I am seeing, as the Jan 6 Hearings progress, more and more references to “Trump World” or “Trumpworld.” This expression is puzzling. What and where is Trump World? One could think that it exists only in Donald Trump’s mind, an imaginary world of shining hyperbole that orbits around King Donald. But as commonly used, the term means Trump and all the more public members of his entourage, Donny Jr. and Eric, Ivanka and Jared, Mark Meadows, Roger Stone, Sean and Laura, Stormy Daniels, Jim Jordan, Steve Bannon, and Trump’s legal team: Rudy Giuliani, Sydney Powell, John Eastman. However, there are many more inhabitants of Trump World than these, and I would like to see them dragged out of the shadows so that we will know their names as well.

Trump’s campaign to retain power has been long-lasting and multi-faceted. Now among Trump’s well known deficiencies are his attention deficit disorder, his disinclination to read anything, his impetuosity, and his furious impatience. These are not the character traits of one who is to design and execute a grand scheme over an extended period of time. I am ready to agree that the Big Lie was actually born of Trump’s lifelong conviction that he is absolutely the best and therefore unbeatable unless someone cheated him. But unless the Big Lie is surrounded and supported by a lot of little lies and little liars it must look like the paranoid delusion it is. Quickly deploying so many vocal supporters and convincing them of the truth of the Big Lie, or, rather, convincing them to pretend that the Big Lie is true, requires a capacity for detailed planning and an organizational ability well beyond Trump’s poor powers. No, Trump had many co-conspirators, many more than we know, in disseminating the Big Lie and organizing and funding the attempted coup. I want to know specifically who were these seditionists, and I want to see them brought to justice along with the more public and less effective members of Trump’s entourage.