Jack Doppelt
Jan. 9, 2021
Everyone knows of Donald Trump's complicity in the storming of the Capitol on Wednesday.
We may need to leave the question to courts and legal debates whether it is legally sufficient to constitute criminal incitement to imminent lawless action. Trump says it was “totally appropriate.”
If we want clarity and accountability, Twitter is a far better lodestar than politicians from either of the two parties.
Twitter permanently suspended Trump's account Jan 8. It had 88.7 million followers.
Other social media sites and platforms piled on in various iterations. All are being roundly criticized, particularly from the right flank, for squelching speech and singling out Trump.
In the blog post justifying its action, Twitter accounted the reasons.
Twitter took away Trump's privileges permanently and immediately. Immediately because his posts risk further incitement of violence.
Twitter concluded that two of his recent tweets read together make it dangerously clear that he was speaking directly to the 75 million American Patriots who voted for him and who "will have a GIANT VOICE long into the future." He told them he was not going to the Inauguration on Jan. 20.
Twitter invoked its published policy dating back to 2019 that bans the Glorification of Violence because the tweets could inspire others to replicate the criminal acts that took place at the U.S. Capitol.
When promulgated in 2019, the policy, in conjunction with related policies, was directed specifically at the actions of world leaders. The policies explained that Twitter will err on the side of leaving content up if there is a clear public interest in doing so to provide "a place where people can openly and publicly respond to their leaders and hold them accountable." The policies were focused on public officials who have more than 100,000 followers.
Twitter did its homework in concluding from Trump’s statement that he will not be attending the inauguration is being received by supporters as further confirmation that the election was not legitimate and that he was disavowing his previous claim of an “orderly transition” on Inauguration Day that was tweeted by one of his deputy chiefs of staff.
Twitter was concerned that the tweets "may also serve as encouragement to those potentially considering violent acts that the Inauguration would be a 'safe' target, as he will not be attending, and that the use of the words “American Patriots” to describe some of his supporters is also being interpreted as support for those who committed violent acts at the US Capitol.
Being attuned to dog whistles, Twitter concluded that Trump "plans to continue to support, empower, and shield those who believe he won the election."
Twitter advised that most menacingly, "plans for future armed protests have already begun proliferating on and off-Twitter, including a proposed secondary attack on the US Capitol and state capitol buildings on Jan. 17."
It didn't help that Trump posted a video in the throes of the Capitol chaos that in telling his overzealous supporters to go home, he reinforced that the election was fraudulent, that it was stolen, that he won in a landslide, that "we can't play into the hands of these people," and that "we love you. You're very special."
Twitter's decision on Trump's account was decisive, reasoned, immediate and permanent.
That can't be said for our politicians, Republicans or Democrats.
There are far too many Republicans for us to live in a civilized democracy who continue to publicly espouse the conviction that the election was stolen, that Trump won, and that Biden is not lawfully president. All are fire kindling, reporting for duty.
They can be grouped by clusters of pretexts, with mouthpieces for each:
• The Dems illegitimized Trump's presidency even before his Inauguration. They started it and this is payback. In convening a news conference after the election, on Nov. 20, to tout Trump's handling of the covid pandemic, his press secretary Kayleig McEnany said: "Trump was never given an orderly transition of power. His presidency was never accepted." During the current House debates, Cong. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), whom Trump rewarded with a Presidential Medal of Freedom, referred triumphantly to the session in 2017 that certified Trump’s election, railing against the hypocrisy of Democrats for complaining about GOP attempts to undermine Biden’s presidency now. Jordan continues to claim falsely he’s free from any culpability in formenting Trumpers to believe the election was stolen. Yet the attempt to challenge the certification of Trump's electoral win in Jan. 2017 was thwarted before it started by then-Vice President Biden who chaired the joint session.
[Click on the photo to see and hear Biden during that session tell objecting House Democrats that “it’s over.”] That’s the same procedural session that 14 GOP Senators and 121 GOP members of the House set out to stop last week, and almost did with the timely actions of fomented insurrectionists.
There's little doubt that the Democrats and thousands of others gave Trump little chance to govern without entrenched, vocal opposition, not because they challenged the legitimacy of his 2016 election but because of the draconian decisions he made, the executive orders he imposed, and the inhumane agenda he set out within his first hundred days in office. Minority leader Schumer referred to it then as “incompetence leading to chaos.” Meekly deferential, if you ask me. I wrote a piece then that appealed to Senate Republicans to give Trump a probationary year before holding a hearing on the first Supreme Court vacancy in his term to ensure that he's not impeached by then.
• Only a handful of rioters breached the Capitol, and who says they were Trump supporters and not disguised Antifa anarchists, the all-encompassing shorthand the right uses for left-leaning protesters? Rudy Giuliani urged the agitated crowd before the Capitol onslaught to "have trial by combat” of the lawmakers about to vote to certify Biden as president. And on a podcast that has already been removed by YouTube, Giuliani said later that Antifa forces were to blame. "Believe me, Trump people were not scaling the wall. So there's nothing to it that he incited anything…And there's equal if not more responsibility on the fascists who run the Democrat Party.”
• The refusals to certify Biden's presidency are acts needed to memorialize bona fide objections to the election thefts in the key swing states. The Rule of Law Defense Fund, a fundraising arm of the Republican Attorneys General Association, sent out robocalls the day before the Capitol storming, encouraging people to march to the Capitol and call on Congress to stop the steal." [click on the link to listen to the robocall, as published by the watchdog group, Documented.] For weeks after the election, GOP lawmakers supported Trump's incessant claims of rampant election fraud, citing the American principle that everyone should have a chance to challenge elections in court and through recounts. After the courts and election officials ruled one by one without exception that there was no credible evidence of fraud or mis-counts, a different strategy emerged. GOP Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Missouri) seized onto the idea that one more avenue was paved for Trump’s grievances. He issued a statement in the name of the Conservative Action Project to protect the Republic on behalf of 21 named conservatives and the more than 50 million American voters “who believe the election was stolen or somehow illegitimate,” and called on the Senate to continue to contest the electoral votes from five swing states. He noted that substantial evidence has been presented to courts and state legislatures. Yet not one court, state legislature or election body found the evidence worthy of denying Biden’s certification. Three days later, his Senate colleague Ted Cruz (R-Texas) seized onto a legal strategy he was convinced would do the trick of postponing the certification of Biden for 10 days. He issued a statement with 12 other GOP Senators calling for postponement because the election “featured unprecedented allegations of voter fraud, violations and lax enforcement of election law, and other voting irregularities.” Cruz manufactured the illusion, knowing it to be the same flat lie that Hawley was propagating. “Ideally, the courts would have heard evidence and resolved these claims of serious election fraud.” That is precisely what courts and election officials spent weeks doing - hearing evidence and resolving all the allegations. Cruz’s home newspaper, the non-partisan, nonprofit Texas Tribune reported on the release of the statement as continuing to pursue unsubstantiated claims of a widespread voter fraud in "disputed states," despite no evidence of fraud.
• Trump's supporters are understandably frustrated by the rampant election fraud, and attempts to demonize or prosecute them will only deepen their justifiable frustrations. A base of 74 million people voted for Trump, and a month after the election, the Washington Times claimed that Fox News analyzed a poll that concluded that 68% of Republicans believe the election was stolen from Trump and that among Trump voters, 77% think he actually won. Lindsey Graham (R-S. Car.), Trump's friend when he chooses to be, ultimately decided not to contest Biden's certification. Two days later, he was greeted with shouts of "traitor" in a chance encounter at a Washington, DC airport. The tweet that has attracted more than 11 million visits shows a crowd yelling, "you know it was rigged." The shrill appeals were to AUDIT OUR VOTE. Those were tame recriminations compared to the "Hang Pence" chants leveled at the vice-president who had traded in his resolute support for Trump's stolen election conspiracy for a statement released the morning of the Capitol insurrection, that he could not stop the certification. True patriots are cowards to allow a rigged election without a fight.
• This has gone too far and the country must be taken back from the election fraudsters, socialists, and dangerous Democrats by true American patriots like those who secured independence from Britain. Derrick Evans, a newly elected GOP legislator from West Virginia, who live streamed himself among those storming the Capitol, yelled, "We're taking this country back whether you like it or not. Today's a test run. We're taking this country back." Though he has since resigned, his grandmother selected Twitter to thank Trump for “invoking a riot at the White House.” [click to appreciate her heartfelt thanks]
Each of the pretexts shares an entrenched, chilling and festering mythology that the election was stolen from Trump. The fervent beliefs reject the decisions of more than 50 courts, both state and federal, many composed of Trump-chosen and Republican judges, including the Supreme Court. They choose to overlook the inability of Trump's lawyers to produce any verifiable evidence of election fraud in any states. Instead, they choose to believe the election was stolen and Trump is the lawful keeper of the throne.
Can you blame thousands upon thousands of people for getting engulfed in a fire that is destined to spread with dry GOP kindling fueling it, with juntas of law enforcement embedded throughout the country, and with right-wing media outlets serving as accelerants?
The Democrats are of course a horse of a different color. They can be clustered by the actions they are intent on taking now to make sure people don't conclude that Trump's actions are without consequences. Though Democrats don’t admit it publicly or have themselves become self-deluding, each action is symbolic, won’t stop or deter Trump from whatever he chooses to do before Jan. 20, and don’t seem to account for the legions of duped Trumpers who believe to the core that Biden isn’t a legitimate president.
• Resignation – In recalling the successful attempts by Republicans in 1974 to cajole Richard Nixon to resign, Democrats tried to convince themselves that Trump has a similar incentive to do so. Resign and have Pence pardon him. Have they just met Donald Trump? He will not go quietly into that good night, as poet Dylan Thomas wrote. “Old age should burn and rave at close of day; Rage, rage against the dying if the light. The man is the ultimate rager.
• 25th Amendment - The House introduced a resolution calling on Pence to invoke the 25th Amendment and vote with Trump’s cabinet to declare Trump unable to perform his duties. Trump has an opportunity first to declare he’s fine, thank you. The House will then give Pence 24 hours to decide with a majority of the cabinet that Trump is not fine. If they do, 2/3 of both houses also have to vote that Trump is unable to discharge his duties. Pence has stated publicly that he’s not game. Other than the actual existence of a 25th Amendment, this Democratic option reads either as a bad joke with no punchline or as the tantrums of a frustrated party that has tried and failed at every turn to suffocate Trump’s presidency. The two-year Mueller investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election, and the first impeachment that culminated in Trumps’ acquittal in the Senate backfired badly. They energized Trump’s base, galvanized his fundraising, spiked his poll approval ratings, and set the stage for him to attract 74 million votes and almost win a second term in office.
• Impeachment – The House drafted one Article of Impeachment for “incitement of insurrection” and approved it by a mostly partisan vote of 232-197. Trump’s phone call to the Georgia Secretary of State, the audio of which is recorded, that tried to get Brad Raffensperger to “find’ the votes that would boost Trump’s total over Biden’s wasn’t included in the article. Before the debate itself, the issue seemed to be fixed on whether an impeachment can be fast-tracked and resolved before Inauguration Day or if this second impeachment will encroach on Biden’s agenda as he opens his term in office. Now that it's been voted up by the House with all deliberate speed, outgoing Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has stated definitely that the earliest possible it can be considered on the Senate floor is Inauguration Day. It’s not, but he’ll make it be, even though at one point, he told associates that he believes Trump has committed impeachable offenses and he’s pleased the Democrats are following through on summary impeachment proceedings.
The Democrats should overcome their frustrations and get on with the buildup to Biden’s presidency. Of course they’re frustrated, as Trump has said of his patriots. Frustration isn’t in short supply and it’s become a dangerous emotion.
In the short run, the sublimely fortunate short run, Trump has the Democrats outmaneuvered again. He is a master conman who has spent his life perfecting the con on bankers, foreign investors, his extended family and the IRS before strutting down the escalator with Melania and a thumb up in 2015 to open the game of using the presidency to con the public, the news media and Republicans who early on considered him to be “a malignant cow” [former Sen. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.)], "unsound, uninformed, unhinged and unfit" [former GOP Gov. Tim Pawlenty from Minn.)], "a con artist (who) is about to take over the Republican Party and the conservative movement and we have to put a stop to it," [Sen. Mark Rubio (R-FL)], "a race-baiting, xenophobic, religious bigot” [Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S. Car.)], and “the distraction.” [Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah)]
Take heed. Biden is president, two corrupt incumbent GOP Senators from Georgia have been defeated by two first-time Democratic challengers, and the Senate will no long be strangled by McConnell and his obstructionist GOP colleagues. Getting on with it is not communicating that Trump’s action have no consequences.
Yes, there’s plenty Trump can and will do in the week he remains president. I expect he will issue 11th hour pardons to his most loyal associates, his entire family, himself and the patriots who honored him at the barricades. He may do more. If he does or doesn’t, Trump has set himself up to be prosecuted in multiple locations in the country. If he can pardon himself at all, it’s only for federal crimes.
My concerns are about his legacy, as I noted above:
• the juntas of law enforcement among the ranks of ICE, Homeland Security, sheriff’s offices, police unions and now Capitol police who are embedded throughout the country. Fortunately his efforts to recruit the military and the FBI failed.
• right-wing media outlets that are spreading like kudzu on television, radio and social media.
• the thousands of people who are building up a fierce resentment and distrust of Biden’s presidency, of science (during a pandemic), and of reliable information.
We have Twitter at least to thank for gumming up Trump’s works.
https://www.facebook.com/jack.doppelt/posts/10159268608171098
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