Former President Obama: Attack on Capitol was a "violent crescendo" incited by Trump's lies
Source: Vox
Former President Barack Obama on Wednesday issued a statement condemning the rioters who stormed the US Capitol, and in it he made an important point about the assault: “We’d be kidding ourselves if we treated it as a total surprise.”
In comments posted to Twitter, Obama both denounced the violence that President Donald Trump’s supporters engaged in and called out several factors that helped build up to this moment. Most important among them: that Trump — and some of his Republican allies — have spread lies about the election results for weeks, fueling discontent with the outcome among his supporters.
“For two months now, a political party and its accompanying media ecosystem has too often been unwilling to tell their followers the truth — that this was not a particularly close election and that President-elect Joe Biden will be inaugurated on January 20,” Obama wrote. “Their fantasy narrative has spiraled further and further from reality, and it builds upon years of sown resentments. Now, we’re seeing the consequences, whipped up into a violent crescendo.”
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Obama explicitly called on Republican lawmakers to take a stand against the baseless claims Trump has made about the election as they finish the Electoral College vote count. He praised GOP leaders who’ve already done so and stressed that those who hadn’t had an important decision to make.
Read more: https://www.vox.com/2021/1/6/22217975/president-barack-obama-capitol-trump-election-fraud
“We’d be kidding ourselves if we treated it as a total surprise.”
Link to tweet
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