In this daily series, Newsweek explores the steps that led to the January 6 Capitol Riot.
The president spent four years promoting the Donald Trump Show, railing against Washington, the federal government, the news media, and anyone who didn't agree with him. The effect was to widen the chasm in American society and to harden his most fervent fellow travelers, affirming their view that the system was rigged against their champion and them, and that nothing in the mainstream could be believed.
Of course Donald Trump did nothing. He watched television all day, forced out of his cocoon once in the afternoon, after it was too late, to record an ineffectual video message asking those who were already rioting to stand down. But he was a president who never governed, who only tweeted, who followed his own mercurial instincts no matter what. Donald Trump did not have a plan for January 6; he never did.