Here’s your NFT.
You can pay me in bitcoin.
“Coup coup ca choo, Mrs. Robinson…”
I really don’t think we’ve learned anything of significance that couldn’t be seen or inferred immediately after the attempted coup. We learned details, sure, but all of the elements were plain and obvious even at the time. They’d been setting this up clearly since before the election and really, long before.
You were in denial. Lots of people were, and still are. After having lived in what we believe to be a very stable democracy, they simply didn’t want to think that things could fall apart that way, that it couldn’t happen here, that we lived in a country where 30-40% of the population was misanthropic and defined themselves by hate and regression and that we were teetering on the edge of a massive regression, and so they started from their conclusion - that it couldn’t happen here - and worked backwards to their premises, that it obviously couldn’t have been a real attempt at a coup.
Having some time to process that, some people are coming around, but many are still willfully blind to it. I don’t think details of any coup plan or anything like that is going to sway many people. They either accept what was obvious (even at the time) or they’re in denial about it.
Hell, in the 2016 election he was saying he’d accept the results if he won. I suspect he was laying the foundation for his I wuz Robbed tour where he roamed the country grifting the rubes for money to Fight the Corrupt System® but as it turned out, it was delayed four years.
That at least helps explains his initial run for me. I originally wondered why he would risk losing, because I didn’t see any upside for him in losing, but then he won and I forgot the question. The idea that he would have been expecting to lose and then be able to launch a tour of rallies to grift the rubes seems plausible.
He was already calling the 2016 election rigged against him before it occurred. I honestly think he was surprised when he won.
Note that this was in October 2016, a month before the election.
I often wonder if he’d backed himself into a corner and only claimed that he won the popular vote despite fraud as a way to explain his previous whining.
“It’s rigged! There’s fraud! Uh, wait, I won? Umm… No, no, I won fair and square, yeah. But, uh… The popular vote! Yeah! Uh, that was rigged! Um, they like… Bused in illegals or something. I’m going to open an investigation now that I am president. (I won? What do I do now?)”
There were rumors at the time that he was planning to launch some sort of Trump News Network after he lost the election and it was just a stunt to grift. Look at the footage of him on election night - he was unpleasantly surprised, he didn’t want to win.
This is what I remember, too. The look on his face was so stunned, I half-expected him to grab a microphone and say, “Just kidding!” and let Pence take it from there.
I believe this was completely his plan from the beginning.
Does Trump look like a man with a plan?
ooooh never saw that NFT…
Exactly. Go back and look at the videos of him and Melania listening to Clinton’s concession speech. He looks surprised and she looks very, very disappointed.
I suspect his narcissism then kicked in. “Gee, if I won when I was expecting to lose, I must be pretty hot stuff.”
"This Report supplies an immense volume of information and testimony assembled through the Select Committee’s investigation, including information obtained following litigation in Federal district and appellate courts, as well as in the U.S. Supreme Court. Based upon this assembled evidence, the Committee has reached a series of specific findings, including the following:
- Beginning election night and continuing through January 6th and thereafter, Donald Trump purposely disseminated false allegations of fraud related to the 2020 Presidential election in order to aid his effort to overturn the election and for purposes of soliciting contributions. These false claims provoked his supporters to violence on January 6th.
- Knowing that he and his supporters had lost dozens of election lawsuits, and despite his own senior advisors refuting his election fraud claims and urging him to concede his election loss, Donald Trump refused to accept the lawful result of the 2020 election. Rather than honor his constitutional obligation to “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed,” President Trump instead plotted to overturn the election outcome.
- Despite knowing that such an action would be illegal, and that no State had or would submit an altered electoral slate, Donald Trump corruptly pressured Vice President Mike Pence to refuse to count electoral votes during Congress’s joint session on January 6th.
- Donald Trump sought to corrupt the U.S. Department of Justice by attempting to enlist Department officials to make purposely false statements and thereby aid his effort to overturn the Presidential election. After that effort failed, Donald Trump offered the position of Acting Attorney General to Jeff Clark knowing that Clark intended to disseminate false information aimed at overturning the election.
- Without any evidentiary basis and contrary to State and Federal law, Donald Trump unlawfully pressured State officials and legislators to change the results of the election in their States.
- Donald Trump oversaw an effort to obtain and transmit false electoral certificates to Congress and the National Archives.
- Donald Trump pressured Members of Congress to object to valid slates of electors from several States.
- Donald Trump purposely verified false information filed in Federal court.
- Based on false allegations that the election was stolen, Donald Trump summoned tens of thousands of supporters to Washington for January 6th. Although these supporters were angry and some were armed, Donald Trump instructed them to march to the Capitol on January 6th to “take back” their country.
- Knowing that a violent attack on the Capitol was underway and knowing that his words would incite further violence, Donald Trump purposely sent a social media message publicly condemning Vice President Pence at 2:24 p.m. on January 6th.
- Knowing that violence was underway at the Capitol, and despite his duty to ensure that the laws are faithfully executed, Donald Trump refused repeated requests over a multiple hour period that he instruct his violent supporters to disperse and leave the Capitol, and instead watched the violent attack unfold on television. This failure to act perpetuated the violence at the Capitol and obstructed Congress’s proceeding to count electoral votes.
- Each of these actions by Donald Trump was taken in support of a multi-part conspiracy to overturn the lawful results of the 2020 Presidential election.
- The intelligence community and law enforcement agencies did successfully detect the planning for potential violence on January 6th, including planning specifically by the Proud Boys and Oath Keeper militia groups who ultimately led the attack on the Capitol. As January 6th approached, the intelligence specifically identified the potential for violence at the U.S. Capitol. This intelligence was shared within the executive branch, including with the Secret Service and the President’s National Security Council.
- Intelligence gathered in advance of January 6th did not support a conclusion that Antifa or other left-wing groups would likely engage in a violent counter-demonstration, or attack Trump supporters on January 6th. Indeed, intelligence from January 5th indicated that some left-wing groups were instructing their members to “stay at home” and not attend on January 6th.20 Ultimately, none of these groups was involved to any material extent with the attack on the Capitol on January 6th.
- Neither the intelligence community nor law enforcement obtained intelligence in advance of January 6th on the full extent of the ongoing planning by President Trump, John Eastman, Rudolph Giuliani and their associates to overturn the certified election results. Such agencies apparently did not (and potentially could not) anticipate the provocation President Trump would offer the crowd in his Ellipse speech, that President Trump would “spontaneously” instruct the crowd to march to the Capitol, that President Trump would exacerbate the violent riot by sending his 2:24 p.m. tweet condemning Vice President Pence, or the full scale of the violence and lawlessness that would ensue. Nor did law enforcement anticipate that President Trump would refuse to direct his supporters to leave the Capitol once violence began. No intelligence community advance analysis predicted exactly how President Trump would behave; no such analysis recognized the full scale and extent of the threat to the Capitol on January 6th.
- Hundreds of Capitol and DC Metropolitan police officers performed their duties bravely on January 6th, and America owes those individuals immense gratitude for their courage in the defense of Congress and our Constitution. Without their bravery, January 6th would have been far worse. Although certain members of the Capitol Police leadership regarded their approach to January 6th as “all hands on deck,” the Capitol Police leadership did not have sufficient assets in place to address the violent and lawless crowd.21 Capitol Police leadership did not anticipate the scale of the violence that would ensue after President Trump instructed tens of thousands of his supporters in the Ellipse crowd to march to the Capitol, and then tweeted at 2:24 p.m. Although Chief Steven Sund raised the idea of National Guard support, the Capitol Police Board did not request Guard assistance prior to January 6th. The Metropolitan Police took an even more proactive approach to January 6th, and deployed roughly 800 officers, including responding to the emergency calls for help at the Capitol. Rioters still managed to break their line in certain locations, when the crowd surged forward in the immediate aftermath of Donald Trump’s 2:24 p.m. tweet. The Department of Justice readied a group of Federal agents at Quantico and in the District of Columbia, anticipating that January 6th could become violent, and then deployed those agents once it became clear that police at the Capitol were overwhelmed. Agents from the Department of Homeland Security were also deployed to assist.
- President Trump had authority and responsibility to direct deployment of the National Guard in the District of Columbia, but never gave any order to deploy the National Guard on January 6th or on any other day. Nor did he instruct any Federal law enforcement agency to assist. Because the authority to deploy the National Guard had been delegated to the Department of Defense, the Secretary of Defense could, and ultimately did deploy the Guard. Although evidence identifies a likely miscommunication between members of the civilian leadership in the Department of Defense impacting the timing of deployment, the Committee has found no evidence that the Department of Defense intentionally delayed deployment of the National Guard. The Select Committee recognizes that some at the Department had genuine concerns, counseling caution, that President Trump might give an illegal order to use the military in support of his efforts to overturn the election."
Holy Shit. I guess I knew it all, but to see the summary is… shocking? Terrifying? People keep referencing Hitler’s beer putch and I keep Godwinizing myself. Good luck everyone. Let’s hope Americans are as decent as we have been led to expect.
and didn’t Trump ask generals about declaring martial law?