Quote (PlasmaSnake101 @ Jan 11 2021 11:48pm)
Pretty sure Trump said something along the lines of "We're going to march down to the Capitol and peacefully protest." Maybe Rudy or his kids used "violent" rhetoric, but that can be dismissed and assumed not to be taken literally. The case to blame the President for the righteous Capitol protest just isn't very strong and would fall to pieces under scrutiny.
The president came out on election night and claimed, without evidence, the election was stolen. Him and his allies spent 2 months pushing that message, and it was clearly bullshit. They fought in courts across all the relevant states, and never won. They wouldn't even present many of the fraud claims in court because they were baseless. Trump and his allies tried to get state legislatures to appoint their own electors, overriding the will of millions of voters. He called the Georgian Secretary of State to lean on him to "find him 11,779 votes". He encouraged his followers to come to DC on Jan. 6th to protest a normal part of the democratic process, which is Congress counting the electoral votes. The states choose the president, not Congress, not the Vice President. He then leaned on his Vice President privately and publicly to reject the results.
His voters listened to him. They believed what he said. They thought the election was stolen. Why wouldn't they? They've trusted the guy the past 4 years. They don't accept the reality that he's a pathological liar and evil person. And if the election really was stolen in this broad conspiracy, it would be the most significant scandal in American history. It would warrant a proportional response, or perhaps something more. So they showed up, and Trump spoke to them. Here's some of what he said:
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"Our country has had enough," Trump told his supporters. "We will not take it anymore and that’s what this is all about. To use a favorite term that all of you people really came up with, we will stop the steal."
The crowd later chanted: "Fight for Trump! Fight for Trump! Fight for Trump!" Trump thanked them.
"We’re going to have to fight much harder, and Mike Pence is going to have to come through for us. And if he doesn’t, that will be a sad day for our country because you’re sworn to uphold our constitution. Now it is up to Congress to confront this egregious assault on our democracy."
"We’re going to walk down to the Capitol, and we’re going to cheer on our brave senators, and congressmen and women," Trump told his supporters shortly before the Capitol assault. "We’re probably not going to be cheering so much for some of them because you’ll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength, and you have to be strong."
Subsequent reporting has laid out how Trump reacted when this insurrection happened. He didn't seem bothered by it. People were trying to get him on the phone to get a message to these insurrectionists to leave... and it took him hours to do it. The message began with the claim that the election was stolen.
So the idea that Trump using some half-hearted throwaway line about "protests being peaceful" absolves him of this is blatant horseshit.
There's a divide in this country. Some of us actually believe in democracy. We believe in holding leaders accountable for their behavior. We believe elections are valid, and they have consequences. The rest either support the insanity, or think of this as just another reality show episode, and don't seem to care all that much. I get it... people are numbed from the past 4 years. I'm not... I've made it a point not to be.