Peter Wehner writes (Republicans Own This Insurrection The Atlantic 01/07/2021), "President Trump is the architect of this insurrection, but so are his acolytes."
Wehner rightly points to the Republican Party and the larger movement and the ways its authoritarian tendencies, though he doesn't use that phrase. But I actually think he casts his rhetorical net so wide that it tends to diffuse the responsibility far too much. I'm not inclined to give Trump voters any excuses. But there are millions of voters who are a long way from being political junkies. People learn pretty early on in life to give cautious and vague reasons for their political choices and opinions. But there are a wide range of factors affecting people's political opinions.
Including name recognition. So Trump in 2016 had the dual advantage of being a famous face with a vaguely defined political profile. A lot of people could project a variety of different expectations onto him. And his opponent Hillary Clinton was a well-known figure, which gave her both advantages and disadvantages. I would argue that Trump's genuinely irresponsible, chaotic behavior gave any voter strong reasons to vote against him. But it makes no sense to blur the level of responsibility an individual voter carries for the Trump nightmare with that of senior elected officials, Cabinet members, or senior advisors.
The Republican Party has been remolding itself into a more and more authoritarian party for years. And into a more and more lawless one. So looking at important figures in the Republican Party - and their alibis - is very necessary and important, as Wehner does here:
We will now hear a conga line of Republicans and people on the right—the very ones who in one way or another empowered this malicious president—condemn Trump, less than two weeks before he leaves office. They will act shocked—shocked!—that Trump incited the mob and then condoned what it did. Some of them will act as if no one could have seen this coming; others will tell us it was inevitable, even as they didn’t lift a finger to stop it. They will reach for words to express their horror, their sadness, their moral outrage.Mitt Romney was the only Republicans Senator to vote for impeachment, so he distinguished himself as a Trump critic in that way. In terms of his politics and his class perspective, Romney is a plutocrat who believes in government of, by, and for plutocrats. But in Trump's case he was willing to stick with the rules of democracy and rule of law, however fine he may be with the way money distorts that system in practice.
“This is what you’ve gotten, guys,” Senator Mitt Romney of Utah said to his colleagues who were promoting the president’s conspiracy theories in Congress as the siege unfolded. “This is what the president has caused today, this insurrection,” he said later.
But here’s the thing. Mitt Romney stood almost alone among elected Republicans during the Trump presidency. He was viewed as a pariah, a troublemaker, a traitor, a RINO (“Republican in Name Only”). So were a few others who don’t serve in Congress but who have been part of the Republican Party for their entire adult lives, and who could not stay silent as Donald Trump took a blowtorch to our country and its ideals. [my emphasis]
But whether Republicans say the right words or not is not nearly so important as legal accountability for those members of the Trump Administration who committed serious crimes, and those connected to them. Without that, no amounts of pious statements from Republican politicians about the claimed principles will make much difference at all. The Republican Party of January 2021 is an anti-democracy party that is willing to allow Republican Administrations to operate as crimes syndicates.
No matter how unpleasant it may be for the Biden-Harris Administration, they and the Democratic Congress have a responsibility to see that the criminals of the Trump-Pence Administration face legal consequences, including not least for the Trump goon squad's storming of the US Capitol this past Wednesday.
Adam Klasfeld looks at legal impolications of the Capitol invasion in As Reports Say Trump Has Discussed Self-Pardon, Federal Prosecutor Doesn’t Rule Out Investigating Trump’s Role in Capitol Riot Law and Crime 01/07/2021:
Acting U.S. Attorney Michael Sherwin answered in the affirmative when asked a direct question about whether his probe would examine incendiary statements by speakers at Trump’s rally before his mob of supporters.David Yaffe-Bellany and Chris Dolmetsch report for Bloomberg News (Trump’s Role in Capitol Riot May Figure in Criminal Probe 01/07/2021) that 55 fedreal charges have so far been filed over the Capitol storming. And also:
“Yes, we are looking at all actors here, not only the people that went into the building, but […] were there others that maybe assisted or facilitated or played some ancillary role in this. We will look at every actor and all criminal charges,” Sherwin said, in a quote excerpted by the Washington Post.
Trump urged the mob to “fight like hell,” during a speech delivered shortly before throngs breached the Capitol, destroying property, ransacking lawmakers’ offices, and menacing officials. Four were dead in its wake.
Asked whether the U.S. Attorney’s office would scrutinize the president’s role in inciting the storming of the Capitol, Michael Sherwin, the acting U.S. Attorney in Washington, said at a press conference that “all actors” are being looked at.Bryce Klehm and Rohini Kurup have a blog post to link to federal criminal charging documents on the Capitol invasion, Compiling the Criminal Charges Following the Capitol Riot Lawfare 01/07/2021
“Anyone that had a role, and the evidence fits the elements of a crime, they’re going to be charged,” Sherwin said.
Trump addressed a crowd Wednesday and urged his supporters to go the Capitol, saying they would “never take back our country with weakness.”
The violent mob then stormed the Capitol, charging past police barriers, smashing windows and sending lawmakers fleeing for safety. The riot, which resulted in four deaths, forced members of Congress to temporarily abandon their formal certification of President-elect Joe Biden’s victory in the November election.
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