By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Let’s be crystal clear, shall we?

The tragedy that unfolded this week in front of the world must remain at the top of our conscious thoughts for well past the long term. Let’s try … forever!

Donald Trump might be impeached a second time. He might stand trial a second time in the Senate. For all I know he might even be acquitted a second time by gutless Republican senators.

The insurrection we witnessed must not be allowed to be shoved aside. It’s nowhere near possible for us to simply say, “It’s time to move on.” I am one American patriot who intends to keep talking and writing about this until I no longer am able.

Trump will be out of office in 12 days. There isn’t much time to exact justice on this lawless individual. However, the House must clear the deck to get this job done; so must the Senate do its job.

You saw Trump say what he said. He told the mobsters they should storm the Capitol. They did. They damaged the center of our democratic institutions. They ransacked offices. Five people died! One of them was a police officer injured in a melee with rioters.

This is not the kind of tragedy you can place on the back shelf. Let’s not forget about it. Yes, we need to get back to the task of governing. We can do that when President Biden and Vice President Harris take their oaths of office.

But they face a steep hill to climb. It happens to be the mobsters who continue to believe the lies that Trump has fed to them. They will continue to believe in the phony voter fraud allegation. They will insist the election was stolen from their guy. They will continue to present a clear danger to our democratic system.

Let’s not be coy about the possibility — remote as it might seem — that they could do once again what they tried to do Wednesday night at the urging of the president of the United States.

We’re going to have a new president and vice president in office soon. We already have a newly reconstituted Congress. They all must govern effectively. I get that.

However, we also must never forget what we witnessed this week. Not only that, we also must not allow the repercussions of what we are feeling at this moment to subside, to disappear and for us to fill ourselves with any sort of false sense of security that all is good.

It isn’t. Not be a long shot.