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Incitement to Violence?
I want to respond to something that I’m encountering in various forums, this idea that the President incited the mob to violence.
I can find nothing in the President’s various comments that can plausibly be interpreted as a call to violence. Impassioned speech, unsubstantiated claims of fraud and victory, and an enthusiastic rallying of his supporters, I can find all of those things. But at no point does he call upon the people assembled to commit criminal acts.
(Rudy Giuliani is on shakier ground, I think. His choice of words was astoundingly poor; with all due respect to the man, I think he should have left the public eye years ago, and encourage him to do so now. I don’t know how his comments relate, in terms of timing and exposure, to the behavior of the small portion of the crowd that acted illegally, but I think he may well have exposed himself to serious and legitimate criticism. [Update: Or maybe not. I have to read more of what he said.])
But I can find nothing in the President’s words that any responsible adult would consider constitutes a call to violence.
This is important. The left would very much like to equate speech with violence, and to criminalize speech of which it doesn’t approve. This is a core thesis of Antifa, that violence in response to speech is justified when Antifa doesn’t approve of the speech. This is the “it’s okay to punch a Nazi” school of thought, and the justification for everything from Facebook and Twitter’s bald censorship of “wrong-think” to the shouting down of guest speakers at America’s premier universities. It’s wrong, it’s antithetical to essential American values, and it must be opposed.
Trump may well have been ham-handed, unwise, desperate, misguided, and simply wrong in his insistence that, absent fraud, he won the election in a landslide. All of that can be debated. But that does not constitute an incitement to violence, no matter how inelegant and undignified one considers his comments to be.
If someone can provide me examples of an actual incitement to violence by Trump, I’ll change my opinion. Otherwise, I encourage people to put respect for our freedom of expression ahead of their dislike for this President, and to stand for freedom as the higher good. Criticize him all you want, but don’t call for impeachment unless you want to make the argument that speech you find offensive constitutes a “high crime or misdemeanor.” Because the left would love to go there, and we shouldn’t be eager to give it our help.
Published in General
Ann Althouse (my favorite liberal) asks this same question.
Mickey Kaus asked the same question yesterday:
This is also why I was so miffed at our guys calling this insurrection or a coup. This is more examples of everyone intentionally adding smoke rather than clearing it. I think they’re all doing it on purpose.
Whereas I think they’re doing it because they really, really don’t like Trump, and they’re willing to be sloppy and lazy and throw a bone to the speech-is-violence crowd if it means they can finally get rid of this guy they hate.
Truth is dead. There is only lies and retribution as we Build Back Better.
We are seeing a lot of mob behavior this week. I find the technology oligarchical mob more disturbing than the viking hat one.
That’s essentially what I mean, but I accept the nuanced difference too.
Isn’t that the same thing?
I’ll bring the phrase up again: Reichstag fire. It could also be referred to as “Charlottsville hoax all over again”.
I’ve reproduced a couple of parts of the speech that are supposed to be inflammatory. They’re not.
I’ve asked for some who are pushing this line here to provide some examples of “incitement.” They haven’t.
Yeah, pretty much. I guess the difference is that I think they’re more lazy than sinister. But it comes out about the same.
I think this is an example of folks on the right making a deal with the Devil. They’re willing to tacitly embrace the left’s speech-is-violence shtick if it gives them an excuse to throw out a guy who really offends them. In a sense, they’re doing a small, limited version of the Max Boot or Jennifer Ruben routine of sacrificing principle to salve their offended sense of decorum.
My take on it, anyway.
I felt that some fact checking was in order as well. I read the entire speech. Agree with all of your adjectives: ham-handed, unwise, desperate, misguided, and simply wrong. But he called on supporters to walk to the capitol and show support. He did not call for violence that I can see.
I simply cannot believe that a hundred or so morons can bring down the Republican Party.
I don’t either.
But the disturbing thing is this. We’ve spent years watching the left making accusations based on vague inferences, and ducking calls for specifics. We said words have consequences and where are the words? Now we see the same thing from those allegedly on our side right here. Where are the words?
This is, ultimately, a free speech issue. The principle transcends Trump. People can insult him and his judgment all they want, but anyone who tries to equate speech with criminality, but who won’t identify an instance of the specific and narrow range of speech that actually qualifies as criminal, should be called on it. It’s a stand worth taking.
Is it just me, or does this debacle strongly resemble an episode from “House of Cards?”
Cui bono?
Probably. I’ve never seen the show.
I want to talk about incitement.
Earlier this week a mob descended on Josh Hawley’s home, threatening him and his family.
Did our incoming President address this? In a way. Yesterday, Gropey Joe declared him a Nazi. Which is pretty much a wink and a nod that mobs going to Senator Hawley’s home is perfectly acceptable. After all, he’s a Nazi, right?
Gropey Joe could have said “That’s not okay!” Instead he signaled his approval.
Can we call Gropey Joe’s words “incitement”?
Yes, I think so.
No. I’m going to take a pretty hard stand on this “incitement” thing.
“We’re going to walk down to the Capitol, and we’re going to cheer on our brave senators and congressmen and women, and we’re probably not going to be cheering so much for some of them,” Trump told his supporters at a rally outside the White House. “Because you’ll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength, and you have to be strong.”
After hearing those words, don’t we all want to run to our gun cabinets?
If there hadn’t been any violence, could Trump be prosecuted or impeached for what he said? That’s the test.
If he had explicitly told his followers to attack the Capitol, and they didn’t do it, could he have been prosecuted or impeached? Of course.
So it’s all about what he said, and how a reasonable person interprets it. Not about what happened after he said it.
My problem is with his actions or lack thereof after things got out of control.
I agree, but we also need to take a hard line on unequal application of law. In saner times we could decry the hypocrisy and bias and move on lest we whine. Things are getting punchy now, though. If there’s no shutting this crap down then, I hate to say it, those people at the capitol on 1/6 may have been more prescient and clear headed than seditious or crazed.
I’m not willing to make the first move. They say that the President incited a riot. I say China Joe is inciting his followers to assassinate Hawley and Cruz. I won’t back away from that until Nancy does.
He said repeatedly: go home in peace. Stop playing into their hands. Stop accepting the premise whatsoever. There is no nuance here, no one will recognize or reward it. This is not incitement, the protest may have crossed into a mild riot but it was not insurrection or a coup. This riot is no worse than what we’ve seen all year, especially not because it was at the capitol as if that should be more important than some small buisiness in Kenosha.
Keep it up everyone, and see what happens. I will not go in for the rigged game anymore. This has nothing whatsoever to do with Trump – we’re losing our liberty and we’re losing our government to corruption, overreach, authoritarianism. Republicans especially better take note – your credibility is hanging by a thread. At least it is with me.
This is the dilemma we’re in. We’re no longer just talking about who harrumphed first and whether harrumphing is couth. Things are kinetic now. It’s dangerous and foolish for us to let the guard down until all weapons are safely stowed.
I’m going to call it incitement until the left decides that consistency is a good thing.
Drew, I appreciate your passion. But as I tried to articulate in the post I just posted (Bigger Than Trump), there are fundamental issues at stake here, and our disregarding the Constitution just because the other side does is not how we win the bigger fight.
Not sure where the Constitution comes into this. I’m thinking game theory. Until we push back at the left with an equal or greater force than they’re using against us, we will always lose. Because they’re not going be chastened by us always being chumps.
And call him racist and authoritarian too. First because it’s true, and second because it’s going to either mean something real or it’s going to mean nothing. What it’s not going to be is a one way weapon. No longer.
And it’s possible that we’re actually talking about two slightly different things here, Drew. I’ll try to explain.
What happened in D.C. during the Capitol break-in was a violation of the law. What the President said, however, was not. It’s possible to be critical of the President without accusing him of breaking the law. Those who accuse the President of having broken the law, of having “incited” illegal activity, are mistaken. If we allow them to succeed in this redefinition of legal speech, then we surrender our right to legal speech and grant authorities the ability to punish us for exercising our constitutional rights.
If we decide that we should fight fire with fire and make the same kind of claim against Biden, that he’s somehow doing something illegal when he exercise his constitutionally protected speech rights, then we’re joining in the redefinition of what “free speech” actually means. We shouldn’t do that. Whatever else we do, we should stop short of endorsing the idea that legal, constitutionally protected speech is in any way criminal — even if the left attempts to use that tactic.
I am much more sympathetic to those who break the law than I am to those who attempt to redefine the law. We can deal with lawbreakers more easily than we can re-establish the meaning of the law once both sides have agreed to change that meaning into something else.
I agree Henry. This isn’t about Trump. It never was, no matter how often people said so. Cult of personality is just as much of a fiction as racist and fascist.
We can talk about the bigger prize, sure. That’s exactly what Drew is talking about. Look at what you just typed though: one side is disregarding the Constitution. When will we wake up to the existential crisis we’re in? Will it matter if we refer to Joe Biden as inciting if one side is disregarding the Constitution? It feels very much like you’re disregarding the melee going on around you.
I’ve been waiting for a few years for Republicans to insist on restoration of Constitutional order. They haven’t done it. What’s next? That’s a serious question. What’s next? I’m looking for leadership, and we get our elected leaders talking about insurrection; I’m looking for order and we get talk about impeachment over more ginned up crap.
Saying that Joe Biden incited violence against Hawley is really far down the list of things causing problems right now.
Ed, I appreciate the challenge. And many of us are awake to the existential crisis. I hope my comment #27, above, makes more clear what I’m trying to say to Drew.
It does and I appreciate it too. After several days of the madness I think it’s beginning to crystallize for me that we need to clearly prioritize, that I’m looking for leadership that can demonstrate they know what needs to be done right now, that knows what is existential right now. Hang nails and arthritis should be attended to, but not before we stop the sever bleeding further up the arm. I get that you’re not the timid/incompetent/false Republican apparatus we are saddled with, but even at our level I’m interested in getting out of the bog and fog – concentrated focus on the existential matters is the most important thing right now. I want the country we used to be where this kind of question mattered, but the truth is that it doesn’t matter right now.