spurgeonryan said: Despite what you say, he never told anyone to storm the capital building. Hurt people in the capital building or destroy anything. You all conveniently skipped everything I said and post a vomitous amount of Democrat controlled links in my face. As of right now, former president Trump has not been convicted of anything that has to do with January 6th, so saying he had anything to do with it in any conversation here is a lie and hurts your credibility. |
My take on the Capitol Riots is that what happened is a natural consequence of the rhetoric that America is built on combined with the lies spread by Trump. Whenever rioters overthrow a government who tries to steal an election in South America or Africa, Americans cheer, because we see it as our duty to protect our Republic. Further, the culture surrounding guns is about the defense of rights through violence or the threat of violence. In no small part, this violent defense of rights is what this country was founded on.
Therefore, when someone gets up and says that the election has been stolen (one of the most grievous offenses against rights in a democracy), of course people are going to fight. Further, based on our current system, I struggle to find those actions as inconsistent with the ethos of America.
That is why Trump is at fault. He lied about the election. He lied to people that their rights had been stolen away and that it was their responsibility to fight to get them back. The Capitol Riots were Trump, either through malicious intent or stupidity, manipulating his followers to use violence to "defend their rights". The fundamental problem is not the attack on the Capitol, it is the lie that their rights had been stolen away. In my opinion, if the things Trump said were true, it would have been entirely consistent with the values of this country for the rioters to attack.
And that is precisely why Trump is at fault.
Note: This may be a somewhat hot take. Unsure. I will say that I think we need to change those aspects of our culture and rein in guns and our expectations and explanations for their presence in this country, but that is another conversation.