I’ve been exchanging emails with my friend Marty about the current political crisis. One question we’ve discussed is how much more damage Trump and his more militant supporters could do leading up to and including on Inauguration Day.
I see two major factors that bear on that, one positive and one negative. On the positive side, I understand that Trump has been advised that he faces a risk of indictment for incitement for what he’s already done. That could restrain any inclination he might have to engage in behavior that would strengthen a legal case against him.
Trump may also still be nursing aspirations to run for president again in 2024 and may not want to do anything that could result in additional GOP senators voting to convict him in his impeachment trial, since a conviction would be followed immediately by a vote to bar him from holding office in the future, which would need only a majority to pass.
So I expect that while he will insist to his dying day that the election was stolen, Trump will not take any overt action in the near term that could increase his chances of being barred from running again or of going to jail.
But on the negative side, it appears that many of Trump’s cultists don’t need any further incitement from him to motivate them to commit mayhem. They are already plenty incited. The preparations being made for the inauguration demonstrate that the national security establishment understands that. Washington, D.C., is beginning to look like an armed camp.