Trump doesn't deserve all the blame he has been getting.

Ouroboros said:

I haven't researched that particular issue, though I recall that the possibility was raised at the time. Possibly Trump guessed that if he did so, the Mad Libs would try to claim he was attempting to establish a coup. (It happened anyway, so he might as well have tried the same thing back then.)

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Oh please, spare me the sad violin. Trump answers to no one because he doesn't care about anyone but himself...isn't that painfully obvious by now?

frontline grunt said:

What's delusional is believing Trump is guilty of a crime here and everyone should agree with that just because you feel like he is guilty when lawyers that specialize in this have said that what he said is not legally "incitement" and falls under freedom of speech. There is no real crime in this case.

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You should have defended Manson.

PS: Heard from Pence lately?

digitusmedius said:

Of course he told them he would be going with them and then didn't but the mob didn't know that. That quote you cited was the only one that mention being peaceful in his 70 min tirade. He used the word "fight" with various pugnacious adverbs over twenty times. Even if that mob heard the word "peacefully" they were all in on the con that it represented. They all knew why they were there and if you dared to have followed the House Managers case you'd have seen the videos and voices of the crowd getting the message to do just the opposite of behave peacefully at the Capitol. The attack started as soon as the first wave of the thugs got there and never let up. It wasn't peaceful from the get-go.

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I think most of that actually undermines the charge of incitement. Legally increment as a crime sounds like it is supposed to be more of a spur of the moment clear and direct encouragement of imminent lawless action. Instead it sounds like some of these people involved were already QAnon believers and/or otherwise radicalized somehow long before Jan. 6.

So they didn't necessarily need Trump telling them the election was stolen to have already heard it repeatedly from others and/or already believed it on their own. Also it sounds like the FBI has evidence that some of them were already planning to attack the capitol long before Trump's speech. Then others have admitted they simply got caught up in the moment and went along with it mostly because others were doing it too.

Sure it most likely wouldn't have happened (on that specific day) if Trump hadn't planned the protest/rally but that doesn't mean he is guilty of any real crime in this case. Again, he has already held many rallies without any incident like this so how was he supposed to know this one would get out of hand the way it did? Believing in some kind of vague dog-whistle secret codes and assumed malicious intent sounds more like mind-reading and wild speculation than any kind of credible evidence that everyone should be expected to accept as a fact.

digitusmedius said:

This is Trump Maximalism to the nth. Total obeisance to Trump. Total refusal to face the facts of Trump as failure, Trump as unfit, Trump as a malignant narcissistic personality disorder and Trump as criminal. Yet, they keep bitterly denying that they're in a cult.

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I never said that Trump was perfect, the best president ever, or even a very nice and likeable guy in general. But there's a difference between not winning some kind of popularity contest and jumping to the conclusion that he is 100% responsible for things that he is almost certainly not entirely responsible for.

I don't have a problem with looking at any actual facts that I have some time to investigate. But so far I mostly just see a whole lot of emotional Trump hate and all the facts that I see still mostly support what I already thought, that blatant propaganda in the media and social media have effectively distorted public perception to a large extent to demonize Trump and his supporters in a misleading and unfair way.

Checkerboard Strangler said:

You should have defended Manson.

PS: Heard from Pence lately?

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Apparently, he's couch-surfing at various friends' residences in Indiana to avoid the Qanon whackjobs.

Luce said:

Apparently, he's couch-surfing at various friends' residences in Indiana to avoid the Qanon whackjobs.

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I don't know how accurate this is but one or two reports said that he had to stash "Mother" in a different safe house.
Mother is how he refers to his wife.

frontline grunt said:

What incitement? Claiming the election was stolen? That's just his opinion. "Fight like hell." Metaphorical. In fact he specifically said, "peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard", which I have seen the media conveniently leave out while cherry picking other comments out of context.

What happened to free speech? Why should he be held to a different standard than everyone else including hypocritical Democrat leaders that have said arguably worse things without anyone blinking an eye? If a relatively few QAnon believers and other misguided individuals misinterpreted what he said on Twitter and/or his speech and thought that meant it was a good idea to break the law based on that then that's on them, not Trump.

I could see if he actually said "storm the capital" or if they could prove that he ordered, planned, and/or paid for this attack behind the scenes then by all means why even bother with impeachment? In that case they might as well try him in a real court and lock him up for all I care. Impeachment was intended to remove a president from office for "high crimes and misdemeanors." Well if they have any real evidence of a crime then they should be able to convict him in a real court but they don't (that has been made public) so instead we see this farce political stunt witch hunt with the media playing along with it every step of the way.

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It's not just that he addressed a crowd the IC knew, for sure, was planning violence, but then they invaded the Capitol. Trump's response while it was happening - while the attack was underway - was to paint another bullseye on Pence's back, do nothing for a couple hours, then release a video confirming the reason for the attack - the election was stolen - then telling the insurrectionists he loved them.

If he wasn't happy about them attacking the Capitol, what in the hell was he doing for two hours sitting on his fat ass and doing NOTHING to get the situation under control, except for, of course, pouring more fuel on that fire. It took over 12 hours for him to condemn the violence, and we don't have to guess why - he was forced to do that, and someone else wrote the words, and he had a figurative gun to his head, and the rest of his presidency - say these words or else. We know this because during the attack, he said something ENTIRELY different. We should believe him the first time.

My goodness, think about what Pence was thinking. He did his sworn duty to the country and the constitution and his President sent a bunch of violent thugs to find him and do god only knows what if they did - AFTER THE ATTACK HAD BEGUN. That's what you're downplaying and it's disgusting.

JasperL said:

It's not just that he addressed a crowd the IC knew, for sure, was planning violence, but then they invaded the Capitol. Trump's response while it was happening - while the attack was underway - was to paint another bullseye on Pence's back, do nothing for a couple hours, then release a video confirming the reason for the attack - the election was stolen - then telling the insurrectionists he loved them.

If he wasn't happy about them attacking the Capitol, what in the hell was he doing for two hours sitting on his fat ass and doing NOTHING to get the situation under control, except for, of course, pouring more fuel on that fire. It took over 12 hours for him to condemn the violence, and we don't have to guess why - he was forced to do that, and someone else wrote the words, and he had a figurative gun to his head, and the rest of his presidency - say these words or else. We know this because during the attack, he said something ENTIRELY different. We should believe him the first time.

My goodness, think about what Pence was thinking. He did his sworn duty to the country and the constitution and his President sent a bunch of violent thugs to find him and do god only knows what if they did - AFTER THE ATTACK HAD BEGUN. That's what you're downplaying and it's disgusting.

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Most of that is basically hearsay from the media that have already shown their blatant anti-Trump bias time and time again, not from cross-examined witnesses under oath. Even if Trump really was happy about the results (initial reaction) that still wouldn't mean that anything he said was really incitement (in a legal sense) or that he directly planned for them to do this. The truth is that assuming he intended for this to happen is nothing more than mind-reading and speculation, not a fact in any way shape or form.

Once again, what happened to free speech here? Why should Trump be held to a different standard than everyone else including hypocritical Democrat leaders?

For example, Hillary was also a notably sore loser and publicly called Trump an illegitimate president years after the election was decided. Kamala Harris said BLM protesters/rioters were not going to let up and, "they should not" and funded bailing out rioters so they could do the same thing again the next day. Pelosi called federal agents sent to crack down on riots "storm troopers" as if this was a bad thing and the rioters should just be allowed to terrorize cities all they want while the local police and prosecutors were not supported in doing much of anything to stop it. Did you ever watch the Barr hearing?

There is plenty of evidence that many Democrats were perfectly content to see far worse violence, looting, and property damage day after day than what happened on Jan. 6 without doing anything about it and in some cases actually condemning attempts to stop it. No, that doesn't make them guilty of legal incitement either but it does make them guilty of being major league hypocrites for trying to now re-define incitement in some absurd non-standard mind-reading way to try to blame all this on Trump in yet another farce witch hunt.

JasperL said:

It's not just that he addressed a crowd the IC knew, for sure, was planning violence, but then they invaded the Capitol. Trump's response while it was happening - while the attack was underway - was to paint another bullseye on Pence's back, do nothing for a couple hours, then release a video confirming the reason for the attack - the election was stolen - then telling the insurrectionists he loved them.

If he wasn't happy about them attacking the Capitol, what in the hell was he doing for two hours sitting on his fat ass and doing NOTHING to get the situation under control, except for, of course, pouring more fuel on that fire. It took over 12 hours for him to condemn the violence, and we don't have to guess why - he was forced to do that, and someone else wrote the words, and he had a figurative gun to his head, and the rest of his presidency - say these words or else. We know this because during the attack, he said something ENTIRELY different. We should believe him the first time.

My goodness, think about what Pence was thinking. He did his sworn duty to the country and the constitution and his President sent a bunch of violent thugs to find him and do god only knows what if they did - AFTER THE ATTACK HAD BEGUN. That's what you're downplaying and it's disgusting.

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The real timeline of events was something more like the following: 12:53 PM rioters overwhelmed police and breached the outer perimeter barricades (attack had already started), 1:10 PM Trump finished his speech some 30 minutes away by foot, 2 PM Trump called Senator Tuberville who said Trump didn't even know the riots were happening at that point, 2:38 PM Trump sent a tweet urging protestors to support law enforcement and "stay peaceful."

What happened was clearly not a good thing to see but that doesn't mean it was all Trump's fault. So far all I see in his actual words (in context) is that he was mostly just encouraging and intended for it to be a peaceful protest. As far as I'm concerned, the biggest failure here was the relative lack of security already knowing the protest was scheduled and having been warned ahead of time that there could be violence (that was not Trump's responsibility).

frontline grunt said:

Most of that is basically hearsay from the media that have already shown their blatant anti-Trump bias time and time again, not from cross-examined witnesses under oath. Even if Trump really was happy about the results (initial reaction) that still wouldn't mean that anything he said was really incitement (in a legal sense) or that he directly planned for them to do this. The truth is that assuming he intended for this to happen is nothing more than mind-reading and speculation, not a fact in any way shape or form.

Once again, what happened to free speech here? Why should Trump be held to a different standard than everyone else including hypocritical Democrat leaders?

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What happened to Trump being expected to do his duty as POTUS and react immediately to the attack on the Capitol. or not pour fuel on the fire by targeting Pence? Not attacking his VP for doing his constitutional duty, and before that urging Pence to violate his duty and unilaterally throw out an entire election? The lies for months about stolen elections, up through January 6th. It wasn't a landslide for Trump - that worthless asshole LOST. Etc.

All that's good for you going forward? It's not for me. That's the difference

I'm not engaging butwhataboutism, sorry, so I snipped the rest.

JasperL said:

What happened to Trump being expected to do his duty as POTUS and react immediately to the attack on the Capitol. or not pour fuel on the fire by targeting Pence? Not attacking his VP for doing his constitutional duty, and before that urging Pence to violate his duty and unilaterally throw out an entire election? The lies for months about stolen elections, up through January 6th. It wasn't a landslide for Trump - that worthless asshole LOST. Etc.

All that's good for you going forward? It's not for me. That's the difference

I'm not engaging butwhataboutism, sorry, so I snipped the rest.

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Calling this "whataboutism" is basically a thought-terminating cliche used as an excuse to ignore some valid points in this case. The general idea is not so much that if Democrats do something "bad" then that means it should be OK for Trump to do something similar ("tu quoque" fallacy). The important point is that they are basically trying to change the definition of incitement in a way that doesn't fit current legal standards and throws the First Amendment out the window and if that was really the standard everyone should be held to then many of them would also already be guilty of the same thing or worse. Basically it sets a bad precedence that if enough members of congress simply don't like the president (almost a given these days if the parties are different) that they don't really need to have any legitimately impeachable offense, they can just make one up on the fly and then keep on moving the goalposts as needed in one ridiculous kangaroo court after another.

I agree that the way Trump turned on Pence was an ugly thing to see and certainly not very endearing and I think he definitely deserves some criticism for the way he handled things after the election but that doesn't mean that he committed any actual crime in this case. To some extent it's a moot point as far as I'm concerned because he was already voted out and I doubt he would win the Republican primary even if he wanted to run again in 2024. What interests me more than that is the whole media manipulation of perception aspect of it. I think that's a big part of what the impeachment is really about, it's not so much about trying to hold Trump accountable as much as a sort of a drawn out infomercial against Republicans in general, senators that vote against impeachment, etc. to try to conflate them with the relatively few QAnon believers and others that attacked the capitol in the eyes of many voters that are easily emotionally manipulated.

It was a non-event, didn't watch for a second. Just heard Trump's side wins again.
Only thing that surprised me was the Louisiana senator voted to impeach.
What doesn't surprise me is that the democrats are leading this country down hill
'brace yourselves'.

frontline grunt said:

I guess it makes people feel better to blame someone (the scapegoat or fall guy) when bad things happen but that doesn't make it true. It could be an honest mistake for many Trump haters that clearly aren't exactly open-minded critical thinkers whenever it comes to blaming Trump for something.

But it is nothing short of a form of brainwashing for the media to repeat lies such as that Trump is supposedly responsible for so many COVID deaths, guilty of inciting treason, etc. over and over again until they are accepted as undisputed facts by so many of the sheeple that don't know any better. This is not news, it is blatant propaganda; they don't even try to hide the irrational bias and hate anymore.

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Trump has gotten more undeserved criticism than any President in history. You're quite right in saying that some media outlets don't even pretend to be objective anymore.

OTOH, Trump has probably gotten more deserved criticism than any President, with the possible exception of Nixon.

frontline grunt said:

I guess it makes people feel better to blame someone (the scapegoat or fall guy) when bad things happen but that doesn't make it true. It could be an honest mistake for many Trump haters that clearly aren't exactly open-minded critical thinkers whenever it comes to blaming Trump for something.

But it is nothing short of a form of brainwashing for the media to repeat lies such as that Trump is supposedly responsible for so many COVID deaths, guilty of inciting treason, etc. over and over again until they are accepted as undisputed facts by so many of the sheeple that don't know any better. This is not news, it is blatant propaganda; they don't even try to hide the irrational bias and hate anymore.

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>>But it is nothing short of a form of brainwashing for the media to repeat lies such as that Trump is supposedly responsible for so many COVID deaths, guilty of inciting treason, etc. over and over again until they are accepted as undisputed facts<<

Well, those *are* facts though Li'l Feller.

So: there's that.

Thankfully America plunged that bloated orange log on down. It was close though, which is pretty frightening.

j brown's body said:

Leaders tend to get the blame, usually for good reason, but not always. In the case of Trump, I would say its deserved. He updid little to help the country with covispd and purposefully made it worse. And he refused to concede and called for the results to be overturned, paving the way for the violent insurrection. Indont see how he cones out favorably in either of these cases.

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I can get the Johnson and Johnson vaccine that was rushed into production by Trump fighting off the agency charged with vaccine regulations next Thursday.

I had an appoint set to take the two dose vaccine caused to come at warp speed by Trump on Saturday but cancelled that appointment wanting the J&J vaccine instead.

I truly thank Trump for his well earned credit on vaccines.

Trump may not deserve all the blame for everything that happened in his term in office but there is one thing he certainly deserves the blame for and that is the capitol riots on Jan 6 2021. Trump set in motion during the summer of 2020, that if there were mail in ballots, fraud would occur and that was the only way he would lose the election. He at first even said Florida shouldn't have mail in ballots but altered his position and applied for an absentee ballot. After the election he said the election was stolen so ignorant Trump supporters started the stop the steal movement. His lawyers with lawsuits went nowhere but did he give up, no. He tried to get states to elect their own set of electors so that they could cast their votes for him. He even called Georgia and asked them to find enough votes so he would win by one. He tried to get Pence not to certify the results, which is mostly ceremony and if he did, it would be illegal. He to this day says he won in a landslide. Trump actually in my opinion caused both Georgia senate seats to go to Democrats, because if you tell people the election was fraudulent, what percentage of republicans didn't vote in the runoff because they believed that it wouldn't matter. At the recent Republican cpac, he touted the same bullshit. In closing if the whole election was fraudulent then how come Democrats didn't increase their lead in the house and retake the Senate on election day.

frontline grunt said:

I guess it makes people feel better to blame someone (the scapegoat or fall guy) when bad things happen but that doesn't make it true. It could be an honest mistake for many Trump haters that clearly aren't exactly open-minded critical thinkers whenever it comes to blaming Trump for something.

But it is nothing short of a form of brainwashing for the media to repeat lies such as that Trump is supposedly responsible for so many COVID deaths, guilty of inciting treason, etc. over and over again until they are accepted as undisputed facts by so many of the sheeple that don't know any better. This is not news, it is blatant propaganda; they don't even try to hide the irrational bias and hate anymore.

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Remember Harry Truman?

Neither do I.

Hamish Howl said:

Remember Harry Truman?

Neither do I.

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I saw Harry Truman when he was president at a RR depot stop.

Robertinfremont said:

I saw Harry Truman when he was president at a RR depot stop.

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And you didn't listen to a word he said.

Peter said:

Trump wanted the Job of President and part of that job is you get the blame when things go wrong.

Those are the rules.

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Of course. But intelligent people tend to blame others only if they are at fault. Trump did everything he could to find a vaccine for Covid and had tremendous success. But he can't control the State governors of New York, New Jersey, Rhode Island or Massachusetts, the worst States for Covid.

It became obvious that Biden had senile dementia... He can't even read his speech from the teleprompter, he can't answer questions, he hides from press conferences, he just signs the decrees that someone gives him, one by one....
Didn't the democrats know about the old man's pitiful condition, when they promoted him to the presidency? They knew.
Some of the more stupid democrat supporters say, that they have a young and energetic vice-president for this case. It turns out that they did not actually vote for Biden.......
Along with the facts of voter fraud in the election, isn't this another piece of evidence of democrat fraud? Nominate a hidden person for the post of president, instead of the one, who is declared?
Explain to me, maybe I don't understand something and american democrats in reality is the best thing, that has happened to humanity after powdered milk?

Trump does deserve all the blame for the dangerous situation in which America's capitalism is seriously threatened.
It was a brush with fascism and should be punished severely. Life behind bars would be too lenient for Trump or any other would be dictator that would bring his country so close to bringing down democracy.

frontline grunt said:

But it is nothing short of a form of brainwashing for the media to repeat lies such as that Trump is supposedly responsible for so many COVID deaths, guilty of inciting treason, etc. over and over again until they are accepted as undisputed facts by so many of the sheeple that don't know any better.

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Except... they are not lies. They're facts.

The real "Sheeple" here are the right-wing fanatics who can't handle the fact that they lost the election. After years of falsely accusing Democrats of "not getting over 2016," they show no sign of ever getting over 2020. It is just one of the countless hypocrisies of today's Republicans.

And "the media" hasn't actually spent a lot of time on Trump since the election. In fact, the media is largely ignoring him. Despite the fact that he needs to be held accountable for his wrongdoings, it's a relief.

frontline grunt said:

For example, seeing the media focus on the total number of COVID deaths in the US and act like that means we have done so much worse than the rest of the world is misleading because if you look at the deaths per capita the US results were actually similar to or even better than some other countries like the UK, Belgium, Italy, Spain, France, etc.

So I'm not convinced that the US results have really been all that bad in the first place especially when you consider that over 40% of Americans are obese and however many already had heart disease, diabetes, or other risk factors, were over 60, and/or were living in nursing homes. Sure you can cherry pick obscure examples like Vietnam, New Zealand, etc. to point at but there could be so many other differences beyond what the leaders did that it's like comparing apples and oranges.

It's easy to play arm-chair quarterback and second guess the results but to this day I still don't see what exactly the silver bullet obvious solution was that Trump should have done instead. Also, I don't see anything significant that Biden has done differently so far after all his talk about having a plan, unlike Trump. The main difference I see is that Biden likes to wear a mask and hide out at home more, big deal, it looks like it is mostly for show.

If it really would have been all that easy for practically anyone other than Trump to prevent so many COVID deaths then why didn't the UK, France, Spain, Switzerland, etc. already do it (per capita)? For that matter why didn't Democrat governors like Cuomo, Newsome, Whitmer, etc. do a better job given that they showed they already had the authority to implement strict lockdowns, travel restrictions, etc. on their own without needing to wait for Trump? Maybe that's simply because it was a new virus that was never going to be contained all that easily in the US in the first place regardless of the actions taken.

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If Pelosi hadn't blocked Trump's request at the start - refusing to allow even $1 to try to stop the spread,
if the government didn't order everyone shop only in big box stores,
if Democratic governors didn't send thousands of infected elderly to go kill tens of thousands of elderly,
and but for the covid-19 spreading masks rules
- combined with the government not offering a bounty for false reporting the USA would have been just fine thru this all.

Montgomery said:

Trump does deserve all the blame for the dangerous situation in which America's capitalism is seriously threatened.
It was a brush with fascism and should be punished severely. Life behind bars would be too lenient for Trump or any other would be dictator that would bring his country so close to bringing down democracy.

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Who should be in prison is Biden for his greatest election fraud organization in US history. The 2020 election fraud was the greatest acts of treason and treachery in US history.