When it was determined that American presidents would be inaugurated on Jan. 20 of the year following an early November election, could anyone have envisioned that some day, a vengeful leader who lost would repeatedly assert that he had won, desperately seek one plot after another to cheat and disenfranchise millions of voters, order federal agencies and personnel to endanger citizens by refusing to cooperate in the transition or to speak to anyone on the transition team, and use the long period between the election and the inauguration to golf, express his hatred and bitterness, gin up his mob to revolt, and fire honorable personnel who are not “yes men”?
Could anyone have imagined that in the face of such outrageous conduct, most members of the president’s party would be silent, being loyal to him rather than to the citizens of the country whose Constitution they swore to support and defend?
Could it have been foreseen a president would be so self-absorbed and selfish he would do all he could to make sure his successor fails, to make his task as difficult as possible, to begin his term with the disadvantages of being unprepared to tackle a lethal pandemic and to have received national security intelligence?
Treason is defined as “the crime of betraying one’s country or overthrow the government.” When do the actions of a president who seeks to disenfranchise millions of legally cast votes and steal an election from the rightful winner rise to that level of criminality?
Oren Spiegler
Peters