If you're not on Twitter or Bluesky, and you don't read big-name pundits in the New York Times or the Washington Post, you may not know that there are a bunch of people who appear to think it's okay to say that what Donald J. Trump was doing on January 6, 2021 doesn't qualify as insurrection.
Like you (I imagine), I watched what happened that day, and have since read a lot about it, and what led up to it. It was insurrection by any definition, and he was hip-deep in it.
Today's latest attempt to explain why what happened on January 6 doesn't quite qualify comes from New York Times columnist Ross Douthat. I'm not linking to it, but the headline was "Why Jan. 6 Wasn't an Insurrection." He's not even talking about what Trump did: he means the whole attack on the Capitol that day.
All of these "thinkers" seem to think an insurrection has to be successful in order to qualify, as if the concept of attempted murder has never occurred to them.
Someone on Bluesky joked that the Trump mob on January 6 didn't want to overthrow the whole government, just the Executive branch, see — so it doesn't count! That makes just about as much sense as what Douthat wrote.
Moira Donegan, a Guardian columnist, had this to say about it (and other recent topics) on Bluesky:
From “technically it isn’t fascism” to “technically it wasn’t an insurrection” to “technically it’s not a genocide,” our intellectuals are really making a bold show of their commitment to sophistry and semantics above any meaningful confrontation with the realities of their time.
I don't know whether columnists like Douthat (and Bret Stephens earlier in the week) believe this tripe or if they just think it's good fodder for clicks and therefore their paychecks, but either way, they're using their place of power on the editorial pages of the New York Times to normalize a man who wants to end democracy.
When Trump was president, I used to call him Mafia Mulligan on this blog. It was one part for his obvious mob tactics — which are on display in even worse ways these days, with members of Congress afraid for their lives — and the other for the way he has always gotten a second free chance at everything in his spoiled, rich-boy life. This is another example of his mulliganism. Sure, you can be president again! Have at it, even though the 14th Amendment says you're disqualified.
These writers should all resign in disgrace.
1 comment:
Yes! I'm astonished by the number of people who have not firm grip on reality. Shades of Orwell, absolutely, trying to change the meanings of words to suit their purposes. I still don't get where "woke" came from.
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