Donald John Trump began and fueled his 2016 campaign attempting, for political purposes, to delegitimize the 2008 and 2012 elections of Barack Obama with the racist birther lie. Apparently believing he would lose, he continuously referred to the 2016 election as “rigged,” until he won and it wasn’t. I will leave analysis of the following four years of politics of grievance, anger, fear and division to historians.

He ended his Presidency as he began his 2016 campaign by undermining the 2020 election that he lost. He lied and lied again about election fraud with no evidence that impressed any judge anywhere, stirred and stirred again until the pot boiled over and the U.S. Capitol, symbol of our representative democracy and site of our democratic processes was assaulted on January 6, 2021, by a mob. I will leave the sorting of what the legal definition of inciting to riot is to lawyers, but I believe his rhetoric and refusal to concede a lost election led to the assault..

I also believe that from November 3, 2020, to the moment of that assault, the survival of the values, ideals and institutions that hold these United States together were the closest to being destroyed by internal forces since the Civil War of 1861-1865. The good news is that politicians found their inner statesmen in the final trying days of the Trump Presidency and unlikely heroes emerged. Pence, McConnell and others removed their kissers from Trump’s rump and upheld the validity of our sacred election process. The judiciary, including Trump’s three Supreme Court appointees, did their job and rebuffed him. Republican state election officials withstood bullying and coercion and refused to cheat for him. A divided Congress came back after the Capitol assault and certified the election results. When the chips were down in a situation that transcended politics as usual, the people charged with upholding our laws, values and institutions did so.

The actor portraying Mission Director Gene Krantz in “Apollo 13” overheard, “This could be the worst disaster NASA ever experienced” and replied “With all due respect, sir, I believe this is going to be our finest hour.” Trump came very close, I think to doing the unthinkable and fraudulently overthrowing our most sacred institution, the will of the people expressed in a free election and peaceful transfer of power. However, out of that dark prospect came one of our finest hours. Like Apollo 13, the Good Ship America is battered, but still afloat.

Ed Granger

New Iberia