“So what?”
“So what?” That was the response Donald Trump gave when he was informed that his Vice President, Mike Pence, had just been moved to a safe location. Trump aide Nick Luna reported Trump’s two-word reaction to Special Counsel Jack Smith’s investigating team. Luna was shocked at the President’s callous indifference. I am not.
It was January 6, 2021. A mob of more than two thousand slavering lunatics were attacking the Capitol building. Trump was angry that Mike Pence didn’t do what he lacked the right or the power to do: stop the final electoral college vote count in the joint session of Congress and send it back to the states for a “recount.” That would presumably give phoney electors loyal to Trump a chance to vote, effectively stealing the election from Joe Biden.
The crowd was angry at Pence for not breaking faith with the Constitution and doing Trump’s bidding. So angry, in fact, that they began chanting “Hang Mike Pence!” over and over. Trump told someone he thought Pence deserved to be hanged. Trump sent out a tweet, effectively pouring gasoline on the raging fire. The tweet said, “Mike Pence didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our Country and our Constitution.”
Again, when Trump found out that Pence had been rescued from physical harm, his reaction wasn’t relief that the mob couldn’t hurt his loyal friend who faithfully stood by him for four years. His reaction was, “So what?” In other words, who cares? In other words, what difference does it make? They could have torn his friend limb from limb for all Trump cared. All that mattered was Trump and his power. Either way Pence dead or Pence alive was about the same to Trump.
And Trump aide Nick Luna was there to take it all in. Luna saw that Trump was not interested in stopping the violence that day. In fact he relished it. Trump didn’t care who lived or died, all he cared about was hanging on to power, and if hanging Mike Pence was what it took then so be it.
In the final analysis, January 6th was a huge disappointment to Trump. He wanted the riot to end in a coup where the states could corruptly deliver the presidency back into his bloodstained hands.
Not only was Trump completely indifferent to the pain and suffering of loyal friends, he was furious that his plan was thwarted by a reluctant Vice President and a mob that didn’t go far enough. But because Trump is also a coward, he was worried about the undeniable fact that he was the head of a failed coup. So he later lied and said he’d called in 10,000 national guardsmen to stop the insurrection. He further lied and blamed Nancy Pelosi for stopping them. He calculated that all he had to do was lie to cover his cowardly ass, and he would get away with it.
In a way he was right. Very few of his followers learned anything from that day. For one thing, they never learned the single most salient fact about the fate of anyone who gets next to Trump, or anyone who is loyal to Trump. Trump demands loyalty that he will never, ever return. Everyone must be loyal to Trump, but Trump is loyal to no one. To paraphrase the words of E Howard Hunt from the movie “Nixon,” Donald Trump is the Darkness, reaching out for the Darkness.
The message is out there in plain sight for anyone who cares to read it. Donald Trump is scum. Donald Trump is a disloyal liar, a snivelling coward, a whining child in a constant state of tantrum. But in an age where more and more people believe that the earth is flat and Jewish space lasers start wildfires and the “Deep State” is in charge, reality no longer matters. Evidence no longer matters. In the end, what you want to believe is all the evidence you need to believe it.
So when Donald Trump dies in prison, my reaction is going to be “So What?” When his stupidly loyal followers die in prison, my reaction is going to be “So What?” When the Republican Party is destroyed my reaction is going to be “So What?” They followed a bad and disloyal man into hell and got what they deserved. That will be our vengeance, and poetic justice demands that that particular vengeance should be a dish that is served ice cold. And, as ever, ladies and gentlemen, brothers and sisters, comrades and friends, stay safe.
Robert Harrington is an American expat living in Britain. He is a portrait painter.