Nixon got re-elected, too, and won the popular vote twice. The second time, he won by 23.2%, and won the electoral college 520-17—an actual landslide. In contrast, Trump lost re-election, and lost the popular vote twice, both times by substantial margins.
So really, comparing Trump to Nixon is horribly unfair to Nixon.
“I was reminded of Hannah Arendt describing the trial of Adolf Eichmann. ‘The trouble,’ she wrote, ‘was precisely that so many were like him, and that the many were neither perverted nor sadistic, that they were, and still are, terribly and terrifyingly normal.’”
“She described this as the “banality of evil”—the willingness of otherwise ordinary people to do extraordinarily evil things.
But the traitors in that violent mob did not act on their own.” democracydocket.com/2021/01/the-da…
“The events of January 6 began much earlier, seeded and spurred on by a deranged president and many of the nation’s most powerful Republican politicians.” democracydocket.com/2021/01/the-da…
He riled his supporters up for weeks with mendacious attacks on the election and our democracy. He promoted the gathering in DC for weeks, and said they would be “wild.” He instigated the attack by telling people to march on the Capitol. .
He reveled in the attack for hours. He praised the rioters and said he loved them. He continued to lie about the election.
And only after his White House counsel and others emphasized to him his potential criminal liability, and only after calls for his removal reached a fever pitch, did he pretend to condemn the violence that he had fomented and praised.
This isn't surprising. He's a narcissistic psychopath. He praised the rioters because he views them as vindicating him, thus providing him with narcissistic supply. He also views them as an instrument of revenge, and as a psychopath (and a sadist), revels in that.
This fits perfectly the psychological profile that countless mental-health professionals identified even before Trump was elected.
In any event, what matters now is that he's desperate, cornered, and more dangerous than ever. What's at stake for him goes beyond assuagement of his narcissistic ego; he understands that once he is forced to leave office, he can be subjected to criminal prosecution.
The importance is that Trump can't just take his powers back immediately and fire all the cabinet officers who sought to sideline him.
Anyway, once Trump objects, the VP and cabinet within the four days can notify Congress that they still think Trump unfit, and that triggers a period during which the VP remains acting president while the Congress decides whether (by a 2/3 vote of both houses) ...
The twenty-fifth amendment could be used to take @realDonaldTrump out for the rest of his term.
If the VP and a majority of the cabinet were to certify Trump’s inability to carry out the duties of his office, Pence would become acting president. The next thing that would happen is that Trump would say, no, I’m able to carry out my duties, and he’d resume his office ...
... again in four days, unless the VP and the cabinet again certified Trump’s inability to carry out his duties. At that point, the matter goes to Congress, which has 21 days to affirm the Cabinet’s decision. But by then Joe Biden would be president, so there would never ...