Today's Jan. 6 Panel criminal referrals re: Trump vs... umm...

I'm against prosecuting him. Holding him responsible is fine, but beyond that I'm with Pence on the whole affair.

Are you a Russian or Chinese spy?

Pence has always been, in my opinion, the man with his head screwed on straight about all this. He didn't cave to Trump and he certified the election, not only because he had to, but because he knew that the election wasn't rigged. But he's not gone and whipped the American people up into a frenzy about it either like the Democrats and the Liz Cheney-style Republicans have. The 01/06 hearings, in my opinion, have been as damaging to American unity as the actual event itself was.

And no, my Ukrainian grandmother would have ripped my head off if she ever suspected me of serving the Kremlin. I'd rather die, personally, than do that.

I will give pence credit for that one time he saved democracy, but that’s it! Every time you stick up for Trump or downplay Jan 6th you are serving the kremlin. Sorry.

That's a very dangerous stance to take. For starters, it personally offends me because I have extended family fighting and hopefully not dying in Ukraine right now. My support for Ukraine and disdain of Russia has been far more pronounced than most since 2014 and if I were in charge there'd be U.S troops on the ground there right now (take that how you will, perhaps it's good I'm not in charge).

Secondly, we don't need to create a false equivalency between Russia and 01/06. That movement started and ended here in the U.S, and the fact that the situation got to the point that people would do such a thing is on us, not Russia. So let's not escape the tough questions (I.E, WTF is going on that we're so hyperpartisan) by shoving our blame there. It is entirely reasonable to dislike Trump severely, as I do, and realize that the last thing our nation needs is for the half who've whipped themselves into a frenzy over his existence throwing him into prison while denouncing his supporters entirely as anti-American. We HAVE to be careful when establishing the degree to which he was culpable (which I do not think reaches the extremely high bar of treason or any other real offense) or else you will alienate so many Americans that there really will be, effectively, cultural civil war. Or real civil war. We shouldn't try to find out.

Or don’t stick up for the guy who Russia helped get elected and caused an insurrection.

Well done sidestepping my points, but come on, neither the 2016 nor the 2020 elections were swayed or rigged, internally or externally. Let's get real on that count.

And again, I have repeated that my stance on Trump is identical to Pence's; if the wheels of Washington are going to grind Trump to dust, then whatever, but I'm not going to actively partake or condone a process that I think is damaging to American unity. I look forward to the day that Trump isn't in the headlines, but I truly do not think his conduct, pathetic and contemptible as it was, merits prosecution, nor do I think 01/06 counts as an organized insurrection so much as it was a disorganized, frenzied mob that included some insurrectionists as well as a lot of people who were just swept up in the moment and got out of control. It should have been dispersed with more rubber bullets than were fired, and Trump shouldn't have waited hours to tweet a request to be peaceful to his followers, but...the evidence for treason is just not there.

Thoughts?

Well, that's hurtful. I was truly hoping we could keep this civil, but c'est la PoliticsTOO vie I guess.

01/06, if you want my opinion on it, was pathetic culmination of a Presidency predicated on dividing America into 'us' and 'them' to energize the base for votes. There were, it cannot be disputed, insurrectionists who absolutely would have killed officials that day because they worship Trump. There were neo-Nazis and all sorts of distinctly anti-American types there. They violently assaulted the Capitol.

But remember how, that day, Chuck Schumer dismissed them once the vote was cast? He said, "All they have done is disrupt democracy for a few hours." And that statement is what crystallized my thoughts on the matter.

We certified the vote.

We're prosecuting anyone who committed an actual crime that day.

And we can move on.

My vote for Trump was cast BEFORE 01/06, mind you. You can't blame me for it any more than I can blame you for voting against him. Pinching my nose and voting for him was akin to what many moderates did when they voted for Clinton in 2016. Not the candidate we wanted, not a good person or likely a good leader, but the alternative, in our eyes, is downright awful. Trump threatened to disavow the results back in 2016 if he lost, but to say 'we should have known he would' is to speak with hindsight; Trump, everybody has known for years, is someone who says egregious things so that his real position seems reasonable. Actually disputing the election was incomprehensible to me, and I'll admit I was blindsided by it. But whatever. I can own that I was wrong. We all make mistakes in judgement.

Now, Biden talked bringing the nation together, but I just didn't trust the Democrats immediately post-Trump to not get some revenge in office. His actions so far have proven me right. Plenty of Biden's speeches and actions while in office have been done for the blue base entirely at the expense of the rest of the country.

I'm not surprised by it. I don't blame the left for dishing out what Trump served to them. It's just a sad state of affairs and I wish we'd move on. But I'm not sure people want to give up the hate. It's a drug to them, and doping up on it is easier than swallowing their pride and actually compromising for everybody's sake.

I’m sorry I didn’t copy and paste the same thing, I made a mistake and was trying to correct it before you could respond

Ah, no worries then! One of my main gripes with IMGflip has always been its unfortunate lack of an 'edit' feature. Fire away, and for the sake of convenience if you want to respond to my initial comment so we can begin a new chain then have at it.

I like these debates and if you come back I’ll break it down for you. I’ll be nice I swear.

I do believe you copied and pasted the same thing, which means that's my cue to bail. Apologies for wasting your time, this is a rather depressing end to a conversation that started out so well. Cheers.

I don't understand what your first point is....I've been nothing but polite to you in an attempt to see what sort of meaningful dialogue can be had here in this stream and I refuse to stoop to insulting your or something...that's just a waste of our time. I haven't lied or tried to lead you on with anything I've wrote, just looking to compare genuine thoughts.

Your second point is an assertion grounded in absolutely nothing that I've typed, which seems unreasonable to the extreme.

Your third point is half of why I go here; I enjoy talking with people who disagree because I find (civil) dialogue to be intellectually engaging as well as just downright interesting...plus you guys do have some epic memes. However, it seems some folks here don't enjoy the idea of intellectual pluralism all that much.

Your fourth point makes no sense and I frankly don't know what you're trying to say.

Hey, I’m sorry for coming at you like that. I deleted those comments. It was in the name of spirited banter, but when I went back and read it it seemed more like an attack. I hope you shrugged it off. I don’t want to discourage you from posting or commenting.

No need to delete them, and no worries. It's so tough to communicate effectively online. I have a very dry sense of humor myself and have often said stuff which I thought funny but was interpreted as serious or offensive.

Either way, I appreciate, respect, and accept the apology! I don't expect anyone here to agree with my un-asked-for political views or even to necessarily respect them. I just enjoy trying to engineer conversations that can bring about that respect or even newfound agreement because I don't have many liberal friends IRL and the internet lets me talk with them more easily. Internet rejection doesn't bother me, haha. I live in the real world, not online, so my forays here are pretty well buoyed by the knowledge that they are harmless at worst and rather wholesome at best. 😁

That said, I have and likely will get carried away myself, because both political streams are filled with absolute insanity more often than not. So, if any of my comments seem to cross the line from snarky to acid-throwing, call me out on it! Until then (and I try to stay offline during the Christmas season, so it could be a while, haha), Happy New Year and enjoy whatever political crisis is the meme mine for the week. 👍