Friday
Having finally heard from a White House insider—one who worked with Donald Trump’s Chief of Staff and who witnessed the president’s backstage machinations—we have a clearer picture of Trump’s plan for January 6, 2021: he wanted to walk into the Capitol like Voldemort striding into Hogwarts, routing his enemies as he proclaimed himself victor.
Trump hasn’t read Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows so that wouldn’t be the self-image he carried in his head. Accompanied by armed secret service agents and backed by armed vigilante groups, he probably saw himself more like the Bolsheviks storming the Winter Palace. In any event, he apparently believed that, with such a show of force, he could intimidate Congress—or at least Mike Pence—into overturning the election. But the Voldemort comparison works for me.
In a triumphal scene where Voldemort confronts Hogwarts resisters, the arch villain claims that their leader—now apparently dead—has failed them. Think of Harry in this parallel as democracy or the Constitution:
“Harry Potter is dead. He was killed as he ran away, trying to save himself while you lay down your lives for him. We bring you his body as proof that your hero is one.”
Then he delivers a version of the speech that Trump perhaps imagined himself to Congress:
The battle is won. You have lost half of your fighters. My Death Eaters outnumber you, and the Boy Who Lived is finished. There must be no more war. Anyone who continues to resist, man, woman, or child, will be slaughtered, as will every member of their family. Come out of the castle now, kneel before me, and you shall be spared. Your parents and children, your brothers and sisters will live and be forgiven, and you will join me in the new world we shall build together.”
Come to think of it, Vladimir Putin dreamed of giving this speech in the center of Kyiv in March.
But democracy, at least so far, is kicking back. In Ukraine’s case, the curse that Putin hurls at Ukraine has, like Voldemort’s, rebounded upon him: Ukraine has never been more united, NATO has added members, and Russia’s own forces have been fatally weakened.
Will the same prove true for Trump and GOP authoritarians? Will Madisonian democracy prevail? In J.K. Rowling’s fantasy, when the bad guy goes low, the good guy goes high, and high wins the day:
Voldemort was dead, killed by his own rebounding curse, and Harry stood with two wands in his hand, staring down at his enemy’s shell.
This ending is far from assured in our case. To achieve it, we are going to need everyone—progressives, liberals, independents, NeverTrumpers, principled conservatives, Gryffindors and Slytherins—working together. Whatever happens to Trump himself, Trumpism itself has metastasized and continues to storm democracy’s citadel. This is no time for rifts in Dumbledore’s Army.
