Mega Thread:

I am so fed up with right wing hardliners on impeachment. I need to go on a rant. The more I interact with these people on here the more I'm pushed away from their position. On 1/6 I was adamant about Trump being at fault. He did not handle that day well IMO 1/

by that weekend, however, I'd started to reflect upon what he'd said and the events and begun to move away from the absolute position that it was all his fault. There were many reasons for this. One was that his rally happened while the break-ins were occurring, 2/
another was that so few people relative to his total followers showed up. Another was the fact that most of his followers I know were similarly outraged and disapproving. Another was that he explicitly said peaceful in all his remarks. And another was that 3/
upon reflection, I realized nothing he said was an escalation in his normal rhetoric, which had never caused any violence beforehand. But now, weeks later, I'm being radicalized in my aforementioned position by the right-wing hardliners who cannot discuss 1/6 4/
without resorting to the most melodramatic hyperbole imaginable. You simply will not gaslight me into viewing a small riot at the Capital as somehow orders of magnitude more grave and dangerous than months of left-wing rioting, or a left-wing insurrection 5/
Sure, the conditions for them aren't the same (but he's the President! they whine), but make no mistake, both are acts of political violence ostensibly sparked by the rhetoric of politicians. One can't be an honest broker and think one urgently needs 6/
punishment where the others are sufficiently addressed by randos condemning them on Twitter. The two go hand-in-hand as symptoms of the political culture in this country currently. And the outsized focus on Trump, plus the melodrama and hyperbole about 1/6 7/
being like the worst thing that's ever happened to the country, the gravest threat to Democracy ever! leads me to assume that Trump is less culpable than portrayed. If he were so clearly at fault, there's no need to hyperbolize that day to the degree impeachment freaks are 8/
Lastly, while impeachment is not a legal process, but a political one, underlying the arguments made for impeachment is that Trump's rhetoric had a predictable outcome. After all, if it was a surprise outcome, then how could Trump be to blame? In law 9/
"foreseeable consequences" are used to derive guilt or lack thereof. To make the argument that the riots were the foreseeable outcome of Trump's rhetoric (as people are) you need to ignore the fact that the people who showed up weren't average MAGA, or the fact that 10/
as a % of his total supporters, the amount who showed up was a rounding error. If half his supporters descended on the Capital on 1/6 you could argue the riots were a foreseeable outcome of his rhetoric, but no one showed up and most of his supporters objected strongly 11/
I keep repeating this last point and it's continually ignored but it really is the only point that matters. A foreseeable consequence of bad rhetoric is not 500 Boogaloo Bois showing up out of 75 million trump supporters. 12/
Based on everything I've just outlined, Trump shares some blame for contributing further to an environment rife with political emotion but he is not impeachment worthy and the more you insist he is, the more I think he's a victim in this. Now whine in my mentions. 13/13

More from Trump

OK, #Squidigation fans, I think we need to talk about the new Wisconsin suit Donald Trump filed - personally - in Federal Court last night. The suit is (as usual) meritless. But it's meritless in new and disturbing ways. This thread will be


Not, I hope, Seth Abramson long. But will see.

I apologize in advance to my wife, who would very much prefer I be billing time (today's a light day, though) and to my assistant, to whom I owe some administrative stuff this will likely keep me from 😃

First, some background. Trump's suit essentially tries to Federalize the Wisconsin Supreme Court complaint his campaign filed, which we discussed here.


If you haven't already, go read that thread. I'm not going to be re-doing the same analysis, and I'm not going to be cross-linking to that discussion as we go. (Sorry, I like you guys, and I see this as public service, but there are limits)

Also, @5DollarFeminist has a good stand-alone thread analyzing the new Federal complaint - it's worth reading as well, though some of the analysis will overlap.
Enough! Reporters doing it again. Both-sidesing. U enable Trump's propaganda by doing this

Reporter's both-sides question:

"What was your role in what happened at the Capitol?

Proper question:

"Are you going to take responsibility for your role in inciting insurrection?"


The press enabled the storming of the Capitol because they never held GOP accountable for pushing #TheBigLie that election was stolen

I have been yelling about this for months. Starting here where @TerryMoran got it right

But after press returned to form


Not long after Nov 4th press started both-sidesing again. Question Republicans were asked over & over was:

"Do u think Biden won?"

This enabled the coup

The proper question at minimum:

"Why are u enabling this charade? Why are u spreading


After repeatedly yelling that press wasn't demanding answers of GOP for spreading #TheBigLie I hoped this political violence on Dec 10th would finally get press to demand answers. But no. They continued to both-sides


I noted how impotent the American press was acting by treating #TheBigLie as credible. The press is supposed to hold people in power accountable, but beside @TerryMoran on election night, they by and large
You’d think that if Pence could overturn the election like Trump claimed then Biden surely would’ve taken up that chance


Also this is such a small thing but one thing I noticed in that Trump campaign ad the defense just ran, there were no citations, unlike every clip that the impeachment managers showed

Michael Van Der Veen is giving us the full Fox News Primetime Defense.

PROCESS ARGUMENT.

DRINK.

Lol my guy this is the chance to rebut the evidence that they’ve presented against Trump.

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