“Big protest in D.C. on January 6th,” Mr. Trump tweeted on Dec. 19, just one of several of his tweets promoting the day. “Be there, will be wild!” “We will never give up,” he said. “We will never concede. It will never happen. You don’t concede when there’s theft involved. Our country has had enough. We will not take it anymore.” Mr. Trump concluded his 70-minute exhortation by encouraging everyone to walk down Pennsylvania Avenue to give Republicans at the Capitol “the kind of pride and boldness that they need to take back our country.”
Mr. Trump’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., warmed up the audience by warning of challenges to Republican members of Congress who did not back the pro-Trump efforts: “We’re coming for you,” he said.
Rudi Giuliani, who called the election results “fraudulent,” told the crowd: “If we are wrong, we will be made fools of, but if we’re right, a lot of them will go to jail.” He added, “So let’s have trial by combat,” a term from ancient Germanic law in which people settle disputes through armed duels.
Representative Liz Cheney of Wyoming, the third-ranking Republican in the House, said Mr. Trump was responsible for the violence. “There’s no question that the president formed the mob, the president incited the mob, the president addressed the mob,” she told Fox News in comments she then posted online. “He lit the flames. This is what America is not.”
Mr. Trump sparked these assaults. He has railed for months against the verdict rendered by voters in November. He summoned his supporters to gather in Washington on this day, and encouraged them to march on the Capitol. He told them that the election was being stolen. He told them to fight. He told them he might join them and, even as they stormed the building, he declined for long hours to tell them to stop, to condemn their actions, to raise a finger in defense of the Constitution that he swore to preserve and protect. When he finally spoke, late in the day, he affirmed the protesters’ anger, telling them again that the election was stolen, but asking them to go home anyway. It was the performance of a man unwilling to fulfill his duties as president or to confront the consequences of his own behavior.
"But what he has demonstrated consistently, while three hundred thousand people in this country have died and millions became sick, is that he couldn’t be bothered."
The Overlooked Hallmark of the Trump Administration—and Other Autocracies
Masha Gessen, The New Yorker, 15 Dec 2020
https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/the-overlooked-hallmark-of-the-trump-administration-and-other-autocracies
I'm a veteran as well, eight years' active duty, two overseas. You know nothing about my understanding of history, politics, policies and the country, so how are you to compare? We can disagree. We do. Big deal. It doesn't make me stupid and you smart, or me smart and you stupid. I never claimed to be better than you but all I see of you is name calling and childish insults. Hardly the dignity of someone who claims to be a soldier. But I'll take your word for that much.
And yes, I would transform the country, but why do you think simply because we disagree about Trump that I am on the far left? My politics are closer to the center, and consider myself a conservative on many issues. I don't agree with Antifa any more than you do. Don't make that assumption simply because I think Trump and many in his administration are criminals. You really think Trump is so great? Really? He's a hot mess and has been since the 80s. Everything he touches turns to shit, he's slept around on all his wives, he's screwing you and me and everyone else. And you know that, it's plain as day. So why stick up for a criminal? The GOP needs to find a spine and someone else to lead the party.
I just want a country more like the one I recognize from my youth, not one of the "socialist shit holes" you name, but more like the US of the 60s and 70s, where federal and state money (our tax dollars) went into public infrastructure, public health care, public education and the like. If we're both of the same generation we both know that we benefitted from a healthy public sphere, not a government bought and sold by corporations. I got a good education in public schools and my first few years of university cost me about a hundred bucks a semester. Is that socialism? Is the interstate highway system, public hospitals, federal research institutes? Is national health care, something EVERY other civilized country already has, socialism?
And I do practice what I preach, which is *exactly* why I'm here.
All you do is make snide remarks about people who actually care, as if caring about the country was some kind of fault.
As many people have now died this year of Covid-19 as American troops died in World War II. So yeah, what I'm concerned about is inconsequential, whereas you? What are you concerned about? Do you care about anything at all? Ever thought about actually doing something for your country rather than bitching and moaning at the people who are trying to improve things? Who simply want a responsible, normal government?
As for me projecting, if you're not with the Boogaloo Boys then don't stand with them. You call yourself a Merry Prankster but you clearly are at the other extreme of the political spectrum from them, if you even know the reference.
