Never forget, Biden voters: Trump and his conspirators were willing to use the military against you

For all the in-depth coverage thus far about the latest and by far the most significant criminal indictment of Donald John Trump, there has been remarkably scant acknowledgment of the actual, real-world import of the charges he faces. Legal phraseology such as “conspiracy to defraud the United States” and “attempting to obstruct an official proceeding,“ and even “seditious conspiracy” (which Trump wasn’t charged with) fall woefully short of capturing the sheer, overwhelming magnitude of his (alleged) treachery.

In fact, this has been the case ever since Jan. 6, 2021. It’s as if the media can’t quite get their heads around something so vast and antithetical to American democracy as what Trump attempted in plain sight. Or even if they do appreciate it, they can’t figure out how best to convey it to the American people.

Let’s try this, then. Under the scheme Trump is now charged with, 81 million Americans would have had their votes for the highest elected office in this land rendered meaningless, effectively erased, as if they’d never existed. That’s 81 million Biden voters instantly disenfranchised; their judgments, motives, hopes, and everything that shaped them, abruptly negated. Their trips to the local voting precinct during a pandemic, their careful consideration and concern in filling out mail-in ballots, their discussions with spouses and family about which presidential candidate they should vote for, all crudely and unilaterally disregarded and trashed. Had Trump succeeded in this plan, half the voting nation would have experienced the absolute foundation of their own citizenship snatched away from them in one single, tyrannical power grab, making them—for all intents and purposes—noncitizens. 

That would have led to massive protests in the street, the likes of which this nation has never seen. Work for millions would have come to a complete standstill. There would have been riots, property destruction, and violence on a national scale as voters vented their fury. And, as special counsel Jack Smith’s Tuesday indictment shows, Trump was prepared to respond to those anticipated protests by calling out the military to quell them.