#Republican Donald #Trump has launched his general election campaign not merely rewriting the #history of the #Jan6, 2021, Capitol attack [#insurrection], but positioning the #violent siege & its failed attempt to overturn the 2020 election as a cornerstone of his bid to return to the #WhiteHouse.
At a wknd rally in #Ohio, his first as the presumed #GOP presidential nom, #Trump stood onstage, his hand raised in salute to the brim of his red #MAGA hat, as a recorded chorus of prisoners [#criminals] in #jail for their roles in the #Jan6 attack sang the national anthem.
An announcer asked the crowd to please rise “for the horribly & unfairly treated January 6th hostages.” And people did, & sang along.
Having previously vowed to #pardon the rioters [#insurrectionists], he promised to help them “the first day we get into office.”
Initially relegated to a #fringe theory on the edges of the #Republican Party, the #RevisionistHistory of #Jan6, which Trump amplified during the early days of the #GOP primary campaign to rouse his most devoted voters, remains a rally centerpiece even as he must appeal more broadly to a general election audience.
In heaping praise on the rioters, #Trump is shifting blame for his own role in the run-up to the bloody mob #siege & asking voters to absolve hundreds of them — & himself — over the deadliest attack on a seat of American power in 200 yrs.
At the same time, Trump’s allies are installing 2020 #ElectionDeniers to the #RNC, further institutionalizing the #lies that spurred the #violence. That raises red flags about next year, when #Congress will again be called upon to certify the vote.
Taken together, it’s what those who study #authoritarian regimes warn is a classic case of what’s called #consolidation — where the #state apparatus is being transformed around a singular figure, in this case #Trump.
Jason Stanley, a philosophy prof at Yale, said in #history the question comes up over & over again: How could people not have taken an authoritarian leader at his word about what was going to happen?
@Nonilex Because of this foolish notion called "the inherent goodness of human nature" that gets applied to every marginal biped with a fancy origin story.
@Nonilex
FFS.
We need a mechanism, aside from biannual House elections, whereby We the People can hold Representatives accountable for NOT DOING their damn jobs.
When the GOP holds the majority, every budget becomes a potential shutdown and NO bills are passed, but we can count on meaningless “impeachments,” endless investigations & hearings yielding nothing, tedious censures (except for Republicans), and months of wasted time.
We’d be money & aggravation ahead if we just paid them to stay the hell home in their Districts & not even pretend to be “serving the public.”