For much of the Trump regime’s term in office, his supporters claimed that it was his “policies” that earned their devotion. In the wake of yesterday’s final demonstration of his priorities, we now know that Trump was lying all along. His goal was never to Make America Great Again. It was to gain and hold power to do as he wishes, without a plan, accountability or consideration of the consequences. His motives were always makeup-thin and disguised under a political combover of claimed victimhood supported by mob rule.

Those who saw through Trump from the start were forced to endure accusations that we were #nevertrumpers. The term was originally meant to be an insult. Now it sounds like the best compliment anyone could give you.

We were also accused of having Trump Derangement Syndrome (#TDS by Twitter standards). But the visage of a deranged president telling a mob to descend on the Capitol proves where true derangement lies. It is with Trump, and all who follow him.

The people who “broke through” barriers and police lines around the Capitol building were pleasantly surprised how easy it was to attack democracy at its heart. They wandered around the halls and ransacked offices. Some walked off with souvenirs as if they owned the place. That’s what they have been told to believe by Donald Trump, that they own America.

One of the mobsters on patrol posed with his feet up on Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s desk. The arrogance and hate and misogyny of that single act, along with the theft of her nameplate from the office, constitutes an act of political rape. Like Trump, his followers think any brand of rape is funny as long as there are enough people around to laugh along with you. “You just grab them by the pussy…” Trump once bragged.

We were also treated to the sight of people toting the Confederate Flag around inside the United States Capitol building. That act alone is a brand of sedition, insurrection and criminal trespassing. That man should have been arrested on the spot. He’s holding a symbol of insurrection.

We fought a Civil War a little more than one hundred years ago to defeat that flag. The Confederacy had seceded from the Union ostensibly over the autonomous right of states to conduct their own business. That included slavery at the time. A bloody war was fought to rid the nation of slavery and reunite with states that walked away from the greater concept of a nation built around equality, not a brand of raw commerce that abused human rights. Trump has revealed that a significant number of Americans do not accept unity, equal rights or fair treatment of immigrants, people seeking asylum or even children born here in America who want to stay.

Instead, we find so-called Americans toting around the flag that stood for slavery, torture, abuse, and racism. That is deplorable. But that’s not even the point. The embrace of thin-skinned Confederate mentality by the MAGA crowd is not even the most horrific part of the Trump presidency.

The worst part in all of this is that 74 million people believe that Trump is right about America. They’ve absorbed his angry greed and allowed it to infect their souls and even convert their religion to a defense of his selfish need for adoration. What Trump stands for is not communal good. It is selfish complaint and cries of victimhood whenever you don’t get what you want. 74 million people think that brand of political leadership is just great. They believe so strongly that they assembled in Washington and breached the Capitol by breaking out windows, threatening police and forcing legislators to endure a siege that symbolizes everything that’s wrong with Trumpism, and America. All because they claim the election was “stolen” from them. The perversely spoiled and childlike lack of discipline in those contentions is indicative of a psychosis wrought by propaganda, gaslighting and raw dishonesty.

People still buy it because conspiracy theories sound convincing and a secret source of “information” called QAnon convinces repressed church ladies and Proud Boys and televangelists preachers they have something to fight for because pedophiles are taking over the world, or whatever. If there is evil to be fought, America long-ago proved it is up to the task in situations such as World War II. But let’s not forget that Black Americans who served in that war came home to Jim Crow laws and the same old racial discrimination they’d left behind.

It took decades of struggle and the non-violent work of leaders such as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. to make civil rights gains. Trump came along and encouraged people who fear those changes to flaunt white supremacy and the xenophobia and nationalism that comes along with it. Those “policies” where architected by a Trump staffer named Stephen Miller, who contrived all sorts of hateful strategies to appeal to Trump’s dog-whistle brand of populism. That’s why people felt justified in storming the Capitol yesterday. They felt like their “newly won” rights to discriminate and subjugate were being taken away again. Their claim that the election was “stolen” and the attempt to prevent Joe Biden from being certified as President is the direct outcome of Trump’s personal and professional record of racism and ugly landlord psychology.

The symbolism of their acts at the Capitol proves that for some people, the lessons of American history including hard-fought progress in civil rights legislation, environmental protection and financial regulation mean nothing even when all three of those things serve to protect the livelihoods and health of average working Americans. They’d rather trust that a slogan such as Make America Great Again covers their petty grievances and their fears about minorities having too much say in society, about gay people getting married, and about women having access to birth control and a legal right to end a pregnancy somehow threaten their “rights” to exist in America.

Trump appealed to that brand of victimhood with a sickeningly effective approach, conducting firebrand rallies where his manner of speech oozed empathy for the supposed cause of those waving Trump flags and wearing red MAGA hats while he lied to them about everything he promised to do, including keeping Americans safe from the threat of a dangerous pandemic.

Meanwhile Trump played golf 308 times during his four years in office, costing taxpayers millions of dollars. That’s basically a full year of time spent on the golf course rather than serving the people of America. He did all that despite publicly criticizing President Obama for golfing while claiming during his campaign that “I’ll be too busy working to play golf.”

The lies of Trump have stacked up like political cordwood. Trump’s obvious plan was to set fire to them all after a political coup in which he assumed absolute power and could destroy even public records from his corrupt first term in office. If he won again, who would dare stop him?

The next thirteen days in the United States of America will be a test of character like we’ve never seen before. Clearly the MAGA crowd and conspiracy theorists saw no wrongdoing in the mob riot yesterday. Some fecklessly tried to write it off to Antifa in disguise.

But we know the faces of the instigators. We saw that Confederate flag holder and know the identity of that man sitting at Pelosi’s desk.

Most of all, we know who started all this, and how we have to end it. Trump has been voted out of office and disgraced by his actions since the election. Leading up to yesterday’s insurrection, Trump lied and cajoled, even making phone calls to encourage vote fraud to earn him a victory in Georgia.

For these actions, he should be impeached or prosecuted and banned from ever holding public office of any kind, ever again. His civil and financial crimes should be investigated and publicized in full. His corrupt legacy should be cleansed from the United States government and his perverse version of religious fraud, political deception and conspiracy-based power should be confronted with the greatest force possible, which is truth.