“To sin by silence, when we should protest, makes cowards out of men.”

                                                                                      Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Rioting and insurrection have now been given the Presidential seal of approval. The 47^th President has acted, disregarding the disclaimers of his Vice President that violent lawbreakers would not be pardoned and his likely Attorney General that pardons and commutations would be given only after a case by case review. Instead, Trump opened the jailhouse doors and let the felons out.

The worst, most violent criminals from January 6 are now back on the street, free to act on the assumption that they can get away with it again. Our law-and-order President, the self-proclaimed supporter of the police, has countenanced rioting and assault on police officers who were acting to defend members of Congress and their staffs. Others who might be tempted to disregard the law, for example armed militias of White supremacists, might take Trump’s action as a green light for them to move forward. (“Stand back and stand by,” Trump told the Proud Boys during the presidential debates in 2020).

At the same time, the nominee to be the new FBI director has made it clear that he intends to move the Bureau in a different direction.  “I’d shut down the FBI Hoover Building on Day One and reopen it the next day as a museum of the ‘deep state,’” Patel has said, describing his plans for his first day as FBI Director. “Then, I’d take the 7,000 employees that work in that building and send them across America to chase down criminals. Go be cops. You’re cops — go be cops,” he said. Trump chose Patel in the first place because Patel can be counted on to do Trump’s bidding. Should we assume that the Proud Boys and other organizations of their ilk will not be under close or any other kind of surveillance under Patel’s directorship?

Scores of representatives and senators who ran in fear on January 6, afraid of what the mob might do to them if they were caught. Now, many of the Republicans who fled in fear are having difficulty commenting on the pardons because they supposedly need more information. Asked his reaction to Trump’s pardons, Republican Senate majority leader John Thune said, “We’re looking at the future, not the past”

Frightening to contemplate, but Donald Trump may have become a prisoner of his own rhetoric. Sometime after January 6, he condemned the violent acts committed that day. Criticizing the insurrection, however, separated Trump for his hardcore, extremist supporters. As time went on he came to justify what happened. Pardoning  the lawbreakers, who he claims were patriots and did nothing wrong, was the logical outcome based on his public comments. Failing to do so would have seemed to misrepresent his intentions. (Imagine! Donald Trump prevaricating or, God forbid, lying.)

At the risk of self-congratulation, I will note that in May 2021, I wrote about what could happen in what was then an expected far-off future.

Denying the events of January 6, I wrote, “as the Republican House leadership now does, is an open invitation to the mob that invaded the Capitol January 6 to persist in their refusal to accept the outcome of the 2020 election, and quite possibly to a repetition of the violence that occurred that day. More than likely many of the hundreds of insurrectionists who have been arrested will be tried, convicted and sentenced to prison, where they will meet fellow White supremacists, giving them an opportunity to further grow their numbers. Given the laxity of our gun laws, when they and their new members are released from prison, they will have a chance for a violent encore.”

Here we are. What was worrisome then, and even more so now, is the display of sheer cowardice on the part of Republican senators and representatives. Calling them cowards is actually charitable; it would be far worse if they in fact believed that what Trump has done is acceptable. The vaunted checks and balances that the Constitution provides between Congress and the Chief Executive is short-circuited if Congress rolls over whenever Trump orders it.

The set response from many of those elected officials like John Thune, when asked their reaction to the pardons, was that they were focused on the future. Unfortunately, we have no assurance that our elected representatives will find their voices to protest when more dismaying actions occur, as they surely will. If the past is prologue, that future may be dark indeed.