…it’s about us. It’s about those who support him, those who mimic, tweet, or Facebook his outrage and lies, and those who remain silent.

He’s no longer president. He no longer has direct control of our lives. There’s nothing left but the clown show of rallies where he reiterates the same tired lies and conspiracies to supporters who feed his ego.

For the advancement of the country, we need to move on: supporters, the media, and Republican state legislatures around the country who tie themselves to this man in the desperate hope that he can save their jobs if they gerrymander and vote-restrict their way to more political power.

Don’t do it. Don’t give in. Don’t give him the attention he desperately craves by destroying the democracy by which we all live our lives.

He’s not going to change. The lies aren’t going to change. The false conspiracies aren’t going to go away. He is not going to be magically reinstated at the end of August.

Let him rant. Let him rave. Let him continue to shout fraud. We understood this four years ago. It’s the same populist conceit peddled by Joseph McCarthy, George Wallace, Huey Long, and Father Charles Coughlin.

Insanity is doing the same thing over and over, expecting different results.

That doesn’t matter to supporters.

It doesn’t matter that Trump’s flagrant words incited the Capitol insurrection. His own Senate majority leader said so.

It doesn’t matter to him that the supporters who were attacking the symbol of our democracy were demanding to hang a United States vice president.

It just doesn’t matter to him.

What does matter is that this man poses an existential threat to American democracy and that should matter to all of us. What should matter is that if we continue to accept his contemptible words; if we validate his lies, his phony theories; if we agree with him that experts are wrong and cannot be trusted, we diminish the gift of democracy the founders created and fought for; we diminish the sacrifices made by millions of Americans who fought in wars on behalf of that democracy.

Trump is not responsible for our democracy; we are! We have to take responsibility for our own thinking instead of turning it over to a vainglorious, self-serving, strutting egoist who needs constant feeding.

We deserve better than this. We have to take responsibility for our choices. We need to find leaders who can honestly, respectfully, and responsibly support our needs and long-term goals without fear or favor to a demagogue.

As for those senators and representatives who remain subservient to him: If you want to follow this man into political oblivion, fine, just don’t take the rest of the country with you by supporting his deceit, ignoring his indecency and validating his ignorance.

Don’t sell the soul of American democracy.

Your responsibility is to the Constitution and the American people, and both demand allegiance to the values and principles we all stand for.

If you cannot live up to those principles, step aside and let someone with integrity do the job.