I did the same–lurked on a right wing board, and read their reactions. The most interesting were the claims that the rioters were antifa. Why? Because the rioters used riot shields to break windows to get into the Capitol, and antifa has riot shields and loves to break windows. Good conservative right-wingers don’t own riot shields and would never break windows, therefore, the rioters were antifa.
But if they were antifa, then why were they were carrying Trump flags?
That’s to make it look like the antifa mob was Trump supporters.
Yep.
The majority of his base isn’t watching his lawyers. Why should they? They already know that he’s innocent. The few that are have already convinced themselves that none of the base was actually there and that all of the people at the rally were actually antifa. Even people who were there seem to think that they were the only real Trump supporters and all the rest were antifa.
I was going to say the same thing. Trump’s lawyers are saying this to save Trump. When the impeachment if over, Trump will disavow everything his lawyers said in order to regain his standing among the crazies.
I still feel terrorism is the more appropriate charge. But potato/potahto; we all agree they committed some serious crimes and should be looking at long prison sentences.
Whichever charge gets them put behind bars longer. And the delicious irony of them being in prison is they’ll be in prison with many of the people they condemn themselves.
This illustrates the problem the Republican party is facing right now. It has to show support for two opposing factions in its base. It has to tell the law and order Republican base that it had no connection to the riot which was all a left-wing antifa plot to make them look bad. But at the same time it has to tell the extremist Republican base that it fully supports the rioters and is proud they’re on the team.
“We fully support the protestors who were patriotically trying to right a great wrong on January 6. And at the same time, we fully support the police officers who bravely stopped them from doing so.”
My thought since even before the riot was that Trump himself would gradually fade, but that his movement would still move forward.
I think his hardcore believers, the ones who invested specifically in the idea that Trump himself was sent by God or whatever, are probably feeling a little betrayed and confused about the way forward. But don’t worry, they’ll figure it out. Someone else will come out of the woodwork.
There’s a bloc of the electorate that feels there’s an existential crisis. Majoritarian democracy is viewed as a viable alternative to liberal democracy. The sense of desperation will fester and grow until it is shown that liberal democracy isn’t quite as bad as they thought.
This is sadly a very common belief among the far right. Antifa are their boogeyman, kind of like how the Nazis blamed the Jews for everything. They were behind both communism and capitalism, behind the losses of WW1, etc.
Lots of people on the far right think Antifa was behind the terror attack on 1/6. Its sad how dysfunctional America is.
When you “know” your side is virtuous, then anything villainous “must” have been done by the other side.
The true contortion would have come if the insurrectionists had gotten to the congressfolks and had executed half (or more) of the D delegation while sparing all the Rs, except for a couple of the most “RINO”. And then have Trump claiming victory.
Convincing yourself that a victory for your side was the work of your enemies would be tough sell. Not insurmountable though.
Also, when you’ll pull any dirty criminal trick imaginable, then you’re pretty sure that the other side is just as corrupt and amoral as you are, so they’d probably do the same thing.
Corrupt and amoral people can’t imagine that anyone else is operating in good faith; because they themselves never do.
And the Republicans in the Senate just chucked Trump’s most ardent supporters (i.e. the insurrectionists at the United States Capitol) under the bus. His base will only focus on the fact that he was not convicted.
They don’t. If they were capable of their own thoughts, or logical reason, opinion etc., they wouldn’t be his base in the first place. As it is these people need a leader. As with most followers, they worship those that are the loudest. It’s the way it’s been throughout history with dictators, cults & the like. And the leaders are always just plain sniveling, cowardly, underachieving losers by any measure other than they impress a bunch of uneducated sloths. In Trump’s case he also has a large contingent of fellow criminal followers. They’ll stick around as long as Trump is of some benefit to them. I suspect that’s on a slide. What thinking person would give these people the time of day, let alone worship them. One other thing they all seem to have in common is suffering from narcissistic personality disorder. It’s typically used to cover up insecurities.
Exactly. The couple idiots on my FB are the same - they’re acting very affronted and hurt that anyone could dare to even try impeaching him a second time - why, the first time he was proven innocent! They’ve been spewing more than the usual amount of false bullshit too, so I just quietly report their posts to FB and move on.
I’m guessing that Stranger was (implicitly) comparing the idiots who follow Trump to the idiots who populated Arrested Development–a show narrated by Ron Howard.
