Trump may as you say have called out some despicable behaviour but he never called this out and did all he could, but failed, to stop information being presented to the Insurrection Committee which totally implicates him.
There is now proof that other members of Trumps family urged him, multiple times to get on TV and stop the insurrection. Obviously, Trump was content to watch on TV whilst his VP, Pence and other Democrats were being threatened with being hanged and police also died in the line of duty during the insurrection.
The texts prove he did nothing but watch it unfold on TV. Interview with Republican, Liz Cheney,
I want to be clear here that I'm not having a go at you.
If you have the time and inclination, you might want to do a little digging to see if what you know from the media is the full story. For example, just focussing on Jan 6:
1. The rioters organised themselves on Facebook in the days before Jan 6, before Trump even started delivering the speech that everyone is saying instigated the riot. Is there any actual evidence that Trump or any other federal Republican politicians were involved?
2. Even though there was ample indication that there might be trouble, the authorities were woefully underprepared in terms of manpower, contingency planning and chains of command. Trump was not directly or indirectly in charge of or responsible for this - Democrats and independent agencies were.
3. Trump started speaking at 12pm on January 6 at a rally at the Ellipse - about 2.5km away from the Capitol - about 30 mins walk to the Capitol building. He finished speaking at 1.10pm.
4. During his speech, he called on his supporters to go to the Capitol building and make their voices heard
"peacefully and patriotically".
5. The rioters gathered at the Capitol building by 12.30pm. The violence started at the Capitol at 1pm. So the riot was started by people who were
not at Trump's rally. Further, it started
before Trump said "fight like hell" and "we are going to walk down Pennsylvania Avenue", which is the clip that the media keeps playing as evidence that he instigated the violence. Further, if you read his speech, it's clear that the word "fight" referred to politics, not violence.
6. The Capitol building was first breached by rioters at 2.15pm. Trump tweeted at 2.38pm, 3pm, (by video) at 4pm and again at 6pm calling for the protestors to be peaceful, non-violent and to go home. In that context, why are the texts urging Trump to speak out so damning in your view?
7. Sometime after 6pm and before 8pm, the Capitol Building is finally cleared of rioters.
8. At 7pm, Facebook and Twitter delete Trump's posts, because he is still claiming the election was stolen/rigged.
9. At 8pm, Congress resumes and eventually ratifies the election results at 3.40am in the morning.
10. In relation to the deaths of the police officers - do you know their names, what time/date they died, and their cause of death? Find out - you may be surprised.
11. Ask yourself why there is a major and high profile inquiry into political involvement in the Jan 6th riot and not into the BLM riots. Which caused more death, destruction and fear? Which were more openly encouraged/supported/condoned by US politicians? Why did the Democrats resist an investigation into why the security arrangements on Jan 6th were so woeful? Do you think Trump might be resisting the inquiry because the inquiry is a political stunt trying to disqualify Trump from running in 2024?
My source for the timeline is the Washington Post:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/interactive/2021/capitol-insurrection-visual-timeline/
To be very clear, I'm not suggesting Trump was blameless - far from it. He failed on so many levels. He failed to be statesmanlike when he lost. He continued to use inflammatory rhetoric on and in the days and months leading up to Jan 6. He failed to prove any of the voter fraud he was claiming. He failed to protect election integrity. He failed to address social media platform bias and to fix the law that allowed big tech to censor political discussions without repercussions - and as a result he was de-platformed himself while he was still President. He failed to address media bias and bad faith (although he at least tried). He failed to effectively hold key Democrats to account for stoking the BLM riots. He failed to make the right legal arguments at the right time to show the Dems had changed voting rules illegally. He put incompetents and nut-jobs in charge of his election legal team. His post election conduct cost the Republicans the Senate majority because he lost two seats in Georgia they should have won. He shouldn't have tried to pressure Pence and others to overturn the election. He should have conceded, but he was too full of himself to admit he lost. The list goes on.
I'm not even saying that the above points will or even should change your mind about anything.
All I'm saying is that we aren't given anything like a fair representation of the facts by the media - whether it's CNN or FOX or ABC, Sky, DW, Young Turks, Facebook, Twitter, or whatever, or any of the Australian Media for that matter (they're bad but not as bad as the US media thankfully).
And finally, I of course have my own biases and gaps in knowledge. I'm happy to have a civil discussion and be proved wrong on any point. I like being wrong, it means I've learned something.
