate. Scientists like Dr. Anthony Fauci caution us to avoid direct contact in the hopes that the virus won’t spread. He advocates that we stay at home and in the last 2 months many have. It’s been hard on the economy as the current unemployment rate stands at 14.7% and may well be higher. Our only way past COVID-19 leads through a quarantine that lasts until it’s safe to return to normal even if it means many can’t return to work for months.

President Trump recognizes that a poor economy will likely ensure his defeat in November. And so he’s applying pressure to bring people back into dangerous contact. His calls to “Free Virgina” and other states show how far he is willing to go.

He’s gambling that people will go back to work, unemployment rates will go down, the economy will bounce back, and the virus will magically disappear. As I tell my hospice patients, you can hope for and pray for a miracle but you can’t plan for a miracle.

But that’s what he’s doing. I’m not sure he’s even aware of this, but if everyone goes back to work and the infection/death rate explodes he won’t win. And thousands of us will die. Of course he won’t as all those around him are masked and tested.

I’m not a politician. Frankly I lack the ambition, the desire to win above all else. I vividly remember the pressure on members of Congress in 2003 to authorize the Gulf War. I can’t read the hearts of all of them but I remember believing that many of them feared a vote against it would imperil their re-election. They didn’t vote their conscience, they voted their ambition.

I don’t respect that. Had I been a member of Congress I would have voted against this on the grounds that the Bush administration couldn’t convince me of their proof that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction. History would have proven me right.

Fast forward to today. Whenever I speak to a Trump supporter (and I had this exact conversation a few months ago) they tell me they don’t care about his lies, or his tweets, or his xenophobia. In my last conversation with a coworker she said: “Have you looked at your 401(k)? How can you not support him?”

The last few months have been nothing but trouble for President Trump’s need to win a second term and crave the approval of the American people. Early on I think he recognized that COVID-19 would hurt the economy and therefore chances for a 2nd term. I’ve written about this before but he spent much of February and early March falsely claiming that the virus was mild and shouldn’t affect our behavior. He blamed the lack of preparedness of COVID-19 on President Obama.

Time and again we’ve seen him disregard science in his need for a positive narrative of his administration. Last month he suggested that we can use light and disinfectant to treat COVID-19.

Even President Trump recognizes that if the economy goes South he will have a hard time winning a second term. His only hope lies in the prayer that he will reopen the economy and the COVID-19 virus will magically go away. As I tell my patients, you can pray for a miracle but you can’t plan for one. If he’s wrong (and I pray he isn’t) the next several months will may well give us a horrific increase in COVIC-19 deaths and a cratering of the economy, making the Great Recession look small.

In fewer than six months Americans will go to the polls and decide if President Trump should serve another four years, or if Vice President Biden should replace him. I believe that President Trump knows that his re-election is in trouble. I believe he is desperate and the next six months will show how much damage he is willing to do to our nation and our world.

His call to roll back quarantines will cost lives and he knows it. And he doesn’t care. On November 3rd we can show how much we care.