Republicans didn’t care when 20 children died from assault weapons at Sandy Hook, or 49 people at the Pulse nightclub, or 58 concertgoers in Las Vegas. Do you think they care about little “collateral damage” at their January 6th insurrection? The reason Republicans want to argue about the violence, and troll the Democrats with statements comparing the rioters to tourists, is that it keeps the conversation on a topic that is unimportant to their constituents.
They do not care if it was violent. Full stop.
Here’s a thought experiment:
Imagine Trump had gotten away with his coup. Imagine Pence and the GOP-controlled States actually went along with Trump's illegal coup. Pence stands before congress on Jan 6th and declares “I am throwing this certification back to the states! Session Adjourned!” He then slaps down the gavel and walks out. A constitutional crisis ensues. The next day 500,000 pro-democracy activists march on the White House demanding Trump vacate the premises. A crowd about the size of the 2017 Women's March.
Would you be upset if things turned violent at the White House?
What if, in the face of a clearly illegal coup, Trump was driven out of the White House by an angry mob, and in the process 4 people were killed?
What would your reaction be?
If you carried out that thought experiment and concluded you wouldn’t be all that upset your justification probably stems from two factors: 1) A protest of millions with 500k descending on Washington would truly represent a “Popular Uprising”. 2) The law is clearly on the side of the protestors. Even this conservative and corrupted SCOTUS would likely declare Pence’s actions illegal.
From my own perspective, If Trump & Co. had pulled off the coup outlined in the Eastman Memo, you best believe my ass would be at the WH Jan 7th Screaming “HELL NO”
This brings us to the real gaslighting the GOP is doing around the January 6th insurrection. For the GOP to survive as a party they need to rebrand January 6th as
1) A popular uprising
that was
2) In response to illegal Democratic Party actions.
Point number two has failed miserably in the State and federal courts.
Crudey Oilyani
Turns out getting people to perjure themselves, making up election fraud stories, is harder than Rudy and Trump’s clown car of Lawers expected. The GOP is now clinging to “Fraudit” efforts to give the hint of vague wrongdoing and election illegality by unleashing their “Cyber Ninjas” Those efforts have worked in convincing their base that there were “irregularities” in the 2020 election. These fraudits all fall apart under legal scrutiny but they are providing fake pretense for GOP voter suppression laws. None of this “voting irregularity” gaslighting works however without the cardinal lie the GOP tells itself: “We are the silent MAJORITY” and this is central to point number one. If the GOP accepted its shrinking popularity and the clear polling and census data that proves they’re a shrinking party the idea of a Biden win would seem logical.
So let’s get to point number one “a popular uprising” and the core of the gaslighting and the key to Trump’s victory in 2016.
just how Trump manipulated a sensationalist and access-journalism-driven media into giving him the “Populist” mantle and all the fake crowd totals he wanted. It’s a story worth reading again.
MSM Complicity in Trump’s Populist Myth
I share in that diary that I am in the media business in NYC and socialize with some cable news producers and technical folks who work with them. In 2015-2016 the trump teams #1 ask in return for an “exclusive” with Trump was “Don’t push back on our crowd numbers.” Trump, or anyone selling something, needs the perception of scarcity to trigger our reptilian brain cores into action. Popularity produces scarcity. The concepts of demand (or popularity) and scarcity are intrinsically linked in our hunter-gatherer's brains.
A thing that is popular will soon be-> scarce and not having a critical thing that has become scarce can lead to → death weeding the lack of reaction to scarcity out of the gene pool.
Popularity=scarcity=desire=action
We are hardwired to react to scarcity. Advertisers and marketers have known this for centuries. It may be the one thing Donald Trump does know, and he played the MSM like a fiddle to create the illusion of demand for his brand of politics.
“I alone can fix it.”— Donald Trump.
So how do you tackle this problem as it relates to January 6th?
If I were running the January 6th investigation I would start with this:
“Since we can not hope to solve a problem without first understanding the scope; I’d like to start by establishing the central facts of the January 6th riots and insurrection. We need a factual understanding of:
1) After a month of hyping by DJT and groups sponsoring the traveling costs of “Stop the Steal” rally-goers how many people actually showed up to Trump’s Rally?
2) How many of those rally-goers turned into the violent mob that stormed the capital?
We can, and will, get into identifying the key players in funding and inspiring these Insurrectionists but it’s important to understand the scope of any problem before addressing solutions. With that in mind the committee has asked the FBI and CIA to each provide a report outlining the broad scope of the rally and resulting insurrection using their satellite imagery and crowd estimation specialists.”
If you want to drive a stake into the heart of Trumpism the way to do it is to shatter his popularity illusion with his base. With witnesses under oath prove without a doubt, just how weak and lame the “Stop the Steal”fiasco was. The loser Trump needed a giant show of force and a 2017 Women’s March-style uprising. What he got, after a month of hype and swaths of people basically paid to attend by having travel costs covered, was about 25,000 misinformed losers. That was enough to be his mob when the capital was basically left unprotected. Only about 6,000 of those losers were stupid enough to storm the capital. Lost in the MSM hype of the violence and the dramatic pictures was just how lame the “Stop the Steal” rally turned out to be. Democrats need to push back on every GOP lawmaker who tries to repeat Trump's lies that 500k people showed up. Every chance they get the GOP will
1) Inflate the crowd numbers at the Jan 6th rally
TFG
“That rally was massive. The press doesn't like to talk about it but the real number was much, much bigger in terms of the people that were at the location. It went all the way back to the Washington monument. It was tremendous numbers of people.”
...
“I said this rally is going to be bigger than anyone thinks. Cause everyone I’d see would say ‘we’re gonna be at the rally, we’re gonna be at the rally’ and it was, I think the largest rally I’ve ever spoken before, and I’ve spoken to very big crowds. Hundreds of thousands of people and more than that., but hundreds of thousands of people.”
x
Trump called in to Fox News after his CPAC speech and was asked by Steve Hilton about his response to the January 6 insurrection. He tried to shift blame to Pelosi before resorting to Black Lives Matter whataboutism. pic.twitter.com/5tjXcs12hF
2) conflate the January 6th rioters with ALL the people that voted for Trump.
“They want to use one day in January to demean 74 million voters” — Mike Pence
x
Another genius 'mash' video from @MehdiHasanShow producer Ivy Green.
What happens when you intercut Mike Pence's words on Fox last night, ridiculously, downplaying 1/6 and Trump's role with... the actual images and sounds from 1/6?#mustwatchpic.twitter.com/IkqkF2CULP
DO NOT BE DISTRACTED ARGUING ABOUT WHETHER IT WAS VIOLENT OR NOT.
REPUBLICANS KNOW IT WAS VIOLENT.
THEY DON’T CARE.
PS: I’ve been following Trump's manipulation of the MSM with crowd totals for some time. It really is the key to his success and the GOP perception that THEY are the majority. If you want to know when Trump could have been stopped with good journalism read here → www.dailykos.com/...
