From: Mark Schneider
Columbus
“Preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States.”
These 10 words are the last phrase in the solemn presidential oath of office as prescribed in the Constitution.
As a conservative, a Republican, as someone who voted for the president, and most importantly as an American, I am beyond ashamed by the explicit, unabashed, and un-American efforts of the president to subvert and overturn the election results.
The days, weeks, and months of flaming crackpot conspiracy theories — because of the cowardliness of Mr. Trump and his ego being unable to handle losing an election — came to bear fruit on Jan. 6 at the U.S. Capitol.
The riot, anarchy, and sacking of the Capitol is among the saddest events in our history. The shining city upon a hill, as Ronald Reagan described our nation, was overrun with domestic terrorists.
Not patriots. Terrorists.
These types of seditionist actions are beyond despicable.
These actions, combined with the Jan. 2 phone call to the Georgia secretary of state where the president attempted to strong-arm the secretary of state into overturning the state’s election results, are on par with, and usually reserved for, thuggery and intimidation featured in a coup d’état in some banana republic — not the United States of America.
Had President Obama done the same, Republicans would have called it treasonous and impeached him immediately before the end of his term.
It is a failure of his constitutional oath, an action unbecoming of the president of the United States, and between it and the encouragement of the Capitol insurrection, Mr. Trump should resign immediately. If not, the vice president and cabinet should remove him through power granted via the 25th Amendment for the last days of his term.
We are a nation of laws. Not of men.
History will reserve great shame and dishonor for the president and those in Congress, unprincipled and unbridled for their thirst for the limelight and power at any cost, who aided and abetted in the stoking of debunked conspiracy theories that resulted in an insurrection at the Capitol. The abandonment of any principles they might have pretended to have has done lasting damage by striking at the heart of the credibility of the great American experiment that is our republic.
It’s time for our leaders and representatives, who swear an oath under God, to remind themselves what that oath states so that, as Lincoln said at Gettysburg, “government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”
