Trump’s Political Suicide

Kommersant observer Sergei Strokan talks about a dramatic ending to Donald Trump’s presidency, which broke all American taboos.

The end of the four-year-long presidency of the 45th president of the United States, Donald Trump, is marked by such remarkable shocks to the U.S. political traditions that all the dramatic events that happened last year — including ballot counting in swing states and street protests — seem like harmless games.

Trump has lost everything: He lost the presidency on Nov. 3, and this week, the Democratic Party took control over the Senate thanks to their voters in Georgia. After that, he could not control his emotions and decided to slam the door on his way out so hard that the historical artifacts and plaster would fall off the walls in both the Senate and the White House.

While inciting his supporters to fight for him and die rather than accept the election results, the eccentric and egocentric Trump might not have expected how far the situation would go.

The followers of the Trump cult, who came to Washington, D.C. from across the country, took the words of the president literally and started storming the Capitol, overpowering the police and organizing a violent rampage in one of the most sacred buildings in the country — the building of the U.S. Congress. The members of Congress, including Nancy Pelosi, the speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, had no choice but to flee and hide.

U.S. Vice President Mike Pence had to run away too. He rejected the claims of fraud, disapproved of the protestors’ actions and tried to convince them not to break the law, which later caused Trump’s disappointment.

The pictures of outraged pro-Trump vandals smashing their way into the Capitol building, damaging the sacred symbols inside and scratching “murder the media” on the walls went viral across the whole world. Thus, they made a laughingstock out of their home country, the one that has been teaching everyone else abroad how to live.

When three hours after this carnival of insanity, Trump attempted to persuade his followers, the new kind of American patriots, to “go home,” it was already too late. By that point, the situation had reached a point of no return.

So, on the night of Jan. 7, the whole world was watching something that resembled the ways power transition works in the countries offensively called “banana republics.” In the former Soviet Union, where unconstitutional regime change has become almost a norm, something similar has happened in Georgia, Kyrgyzstan and Ukraine, the country of the victorious Maidan — although, unlike in Ukraine, the protestors in the U.S. are not going to win.

That night, while Orthodox Christian countries were silently celebrating Christmas, Washington, D.C. was in agony.

That was an agony of the most eccentric U.S. president in history, who dared to break all the American taboos. Trump will not be able to change the outcome of the U.S. election. On Jan. 20, President-elect Joe Biden will be officially sworn into office and take a traditional oath of office on the steps of the U.S. Capitol.

Trump, who had pushed all possible legal boundaries, committed political suicide and shot all his potential political ambitions in the foot. Fighting “the sleepy Joe” is one thing, but breaking U.S. traditions is a completely different one.

Trump stands no chance in that fight, regardless of whether his recent actions will be qualified as treason.

It is impossible to fathom that the leader who challenged everyone — the Republicans and the Democrats — would be able to put together a new team, overcome all hurdles and run for office ever again.

As for “sleepy Joe,” whose campaign had lacked a clear political idea that others could rally around, he finally got a chance to wake up and formulate it, thanks to Trump. That idea is to protect America from its political Terminator: the role played by the 45th U.S. president.