He told them to "keep fighting" and that they were "very special". I wanted Trump to win. I put money on him, but he really should have chastised them hard. I think it's unfair to say he encouraged them to break into the building, but he seemed somewhat happy that they did.
Breaking into the bloody building where congress gather and forcing an in session congress to flee is bordering treason, if not treason. Did he encourage them to do that? I'd say no. Did he act grossly inappropriately to them once they did? Yes, absolutely.
Trump has been pushing the idea that elections are crooked since before he was selected to be the Republican candidate. In February 2016, he claimed he lost the Iowa primary to scumbag Cruz because of unspecified voter fraud. He claimed that Clinton got three million more votes than him due to fraud. He claimed that there was unspecified fraud in the 2018 elections. And of course he constantly ranted about the evils of postal voting for most of 2020, and his minions at Fox and his enablers in the Republican party joined in because they didn't want to piss him off.
Trump spent years telling his supporters that the electoral system is corrupt and that he is a winner (which makes them winners, too). So the people who swallowed that crap were primed to be triggered to outrage when things didn't go the way they believed they should.
I would have thought it stupid and self-deluded, but I might have had a little bit of respect for Trump if, after a few days of reflection and investigation following the election, he announced that he was annoyed that he'd lost, but he accepted the result. A normal person wouldn't have huge problems gritting their teeth, swallowing their pride and doing that. Given Trump's inner demons, it would have required a lot more of him.
But that's not what he did. Instead, he kept stoking the fires of outrage by claiming the election was an enormous, systematic fraud when the facts indicate that there was hardly any fraud at all.
While I'm pretty sure Trump doesn't meet the legal definition of being guilty of instigating civil disorder, he's definitely morally responsible for what happened at the Capitol. He's been pandering to and exploiting the lunatic right fringe (militias and QAnon, for example) for years. His speech on Wednesday fed the fury of his audience. He told them to keep on fighting, and he told them to go to the Capitol.
He didn't tell them what to do, but since he claims to be such a fucking expert at reading people and getting them to do what he wants, he should have understood that something unpleasant was very likely to happen.
What did Trump say to incite his supporters to storm Capitol?
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He told them to "keep fighting" and that they were "very special". I wanted Trump to win. I put money on him, but he really should have chastised them hard. I think it's unfair to say he encouraged them to break into the building, but he seemed somewhat happy that they did.
Breaking into the bloody building where congress gather and forcing an in session congress to flee is bordering treason, if not treason. Did he encourage them to do that? I'd say no. Did he act grossly inappropriately to them once they did? Yes, absolutely.
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Boojum
2 years ago
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Trump has been pushing the idea that elections are crooked since before he was selected to be the Republican candidate. In February 2016, he claimed he lost the Iowa primary to scumbag Cruz because of unspecified voter fraud. He claimed that Clinton got three million more votes than him due to fraud. He claimed that there was unspecified fraud in the 2018 elections. And of course he constantly ranted about the evils of postal voting for most of 2020, and his minions at Fox and his enablers in the Republican party joined in because they didn't want to piss him off.
Trump spent years telling his supporters that the electoral system is corrupt and that he is a winner (which makes them winners, too). So the people who swallowed that crap were primed to be triggered to outrage when things didn't go the way they believed they should.
I would have thought it stupid and self-deluded, but I might have had a little bit of respect for Trump if, after a few days of reflection and investigation following the election, he announced that he was annoyed that he'd lost, but he accepted the result. A normal person wouldn't have huge problems gritting their teeth, swallowing their pride and doing that. Given Trump's inner demons, it would have required a lot more of him.
But that's not what he did. Instead, he kept stoking the fires of outrage by claiming the election was an enormous, systematic fraud when the facts indicate that there was hardly any fraud at all.
While I'm pretty sure Trump doesn't meet the legal definition of being guilty of instigating civil disorder, he's definitely morally responsible for what happened at the Capitol. He's been pandering to and exploiting the lunatic right fringe (militias and QAnon, for example) for years. His speech on Wednesday fed the fury of his audience. He told them to keep on fighting, and he told them to go to the Capitol.
He didn't tell them what to do, but since he claims to be such a fucking expert at reading people and getting them to do what he wants, he should have understood that something unpleasant was very likely to happen.