On Tuesday, I observed with trepidation the fifth anniversary of the Jan. 6 violent attack on the U.S. Capitol by insurrectionists directed by President Donald Trump to block the certification that Joe Biden had won the Electoral College vote to become the 46th president of the United States. By calendar coincidence, that date will forever after be shared with the Feast of the Epiphany – better known as the Twelfth Day of Christmas or Three Kings Day – marking the night when a Magi trio of wisemen followed the star leading them to a stable and a manger in Bethlehem.
It’s an inscrutably ironic coincidence in that Trump would tolerate only one king – himself – for such recognition while we, his disobliging subjects, insist on none at all.
Unsurprisingly, my trepidation proved entirely predictable as the president reacted to the release of Special Counsel Jack Smith’s video testimony before Congress on two cases (stolen classified documents and insurrection) that likely would have resulted in Trump’s felony convictions bordering on treason had either charge gone to trial. But with the help of judicial co-conspirators – ranging from a nakedly biased District Court judge and a party-line majority of the U.S. Supreme Court – the clock on justice in these cases ran out on Election Day, Nov. 5, 2024.
On Three Kings Day, 2026, the White House released a false narrative of what happened on Jan. 6 five years ago, based on the fabulist lie that Trump had won the 2020 presidential election. If you were not persuaded by the sheer impossibility of “rigging” an election conducted by roughly 177,000 precincts in 3,250 counties or county equivalents (City of Baltimore, for instance), then do yourself a favor to the truth by checking out just an hour of Smith’s testimony on YouTube. He had the goods on Trump, notwithstanding the Supreme Court’s ruling that the president, or at least this one, is above and beyond the reach of any law of the land.
The greatest threat to the United States of America is the current White House tenant, duly elected to two non-consecutive residencies. Our greatest fear should be that his unchecked psychopathic narcissism will lead him to do much worse than shoot someone on Fifth Avenue just to see if he can get away with it. Unlimited power and unquenchable thirst for venality and vengeance will be his undoing. But the question lurks dangerously unanswered: Will that happen before he destroys the country we love?
The gift on the Twelfth Day of Christmas was a dozen drummers drumming. Let’s hope it’s the drumbeat of justice and democracy that finally prevails.
Steve Parks
Easton
Rick Hughes says
Thoughtful and to the point as always, Steve. Thanks for keeping the light on truth.