The impeachment defense seems to be that the insurrection was terrible, sure, but Trump had nothing to do with it. The problem was those awful people who stormed the Capitol entirely by their own bad choice.
So, what does his base think of him after that? He’s no longer head of the movement. Instead he is a critic of it, claiming those people are just wrong.
Maybe he could get away with shooting somebody in the middle of Times Square, but can he get away with officially calling his base dumb jerks?
Storming the capitol was a gambit which failed spectacularly. The vast majority of Trump’s base is probably distancing themselves from it, much as Trump himself is. So they would not have an issue with him doing it.
Your mistake is thinking that Trump feels any need to be consistent. After he’s acquitted he’ll call the people who stormed the Capitol patriots and tell them he loves them. His base will eat it up. He will never acknowledge that his defense team argued something different and will essentially pretend that that never happened.
You omitted the last step in the process. Allow me to cite George Carlin, speaking about religion:
But He loves you. He loves you, and He needs money! He always needs money! He’s all-powerful, all-perfect, all-knowing, and all-wise, somehow just can’t handle money!
[‘Just make that check out to the Cheeto-Faced Shit-Gibbon. No. The dashes aren’t necessary. Thank you.’]
Exactly. These idiots don’t understand the impeachment and aren’t watching it anyway – it’s too much like real news, which to them is fake news. They’ll believe whatever the orange shit-gibbon tells them.
I wonder what the govt’s plans are? I’m glad to see 250+ have been charged, but I’d sure like to see a heckuva lot more face negative repercussions.
Looked to me that at least a couple of thousand folk were well past the barricades and clearly trespassing. How many made it inside? I think I saw 600 or so. But I can imagine various law enforcement organizations deciding that at some point they have to direct their resources elsewhere.
Gotta figure the Stat of Lims is at least a couple of years.
That reminds me. Twitter recently confirmed that the orange shit-gibbon’s ban is permanent, regardless of whether he runs again, is barred from ever running again, or anything else that may happen. I believe Dorsey’s response to a question about that was that Twitter policy doesn’t allow reinstatement of anyone who’s been banned, no matter who they are.
I would have added, “especially if they’re traitorous orange shit-gibbons”.
His followers know that sacrifices must be made and that he needs to distance himself from certain actions in order to make the next move. They are basing this on the American Revolution and the Civil War where acts like the Boston Tea Part, Boston Massacre and the John Brown uprising in Kansas committed acts of insurrection that didn’t succeed in toppling the status quo but led up to the status quo being upset in the long run.
This crap has just begun. Man up and convict the SOB you wormy Republican senators!
The base doesn’t change their mind until something happens specifically to them. When it does, they’re no longer part of the base, but the larger body continues as before.
Some of the people who are charged and tried will turn against Trump. The rest of the base will label them as Antifa plants.
I’ve heard reports in the media that some riot participants feel betrayed by Benedict Donald, including the spiritual leader of the riot, the furry horned Q-shaman dude.
I think we’ve been answering two different questions here: How will his base respond and how do the insurrectionists respond?
For the base - this was never an insurrection, based on His Orangeness, this was a peaceful protest, that due to the horrible, no good, very bad, treacherous Pence and Dems, became inflamed at the injustice and did a little, tiny bit of rambunctious, child like petty vandalism. Certainly not an insurrection. And that is exactly how his base is treating it - this isn’t even fake news, it’s old news, thus the whataboutism comparisons to the riots. So zero effect on his base.
The individual insurrectionists, of course, are going under the bus. They’re the only ones questioning, and even then, I suspect they believe that if they had been successful, they’d have gotten the love (fat chance) that Trump promises all his followers. So, despite being upset with Trump, there’s probably a bit of self-hate for being such a failure. Which may mean if they get off light from the federal charges, they may come back hardened in their love to prove they’re worthy.
Scary stuff.
And this goes double for his followers. Shortly after the capitol attack, I lurked a bit on a right wing message board to see how they were reacting to it. They basically split 50/50 some saying that the insurgents were totally justified and were patriots, some saying that the whole things was an antifa false flag operation, none of them acknowledging that the two scenarios were in any way contradictory. A few might even have said both.