On Wednesday, Jan. 13, the House of Representatives voted to impeach President Donald Trump for a second time, making him the first president in history to be impeached twice. Not only did the president incite a riot against the United States capitol and deny any wrongdoing, he is stripping away American’s faith in our election and democracy.

   Trump is invoking fear through social media and everywhere he goes, leaving the public confused on what they can believe. Trump knows the more he convinces people this election has been stolen, the closer he gets to maybe not being such a big loser after all. And the best way he can reach many people and especially confused, young voters is through social media. Highschoolers and college students who are just becoming able to vote, might not know everything going on or what to believe,  but they do see Trump’s hundreds of tweets and posts about voter fraud and stolen elections all over their phones. 

   Trump is doing everything he can to convince Americans that this election has been stolen and the American voices were not heard. After encouraging his supporters to come to a “Save America March”, Trump delivered a speech filled with false information inciting fear in the citizens of America. “And by the way, does anybody believe that Joe had 80 million votes? Does anybody believe that? He had 80 million computer votes. It’s a disgrace. There’s never been anything like that. You could take third-world countries. Just take a look. Take third-world countries. Their elections are more honest than what we’ve been going through in this country,” said Trump during his speech on Jan. 6 before the storming of the United States capitol. 

   The president of our country is trying to instill fear into citizens, and make them lose faith in our democracy and everything that has been fought so hard for.  If we cannot trust our own government and feel represented in a presidential election, are we even a democracy anymore? What can we trust? Trump is corrupting the entire system before he is forced to leave office and leaving a stain on this country that will remain long after the Trump era. 

   The lies and the threats on our democracy is one thing, but incitement of a violent riot against the United States Capitol is undoubtedly an impeachable offense. Yet the president refuses to acknowledge any wrongdoing. Before getting on a plane to Texas, Trump said, “It’s [his speech] been analyzed and people thought that what I said was totally appropriate… Everybody to the T thought it was appropriate.”

   Yet the transcript of the speech reads as follows, “We’re going to walk down to the Capitol, and we’re going to cheer on our brave senators and congressmen and women, and we’re probably not going to be cheering so much for some of them, because you’ll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength, and you have to be strong.” Hearing these words come out of the president, fills me, and I am sure many Americans, with fear. “You have to show strength, and you have to be strong.” How can the president deny in any way that his speech was appropriate and did not encourage this riot?

   Even Trump’s own supporters and defenders were able to acknowledge the horrible damage this president has done to our country. John F. Kelly, former White House chief, said on CNN that what happened at the Capitol “was a direct result of him poisoning the minds of people with the lies and the fraud.” 

   After poisoning American minds and inciting a riot against the Capitol, Trump sat by watching his violence unfold. An article written by Rucker, Parker, and Dawsey in the Washington Post confirms that Vice President Pence worked directly with acting defense secretaries and senate leaders, trying to defend the Capitol. “As for Trump, one of the people said, ‘he was completely, totally out of it.’ This person added, ‘He made no attempt to reach out to them.’ Instead of exercising his commander-in-chief duties to help protect the Capitol from an attempted insurrection, Trump watched the attack play out on television. Though not necessarily enjoying himself, he was ‘bemused’ by the spectacle because he thought his supporters were literally fighting for him, according to a close adviser.”

   The president, of our own country, watched the violence he incited on TV. Isn’t a president’s duty to protect and serve this country? Not terrorize it and watch the nation’s Capitol be vandalized? 

   Fortunately for us, social media sites have also come to realize that this president is a threat to society. Sites such as Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Amazon Web Services, Reddit, Snapchat, Twitch, and even Shopify, have banned his accounts and stopped the sale of his campaign products to guard against further Trump efforts to incite violence and spread false allegations of voter fraud. 

   With President Biden currently in office, he among many others are working to undo the damage that Trump has done to our country. Americans know there is a long road of recovery ahead and the stain and divide between our society Trump has caused will not disappear. We only can hope that Trump plays some golf, lays low, and doesn’t make us ever listen to or see him again.

By Camryn Montgomery, Social Media Editor