digby: Donald Trump Planned and Directed the Whole Damn Thing -- Why Is Anybody Still Defending Him?

[babylonsister]

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/heather-digby-parton/103574/donald-trump-planned-and-directed-the-whole-damn-thing-why-is-anybody-still-defending-him


Donald Trump Planned and Directed the Whole Damn Thing — Why Is Anybody Still Defending Him?
by Heather Digby Parton | October 15, 2022 - 7:41am
— from Salon


snip//


As a result of law enforcement's failure to prepare for Jan. 6, Congress was left vulnerable after Trump gave his big speech on the Ellipse, urging his rabid followers to march to the Capitol. (Some of them, in fact, were already there.) He wanted to go there too but his Secret Service detail refused to take him, leading to the purported fight between Trump and his agents in the presidential SUV. What he planned to do there we can only imagine — but now we know what the leaders of the House and Senate were doing during that time: responding to the crisis, which Trump refused to do.

While the president was sitting in the Oval Office dining room reveling in the images of his mob storming the Capitol and threatening to kill Nancy Pelosi and Mike Pence, congressional leaders had been taken to a secure location where they were working hard to get police and National Guard troops to the Capitol to put down the insurrection. As it happens, a documentary crew was on hand that day to record the historic vote and they captured Speaker Pelosi and Sen. Chuck Schumer (then the minority leader) taking charge, calmly reaching out to various government officials and trying to get Cabinet members, including the acting attorney general and acting defense secretary, to persuade Trump to call off the mob. It's an impressive display of leadership, considering they knew they were being hunted like animals as it was happening.

The cumulative effect of all the Jan. 6 hearings, culminating in Thursday's wrap-up of the central narrative, has made clear that Donald Trump set up the coup before the election, was personally involved in the various attempts to execute it, understood that violence was possible on Jan. 6, and incited the crowd to storm the Capitol and refused to take any action to stop them. Everything that happened came at his direction and was done in his name.

Beyond that, Trump has turned the country upside down for two years and built an anti-democratic movement dedicated to destroying the right to vote and sabotaging elections, entirely in service to his injured ego and his refusal to admit that he could ever possibly lose. He is a damaged, destructive narcissist, beyond all help. But the really disturbing question now is why so many people are eager to believe his dangerous fantasies.

[DownriverDem]

1. It's all about holding onto MAGA repub power

They don't care how they keep it either which is why they use lies, fear and hate. I'm white, but MAGA repub voters disgust me on oh so many levels.

[Ray Bruns]

2. Because it's a cult

[UpInArms]

3. 👆🏼

This …

Somehow, flying trump flags and having HUGE signs years after an election has become “normal.”

I am beyond disgusted with the crap I see … trump altars … it makes me nauseous.

[certainot]

19. they're dittoheads. he rode 30 years of alternate reality. he learned his cult politics from his

neighbor and golf partner and kremlin tool - limbaugh.

his part is way overestimated. he's an extremely stupid man who has royal certitude and can deny anything that doesn't fit his reality. he decides what he wants and orders his authoritarian serfs to get it done. he has no imagination or creativity to imagine consequences except getting what he wants.

he told the flynns, millers, stones, bannons, etc what he wanted and they had the 'president's' go ahead to do the planning knowing they had his support however they did it - he just wanted 'it' done.

[Farmer-Rick]

4. Well, he still hasn't been indicted

Maybe after he's indicted and suffers some kind of legal repercussions, then people will start believing TFG did something wrong.

Right now it's just a show. It's just a story with evidence told by Dems. Right now it really makes no difference how Trump betrayed his country, because NOTHING legally has happened.

It means anyone can betray their country and get away with it. It means Trump is some magical being who can attack people and get away with just someone spinning a story.

So far, so good for Trump, despite the story of his betrayal.

[bucolic_frolic]

5. They think him a hero for fighting self-invented oppression & want to do the same for themselves

It's kinda like internal drama queen mentality. The whole world is against them, and they're entitled to more, more, more for me, me, me!

[certainot]

22. on 1500 radio stations for 30 years they've been hearing it from king drama queen limbaugh

dems are like the the hippie who stole their love interest in high school and they've never forgotten.

now it's all "radical leftists" this or that on the radio. trump's gift is his royal certitude and ability to reduce and simplify everything into binary absolutes for his frightened confused black and white-seeking authoritarian sex on the wrong brain followers.

[The Jungle 1]

6. Polling shows that 70% of republicans believe the election was stolen.

The only way past this is to convict trump. We must get a conviction.
The right has presented zero evidence of fraud, yet they still believe him.

[mountain grammy]

7. If the trump mob had taken Pence and hung him

and the picture went viral, they would still defend him. After all, that was the goal.

[Hotler]

8. Why is he still walking free?

[Botany]

9. "Why so many people are eager to believe his dangerous fantasies."

"They" know the truth and they just don't care. To some he scratches their racist anti intellectual
itches and in their twisted minds it lets them own "the libs," to others he lets them pack the courts,
get a trillion dollar tax cut to the rich, get their grift on, and to the multi trillion $ businesses such as
fossil fuels, medicine, insurance, and the others he let them keep fucking the American People and the
enviroment, and to Vlad Putin he was just a tool to tear down America from the inside.

[bpj62]

10. Old Friend

Last night I had drinks with an old friend. His politics have always been to the right but over the past few years he has completely bought in to all the conspiracy theories and everything else that MAGA encapsulates. You cannot reason with them, you cannot show them facts and if you dare question them they get extremely upset. Everything is Joe Bidens or Nancy Pelosi fault. He even told me that the search at Mar Lago was illegal.

So after discussion was done we walked back to his home so I could get my jacket and keys. I also used the bathroom and when I came out he had already turned on the TV to Fox News. He didn't do this to make a point he did this because that is all he knows what to do anymore.

MAGA is a cult and until Trump is locked up or dead the cult will remain. In the meantime I have to re evaluate a friendship of over 50 years.

[Ohioboy]

15. I have a similar friend

Before MAGA I used to wonder how it could be that people would let themselves follow guys like Hitler, and cult leaders like Jim Jones. Now I feel like I'm seeing people I know, even family members, who would have done just that. It's truly frustrating.

[fightforfreedom]

11. Because Trump voters are brainwashed.

[Ohioboy]

12. I say it's because we got rid of the Fairness Doctrine in broadcasting

Limbaugh and others like him built the cult and TFG was a member.

The "other side" or "opposing view" which had been given equal time during the Fairness Doctrine never got heard again once radio stations found out that promoting conspiracies and one-sided politics actually made money for radio stations that were struggling to find content during the 1980s.

For years Limbaugh was able to spew crap unopposed and unchecked. The future MAGA crowd ate it up. The Orange Anus knew what the MAGA crowd wanted to hear and repeated it. All the familiar buzz words and talking points clicked with the MAGAs and Con Man Trump became their dear leader. He was one of them.

They follow TFG and defend him now because not doing so would mean they have been duped, and people have a hard time admitting they've been duped.

Others that directly helped in his coup defend him hoping the mob he created will somehow protect them and vote for them until they can gain enough power to put an end to things like the Jan6 committee that work to expose them. These would be any of the assholes in Congress that still defend TFG.

[intheflow]

13. Wrong.

“ Trump has turned the country upside down for two years…”

Only two years? No. I think he fucked up the country from the second he announced his candidacy, so let’s say it’s been a good 7 years he’s turned the country upside down.

Other than that, this article is spot on.

[Ligyron]

14. The MSM covers him and his followers relentlessly.

It makes them seem more prevalent than they actually are.

I don't think he's really as popular, nor they as many as before, although it might seem that way because of all this free advertising. I think if they actually let him ... and he somehow runs in 2024, he'll lose even worse than before given a halfway free election.

We'll get a clue how as to how likely it will be that MAGAt candidates who loose elections can actually get installed after this next one.

[Botany]

20. For once I wish the MSM would cover his "Bund Rallies"

@ least 25% or more are going to their 2nd or 3rd or 50th rally.

The size of the crowds are getting ever smaller.

A good % of the crowd walks out before he is done yammering.

The black guys or black couples who are behind Trump are paid to be there.

Every time he says ____ hoax or fake _____ fill in the blank you know the exact opposite is true.

[Ligyron]

26. They probably follow him rally to rally in their very expensive RV's.

His rallies are kinda like Grateful Dead or Phish concerts, but for Nazis.

[llashram]

16. Why?

because they are under the sway of a cult leader who has had 60 years to perfect his 'craft' of grift and openly lying, the truth is lies and the lies are truth and his cult with the help of fox news gobbles it up. I much appreciate your OP. You in your OP definitely show the attempted trump degradation of our democracy that culminated on 1/6/21

[cayugafalls]

17. Simple. This is a corporate oligarchy and they want full on fascism.

He who holds the purse strings, determines what we eat.

MONEY rules and somebody big has determined that the marginally sentient spray tan is useful at this time.

[Botany]

21. "The marginally sentient spray tan .... "

[slater71]

18. FOX. And any other right wing talking idiots. telling them what to think.

They won`t believe anything else I have had people tell me that FOX is the only station that tells the truth. If FOX don1t report it then it is not true and nothing to the story. FOX has done more damage to this country as Trump has and they are owned by immigrants.

[dalton99a]

23. Kick

[Hermit-The-Prog]

24. Gangsters Of Putin merged with the U.S. Taliban, directed by Fascist Oligarch eXtremists.

Roe, Roe, Roe your vote
against theocracy!
Republicans revoke your rights
and kill democracy!

THESE are the races that will determine control of the House of Representatives:
https://www.democraticunderground.com/100217206774

Got post-its?
Stick 'em up for a blue wave: https://www.democraticunderground.com/100217078977

[musclecar6]

25. Why

Because they are STUPID. He mounted an insurrection. He defecated in the face of every citizen in the USA, with that stunt.

Hopefully Merrick Garland will soon indict our national disgrace and legally start the process to hold him accountable.