There wasn’t really anything to gain by storming the capitol. Let’s not pretend that logic plays any role here. All it takes is one alt-right ex-Army sniper.
Well, yeah, that too. I guess it will be a while before we can just assume that this is a given in conversation 
Agreed. What will matter is a persistent RW media meme that Trump wants trouble for Traitor-to-the-Leader Pence. That’s something the rest of us can watch for. (Along w the USSS, FBI, etc.)
If we see that drumbeat, sooner or later somebody will march to it. If not, it’ll take that lone wacko who persuades himself that Pence needs a hit. 100K dudes can brag about the idea in beer bars before 1 finally does the deed.
I’m pretty much a pragmatist. As much as I would like to burn the GOP down to the ground, the two party system is too firmly entrenched in both the law and society. There will be a GOP for the foreseeable future.
So it’s like how I saw Obama dealing with Iran. We don’t want to do things that will encourage the worst elements, and do want to do things that empower the more moderate elements, even if that empowering isn’t absolutely perfect.
Allowing Pence to die on Biden’s watch because protection was withdrawn will encourage the worst parts of the current GOP, while pissing off the parts of the GOP that we need to move the party back in the direction of sanity.
As much as I wouldn’t cry a tear over Pence on a personal level, on a political level, leaving him out to hang would be a huge mistake.
From their point of view, though, there absolutely was something to gain by storming the Capitol: disrupting the certification of the electoral college results. I get that it was a long shot of long shots in reality, but there’s at least some rationale there.
And as I said, I think that they only went after Pence because it was in the heat of the moment and Trump basically egged them on. The dynamics will be different.
That’s not at all to say that there won’t be political consequences for Pence and others who turned against Trump. There may also be political consequences for Trump’s decision to ultimately bail on his own supporters. It would seem now that Trumpism is a ‘movement’ without a leader.
That’s why I’m somewhat surprised Trump hasn’t pardoned the insurrectionists – as inflammatory and outrageous as it would be, that’s the one card he has left to play. Not that it would help him legally - in fact it would probably put him in greater legal jeopardy. But the thinking is, if you assume that the system is coming after you anyway, reach out to the anarchists and thugs who can at least keep you relevant politically, which is what Adolf Hitler, who was staring down the barrel of treason charges and life imprisonment (if not worse) did after the Beer Hall Putsch.
On the other hand, if he was killed by a Trumpiist while under protection, it would get a lot harder for GOP politicians to pander to Trumpists in any obvious way.
You know very well that any Trumpist that were to do such a thing were not really a Trumpist, but an Antifa agent and infiltrator.
I doubt the corporate donors would go with that thin facade.
Pardon my density.
Which sort of corporate donors to what cause would go (or not) with which thin facade?
It’s like when you hear about a bomb maker getting his hands blown of while making a bomb. Terrorist movements often turn on their own, Pence is no different.
The almost total radio silence and absence of activity by Trump from Jan 6 on almost persuades me that McConnell, Pence, & the Cabinet told him:
Leave town quietly on the 20th and sit on your hands / microphones doing exactly nothing until then or else we’ll remove you instantly and join the Ds in prosecuting you to the ends of the Earth.
Either that or he’s drugged in some basement somewhere and will awaken in Moscow.
I think could get convicted anyway. I could see waiting until today to issue those kinds of outrageous pardons, because the fallout wasn’t clear. Now that it’s clear that the establishment wants a clear break from Trump, I’m surprised he hasn’t done it (assuming he doesn’t do it while we’re asleep tonight). Maybe Trump is just tired, doesn’t give a shit, and just can’t wait to make it to Mar-a-Lago.
His life after office could look very, very different from the one before it, and not in a good way (for him anyway).
According to CNN, he did receive warnings about not pardoning himself, his children, or GOP lawmakers involved in the capitol debacle. These were his legal advisers (White House counsel and another attorney). They apparently warned about the optics of doing that sort of thing before the Senate trial, and how it would make him look really guilty. So he did end up sitting on his hands.
https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/19/politics/trump-self-pardon-warning/index.html
Apparently even Barr warned Trump against pardoning himself, prior to resigning.
What was it Admiral Yamamato said? Something close to
We can make trouble for a few years. But I fear we will waken a sleeping Giant from which there will be no escape and no mercy.
Few things would make me as happy as for Trump to soon be seen as just as much an asset to America as was Tojo and Hitler. After being roundly defeated in detail by a righteously awakened and mightily angered US populace and US government.
I mean if a loud and proud Trumpist murdered Pence, AT&T (for example) might donate less to a politician that panders to Trumpists, even if some say the assassin wasn’t a “real” Trumpist.
Thank you.
The fact that pardoning the insurrectionists won’t help Trump is why he won’t do it - he has nothing to gain by doing it. From his viewpoint they’ve served their purpose and he cares as much about them as he would a used piece of toilet paper.
Yup. His only redeeming feature at the last was that he managed to do what every fucking VP is supposed to do as a routine part of their Constitutional duties. He doesn’t get a medal for not joining a coup.
Trump put him in charge of the COVID response. He could have worked around Trump to get something done, he chose not to.
He’s as guilty as anyone for the disaster of the last four years. Fuck him, let him rot.
Bolding mine. News reports are saying that his closest advisers are telling him exactly that, as well as advising against pardoning his family or himself, that such a pardon would not be in his own best interest legally. And of course that is the only kind of argument he would listen to.
So we’re back to what we knew on day one: fortunately for us, he’s a narcissist with financial ambitions but not an ideologue with political ambitions.
It’ll be interesting to see who takes over the Trump party now that it’s founder is probably gone, perhaps forever.