A Just Digital Exile

I have read the Executive Summary of the January 6^th Committee. It is publicly available in PDF form. I will not be guilty of the same crime as the media – that being interpreting information for the reader/viewer. I implore you to download it and read it. I will continue to fight my way through the entire 800 plus pages of the report. I consider it my duty as a citizen. So should you. Do not be led, misled, guided, or misguided. Read, interpret, and decide for yourself.

The one thing that we can say, with certainty, is the Donald John Trump, former President of the United States, thrives on being in the public eye. He lives to be in charge. His ego inflates with each insult he heaps upon those who do not kowtow to him. The adoration of his followers is the manna upon which he survives. Whole books and college courses have been dedicated to his personality disorder(s).

The January 6^th committee has uncovered sufficient evidence to convict him of any number or 'high crimes and misdemeanors.' Personally, when I saw the events of January 6 unfold, the first word out of my mouth was 'sedition'.

But indictment for his crimes is not my purpose here. I am not a lawyer, nor do I pretend to be one in the hallowed halls of Congress, as others do. My goal is to describe the best possible punishment for his crimes against the country he swore an oath to lead and protect … betraying in the end both oath and country.

I have the perfect punishment for him. He thrives on adoration and being in the public eye. So don't put him in jail, where he will be a martyr to his followers, thundering against any and all perceived injustice and ill-treatment. Oh, no. In days gone by, a ruler would exile those they wished to make vanish from the public eye. Exile Trump.Today, I say. No island prison can silence him. But, digital exile can.

Now, I'm not under any delusion that this would actually work, but what have we to lose in the effort? Forbid the media, any media, from covering him or his antics. Social media would cancel his accounts and blank out any posts that mention him. Television, radio, and print media would ignore him, and sponsors would pull their support from any source mentioning his name. Publishers would refuse any new material that mentions him by name or inference. Give him no sunshine and he will wither like the destructive and invasive species that he is. No punishment would be more suitable for him. He would implode, wallowing in self-pity. And the sun would shine again.

To misquote (with apologies) Seti's condemnation of Moses from C.B. DeMille's 1956 classic The Ten Commandments:

"Let the name of Donald Trump be stricken from every newspaper and magazine, stricken from all print media and digital access, stricken from every social media outlet in America. Let the name of Donald Trump be unheard and unspoken, erased from the memory of men for all time."