If Trump's Coup Attempt Goes Unpunished, It Will Be Considered a Training Exercise
So now we’re supposed to “move on;” forget what happened on January 6. Or even, as Congressman Keven McCarthy asserted over the weekend, accept some of the blame for the assault on the Capitol building.
There is some major league gaslighting going on here, and it needs to be challenged. We need to protect future Americans from ever going through an autogolpe (self-coup) again. No president should ever be allowed to even consider retaining power by overturning electoral outcomes or by unconstitutionally gutting the power of other branches of government.
To those who question this approach as a matter of priorities, I say we can stay safe and take out the trash at the same time.
The evidence of wrongdoing is overwhelming. As of Friday there were more than 60 documented instances of the President seeking to overturn this election, including his incitement of the insurrectionists.
Former President Donald Trump’s campaign gave $2.7 million to individuals and firms who helped organize the Washington D.C.rally, according to Federal Election Commission filings.
According to documents, eight Trump campaign officials were listed on a permit issued by the National Park Service for the rally.
The attack on the Capitol was the intended outcome of a months’ long campaign by Trump and his allies to stoke rage among his supporters with lies that the election had been stolen.
https://twitter.com/tedlieu/status/1353730251994648578?s=20
Between Election Day and the Jan. 6 rally, the president, his family, his lawyers and allies posted 200 false claims on Twitter about election fraud, which were retweeted more than 3.5 million times, and liked more than nine million times.
The rhetoric grew increasingly violent as courts rejected the Trump campaign’s sixty-odd legal challenges to the election.
Here's Christian Vanderbrouk at the Bulwark, writing about Trump's 'intellectual' violence cheerleaders:
What’s striking is that this fetishization of violence was not merely in reaction to an electoral loss. In the days leading up to the election, some pro-Trump commentators were preparing for violence after Trump won, consumed with the idea that Democrats were organizing a “Color Revolution,” wherein anti-Trump demonstrators would attempt to topple a re-elected Trump.
Color Revolution-obsessed activists believed Trump would technically “win” the election (either via the courts or legislatures) and then would face destabilizing protests from groups that might be credibly labeled “Antifa” or “BLM.” Because that hoped-for scenario did not come to fruition, a new, pro-insurrection narrative was needed.
But it’s important to note that the idea was for violence if Trump won, and then violence when he lost. The violence is the constant. The violence is the point.
A Justice Dept court filing says 81 Capitol Police officers and 58 DC Police officers were injured during the insurrection.
https://twitter.com/HuffmanForNC/status/1353327362725785601?s=20
Meanwhile, US Senators like Rand Paul are taking to the airwaves and continuing to repeat the lie that the election was stolen.
https://twitter.com/jayrosen_nyu/status/1349768856122875904?s=20
In an op ed piece at The Hill, Rand called for Senators to boycott the impeachment trial based on the disproven notion that Trump is safe from reprisals now that he’s out of office.
We can always hope he and 24 other Republicans haven’t read the part of the rules saying that conviction in the U.S. Senate impeachment requires two thirds of the members who are present.
In case Democrats aren’t getting the message about not impeaching Trump, the insurrectionist wing of the Trump mob is letting them know there could be consequences.
From the Associated Press:
Federal law enforcement officials are examining a number of threats aimed at members of Congress as the second trial of former President Donald Trump nears, including ominous chatter about killing legislators or attacking them outside of the U.S. Capitol, a U.S. official told The Associated Press.
The threats, and concerns that armed protesters could return to sack the Capitol anew, have prompted the U.S. Capitol Police and other federal law enforcement to insist thousands of National Guard troops remain in Washington as the Senate moves forward with plans for Trump’s trial, the official said.
The trial must proceed. Threats and gaslighting be damned
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