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January 6, 2021, still looms as a dark day in American history. One year later, the ramifications are still being felt as the two-party political system argues over what happened on Capitol Hill and who is responsible. Many of the insurrectionists, who were protesting the November 2020 election results, are seeing the legal consequences of their actions now. But what does it mean for former President Donald Trump?
Whether he wants to admit it or not, he lost a lot in that riot. Some of it is financial, some of it is social, but much of the loss will come down to his legacy in the history books. Trump’s words are unsettling to this day, “From me, from you, from our country. This was a fraudulent election, but we can’t play into the hands of these people. We have to have peace. So go home. We love you, you’re very special. We’ve seen what happens, you see the way others are treated that are so bad and so evil.”
But Trump is still licking his wounds from his actions. He can no longer jump on Twitter to garner headlines. He’s likely not joking around with George W. Bush and Barack Obama in the ex-presidents’ club group text. And he’s had numerous staffers write negative tell-all books about their time in the White House.
Find out what Trump lost on Jan. 6, 2021, and how it’s still affecting him to this day.
Social Media
One of the hallmarks of Donald Trump’s presidency was his frequent use of social media, particularly the Twitter platform. Love it or hate it, his tweets generated thousands of headlines for his often inflammatory posts. While the former president sometimes had warning labels slapped on his posts before Jan. 6, 2021, the day of the insurrection sealed his fate with his favorite ways to communicate.
YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Twitch, Snapchat and Twitter quickly silenced Trump to try and quell the riot they believe he invoked amongst his followers. Twitter acknowledged that the 45th president’s tweets were halted due to “the risk of further incitement of violence” and Facebook has an indefinite suspension in place until 2023 when “the risk to public safety has receded.”
He’s trying to launch his own platform called Truth Social while filing class-action lawsuits against Facebook, YouTube and Twitter. It’s what he’s calling an “illegal and shameful censorship of the American people,” per the court documents, via The New York Post.
Security Briefings
While he was in office, Donald Trump wasn’t consistent about receiving security briefings. He was known to prefer pictures over text and was rumored to have relied upon his favorite conservative media personalities to keep up on intelligence, according to The New York Times.
After losing the election in November 2020, he wasn’t focused on the day-to-day details of running the country and skipped his scheduled intelligence briefing before the holidays. His next scheduled meeting was Jan. 6, which never happened because the insurrection ruled over the day. After that, The Daily Beast reported that Trump was busy in the coup aftermath and preparing for another impeachment fight.
But in life outside of the White House, it’s customary for former presidents to be kept in the loop and receive intelligence reports to offer advice to current presidents — but not for Trump. It was President Joe Biden, who shut that down due to his “erratic” behavior.
“I just think that there is no need for him to have the intelligence briefings,” Biden said on CBS News, via The New York Times.“What value is giving him an intelligence briefing? What impact does he have at all, other than the fact he might slip and say something?”
Inauguration Access
While Donald Trump wasn’t formally uninvited to Joe Biden’s inauguration, he really wasn’t welcome after the Jan. 6 insurrection. After his claims of election fraud, it would have seemed odd to his loyal voters that he showed up to support the incoming administration.
At the same time, Trump missed out on the opportunity to gracefully hand over power and have that official send-off that is given to any outgoing president. His actions only hurt himself and the incident on Jan. 6 left him no other option than to sit this one out.
Ex-Presidents’ Club
This one is kind of a big deal. There is an exclusive, bipartisan ex-presidents’ club once you leave office. Gathering together the living former commanders-in-chief is always a major photo-op and it’s pretty clear that Donald Trump is not welcome in the membership that currently includes Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama. All four of them and the former first ladies filmed a vaccine PSA in March — Donald and Melania Trump were not a part of it.
It also sounds like Trump knew this was coming. He told author Kate Andersen Brower, via AP News, during their 2019 interview for her book, Team of Five: The Presidents’ Club in the Age of Trump, “‘I don’t think I’ll be accepted.’”
Book Deal
One of the perks coming out of the White House is a major book publishing deal and hitting the speaking circuit. The events of Jan. 6 made Donald Trump’s memoirs a risk most didn’t want to take. “It doesn’t matter what the upside on a Trump book deal is, the headaches the project would bring would far outweigh the potential in the eyes of a major publisher,” Javelin literary agency co-founder and president Keith Urbahn told Politico.
That hasn’t stopped Trump from moving forward as an author. He published a coffee table book, Our Journey Together, a comprehensive look behind the scenes at his administration in photographs, late last year. He also went around the publishing company issue by creating his own imprint, Winning Team Publishing. What he does miss out on is that lucrative payday — Barack and Michelle Obama earned a record-setting $65 million advance for their memoirs in 2017.
A Lot of His Aides
Jan. 6, 2021, will also mark the day that many aides and senior advisers in the Trump adminstration quit to try and save their own reputations. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos wrote in her resignation letter, “There is no mistaking the impact your rhetoric had on the situation, and it is the inflection point for me.” Also making their exit was Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao, Chief of staff to the first lady Stephanie Grisham, White House deputy national security adviser Matt Pottinger and Deputy White House press secretary Sarah Matthews.
But what this moment really tarnished was Donald Trump’s legacy as a president. His final actions are what many people remember, including many of his longtime supporters. “President Trump’s legacy is tarnished forever. Full stop,” said one former White House staffer to Time magazine. “The question is, how badly is this going to set back the conservative movement?”
That is a question that history books will have to answer in the future.
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