The unprecedented attack on the nation’s Capitol building, encouraged by Trump and other actors who appeared on the rally stage on January 6, may result in sedition charges against the former president and his sycophants. But more dangerously, Trump left in his wake an autocratic and orchestrated movement to suppress and restrict voting rights across the country. State voter suppression has been at the center of voting rights abuses in the United States since the nation’s founding. Even after the Voting Rights Act of 1965, southern states continued to restrict and suppress Blacks from voting in local and national elections. 

Dr. Bandy X. Lee, an American psychiatrist who has written several books^[1] about Donald Trump, reminds us that “when a coup attempt goes unpunished, it becomes a training exercise.” Dr. Lee is an eminent psychiatrist, whose scrutiny of Trump provided me with valid and reliable assertions of Trump’s unstable behavior. Although hundreds of American insurrectionists have been arrested and face myriad charges, the United States Senate Republicans blocked an independent investigation of the January 6 riot. Republicans in Congress have, to their disgrace, even downplayed the failed coup. Trump has still not been held accountable for the coup attempt.

We face certainty that such an attack will happen again. A member of the Three Percenters, a right-wing militant group, wrote a letter in jail while being held on charges for storming the Capitol on January 6. He said that those attacking the building could have overthrown the government if they had wanted. He warns that another January 6 type of attack is possible. As of this writing, he faces twenty years in prison.^[2]

Text is from my forthcoming book: Jack Hassard, The Trump Files: How the Trump Administration Damaged America’s Politics, Human Rights, Science and Public Health. Atlanta: Northington-Hearn, 2022

^[1] Bandy X. Lee, The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump (New York: Thomas Dunne Books, 2019); Profile of a Nation: Trump’s Mind, America’s Soul (New York: World Mental Health Coalition, Inc., 2020). These two books provide a core of the mental health of Donald Trump that I write about. 

^[2] Joshua Kaplanand Joaquin Sapien, “In Exclusive Jailhouse Letter, Capitol Riot Defendant Explains Motives, Remains Boastful.” ProPublica, May 11, 2021, retrieved May 14, 2021. https://www.propublica.org/article/in-exclusive-jailhouse-letter-capital-riot-defendant-explains-motives-remains-boastfull