Part of the immediate threat how we will actually respond to what’s happening – versus, as you said, “debating the meaning of words.” First, we must immobilize Trump. Then we must figure out ways to combat domestic terrorism without in the process creating another Trump too powerful to put down. We shouldn’t be “parsing words”, but words do indeed matter and produce consequences.
In an October article entitled The War After the Election [https://medium.com/illumination-curated/the-war-after-the-election-545de96aa4ca?source=friends_link&sk=627c55d616d9296af3e398f1686493a4] I summarized the findings of the Transition Integrity Project, a group that included former Congressmen, United States Senators, previous cabinet members, White House Chiefs of Staffs, Secretaries of Defense and Homeland Security and state governors whose “war games” predicted almost exactly what is happening. I intend to keep updating the article to take into account events since January 6 with ideas regarding what we should do to immobilize Trump until Biden assumes power – including that we as a citizenry should refrain from giving Donald Trump any excuse for attempting to declare states of emergency or to impose even “limited” martial law.
If “limited martial law” sounds like hyperbole, remember that ten former Secretaries of Defense recently took the extraordinary step of co-authoring an article warning against the military becoming involved in our election process; and that the leaders of the United States government are actively considering removing the President of the United States from office with less than a week remaining in his term. It wouldn’t necessarily succeed, but the President could justify the legality of the initiation of his emergency powers more than he can justify the legality of so many other things he has done.
More long-term, in addition to the action called for in The War After the Election, I urge you to sign The Pledge to Safeguard the Constitution [https://www.thepledge.site/the-pledge-to-safeguard-the-constitution] which petitions Congress to pass specific, targeted legislation to limit presidential power in the most urgently vital areas and could be the most important thing we could do to prevent anything like the events of January 6 from ever happening again.
