Trump 2.0 — “Meet The New Boss, Same As The Old Boss.”

Some people seem to be giving President Donald Trump a pass these days.

As he himself recently noted: “In the first term everybody was fighting me. In this term, everybody wants to be my friend.”

A pass for Trump is a big mistake.

President Trump is the first convicted felon to serve as an American President.

Trump is the first known President to make a reported 30,573 false or misleading statements in his term.

Trump is the first President to be impeached twice.

Trump is the first President to attempt a coup, after he unequivocally lost reelection in 2020; the first to interfere with the peaceful transfer of power; and the first to incite a mob to attack the Capitol.

That attack resulted in more than 140 police officers being injured and reportedly led, directly or indirectly, to the deaths of five police officers.

This week, Trump showed he has not changed his stripes when he issued pardons and commutations to more than 1,500 convicted Jan. 6 criminals, including those who violently attacked the police officers defending the grounds and the people inside the Capitol.

The rule of law is foundational to our democracy. Trump has shown, just hours into his second presidency, he couldn’t care less.

The convicted Jan. 6 criminals had been arrested, as The Daily Beast reports, for, among other things, “hurling officers down a flight of stairs and plotting to kill FBI agents investigating the attacks.”

Ex-Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio was sentenced to 22 years in prison for seditious conspiracy and his role regarding Jan. 6. Stewart Rhodes, founder and leader of the Oath Keepers, was convicted of seditious conspiracy and his role regarding Jan. 6, and sentenced to 18 years in prison.

Police Officer Michael Fanone was attacked by the mob, tasered, and heard someone threaten to kill him with his own gun. He suffered a heart attack and traumatic brain injury that day. Later he and his family received death threats after he testified in Congress on the incident.

Video of Police Officer Daniel Hodges showed him being beaten and crushed in a door, his mouth filled with blood while he cried out for help. “I don’t think a day has gone by where I haven’t thought about it,” Hodges recently said.

The day after the attack Trump said that the rioters “defiled the seat of American democracy [and] those who broke the law, you will pay.” He later vowed that “those who engaged in the attacks will be brought to justice.”

World-class hypocrite does not begin to describe Trump who now calls Jan. 6 “a day of love” and who pardoned those same rioters. It’s just one more of his cons to try to fool the American people.

But he won’t be able to con history, no matter how hard he tries, and his con job already may be losing some steam with the public. A recent poll showed that just two in 10 support pardoning most people who engaged in the Jan. 6 attack.

As U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly wrote in dismissing charges against one of the convicted felons: “Dismissal of charges, pardons after convictions, and commutations of sentences will not change the truth of what happened on January 6, 2021.”

Kollar-Kotelly noted that the evidence – the videos from that day, transcripts, and jury verdicts – are “immutable” records “that represent the truth, no matter how the events of January 6 are described by those charged or their allies.”

Trump’s massive get-out-of-jail free card to the Jan. 6 criminals has made a mockery of his claims to be a pro-police, law-and-order President. Trump has insulted and disrespected every law enforcement officer in the country who puts his or her life on the line every day to protect the American people.

Our nation is less safe as a result.

The pardons were just one more part of Trump’s desperate effort to rewrite the violent history of his presidential coup attempt.

Trump will fail. Historians will tell the true story, unencumbered by Trump’s attempted con job.

Trump showed us his true colors in his first term. As his second term begins, it’s up to those who believe in democracy to challenge his lies, his cons, and his ceaseless efforts to twist reality.

As The Who prophetically sang in Won’t Get Fooled Again, “Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.”

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