The original sin here is that Trump made a four year assault on the truth, beginning with the ridiculous claim that he won by a landslide, that his inauguration crowd was the biggest ever, that he actually won the popular vote and only lost because of "illegals" voting in the election. None of these were ever true. Not even close. He created the term "fake news" to feed the narrative that the fifth estate is somehow "the enemy of the people" while cozying up to the largest media company in the country. He assaulted the truth for four+ years. So his assertion, months before the election that there would be fraud, should have come as no surprise. I didn't surprise me and his playbook was predictable. I say all of this because Trump's lies are indeed the catalyst for what happened on January 6th.
By the time the 2020 arrived Trump had created an alternate reality for the Republican party. In his reality he had indeed won by landslide, his inauguration was the biggest, voter fraud had caused him to lose the popular vote, the media was the enemy of the people and were always lying when it was negative toward Trump. Always. Trump alone could fix their problems. People became so entranced by his lies that they began buying into far-fetched conspiracy theories that never materialized but always led to another conspiracy theory. When we arrived at election day in November, 74 million people lived in that alternate reality with Trump. They alienated themselves from people who didn't buy into their version of reality. We were told for weeks before the election that the plurality of Democratic votes were going to come from mail-in ballots, we knew those votes would be counted last because the Republicans in those states wanted them to be that way and went out of their way to make them that way. On election night all of the major news networks, including FOX, made it clear to their viewers that the Democratic vote would be coming in late in some places. In others, like Ohio, the Democratic vote came in first and made it look like they had big leads there when in reality it was just a matter of time before the Trump vote came in and reversed everything. Same thing happened in Texas. Biden was up early because they counted their mail in vote early.
In the days after election day as the final votes were tallied and it became clear that Biden would be the winner, the conspiracy theory machine went into full on bezerk mode with accusations about wide spread voter fraud. Trump and his lawyers began a series of over 85 lawsuits filed that never materialized a thing. Nothing. And every day that went by the conspiracy theories got worst. Hell,
@tirk was running around here talking about servers in Europe and Obama getting arrested and other crazy shit. So let's not pretend that January 6th happened in a vacuum because it did not. Groups like Oath Keepers and other white supremacist groups were clear about their intentions online and many of them are paying for those words now. Trump's speech was the catalyst....the match that lit the fire. You can call it a riot, an insurrection, a peaceful demonstration...I really don't give a fuck but stop acting like Trump was innocent. It makes you look small and incoherent.
Were there people in the capital who just got swept up in the fury? Sure. Some of them looked more like tourists than anyone meaning harm. Thankfully congress was hustled away quickly enough or maybe we are talking about something far worse. There were elements there to be violent and they are still dangerous today. I don't want anyone's aunt sally getting time for being gullible enough to fall into the crowd. I DO want those who were obviously there to cause violence, mostly from their own words prior, should be prosecuted and treated as insurrectionists and tried for treason and sedition. Make examples of the fuckers.
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