Trump’s enablers in Congress are a fascinating case study of political amnesia | Sidney Blumenthal

The Republicans who prop up Trump's cult of personality recently engaged in their strangest ordeal of self-abasement yet

After 40 months and two weeks Donald Trump succeeded in being driven by car to the Capitol. The last time he attempted to get there was 6 January 2021. The mob was rampaging, ransacking offices and chanting, Hang Mike Pence!" Trump was irate", according to the account of Cassidy Hutchinson, the former White House aide, because he was not among the mob. The president said something to the effect of, I'm the effing president, take me up to the Capitol now.'" Hutchinson stands by her story of being told he had tried to grab the steering wheel and lunged at his driver.

If the US supreme court had not intervened to postpone Trump's January 6 trial it would likely be proceeding today or perhaps even have already reached a verdict on his conspiracy, according to the indictment of the United States of America v Donald J Trump, to defraud the United States by using dishonesty, fraud, and deceit to impair, obstruct, and defeat the lawful federal government function by which the results of the presidential election are collected, counted, and certified by the federal government".

Sidney Blumenthal, former senior adviser to Bill and Hillary Clinton, has published three books of a projected five-volume political life of Abraham Lincoln: A Self-Made Man, Wrestling With His Angel and All the Powers of Earth. He is a Guardian US columnist