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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
Amen.
For most of us, virtually all we can do is talk — and try to do so in a way that contributes to understanding and, eventually, action.
This is the most important post on the main feed right now.
There is no evidence that President Trump incited violence. If he had, I would abandon support for him, but thankfully, I don’t have to make that decision.
When the riot began and I started following it, John Gabriel posted his now infamous call to ban Trump. At that time, I commented that it was an embarrassing rush to judgement for the editor.
We now know that there is no call for violence in that speech. The worst that can be said was that the President was raising the temperature and riling people up (he’s done that for 5 years of rallies- I’ve been to a Trump rally- they’ve never broken out into a riot before). That is the worst that can be said, and I will point out that Biden has done the same thing with irresponsible rhetoric and isn’t banned by Big-Tech. I have argued with many friends and some people on Ricochet- none of them can point to the quote in the speech where Trump incited violence.
The rush to judgment was purposeful. It was done by left-wing media to raise the pressure on Republicans and effect the votes that were happening in an attempt to score political points.
For never-Trump conservatives, the rush to judgment provided them with the cover they have been looking for to throw Trump under the bus.
The rush to judgement has enabled Big-Tech to move forward with their previous plans to purge conservatives and conservative speech from their platforms. I say that it was planned ahead of time, because we are seeing simultaneous bans of the same people across all platforms.
It’s embarrassing that the riot effected the voting by the Senators. The public pressure campaign by the media worked. The Senators who changed their vote showed a few negative things: they showed that a pressure campaign works to change their positions. It shows that they weren’t really committed to those positions in the first place. It showed that violence will have an effect on their votes regardless if it has anything at all to do with the issues at hand. Loeffler broke like a straw. I thought Graham had grown a spine after the Kavanaugh Farce, but they got him too.
Mitch McConnell says that the only thing we can’t have in common is our mutual hatred of the other side (paraphrasing his speech). What’s he have to say about all the censorship coming from ONE side?
The media truly is the enemy of the people. Big-Tech can join that list. We need to get our own communication systems up and censor-proof asap if we are going to be able to effectively counter the Democrats. Expect them to come after companies that host websites and also after credit card companies next. That’s where this is going.
You are not the first.
Absolutely terrific comment, TL. Thank you.
I agree with you Henry that it’s not good to redefine what constitutes incitement. Which is why I’m so disappointed in Jon for not responding to my (in my opinion) well reasoned questions as to if he will call for Biden to be impeached or not. The one’s who are calling for impeachment are also the ones redefining what constitutes incitement. For the record, I don’t think Biden should be impeached – yet- but he’s done the same things Trump has. If it’s good for the goose, then it’s good for the gander.
a) Trump says something. Jon (and others) called on Trump’s impeachment based on what they think he said.
b) His reasons were based on a hurried response to an incomplete picture. What Trump actually did, he’s done before, and China Biden has done many times before.
c) If a) is good enough for impeachment, then to be logically consistent b) is good enough for impeachment.
Now I don’t actually think either is good enough for impeachment, but if our side is calling for impeaching our guy, they should also be consistent and call for impeaching the OTHER guy too.
If people who call for Trump to be impeached recant, I’m happy to as well.
Ultimately Henry, what you are advocating is for us to unilaterally accept that people think Trump should be impeached but just disagree with them, instead of demanding that the people calling for his impeachment be consistent. The other side is already redefining what is incitement and don’t appear to be moving from that position.
The easy way out for the people who called on Trump to be impeached is to say they had an incomplete picture of what he said, and now that they know more then are no longer calling for it. If they can’t do that, then there can’t be any peace.
I want to see those calling for impeachment to go after Biden also. Or recant (based on “incomplete information” as an easy way out). I’m extending that olive branch.
What might be the most annoying thing about these last few days is finding out that OUR SIDE is not our side at all.
I would categorize what Drew is calling for as Alinsky’s rule to “make them live by their own standards.” What’s destroying the rule of law in this country is the disparate treatment under the law based on political affinity. What’s it called when free speech is superseded by “appropriate” speech according to the ruling class? Tyranny. That’s what.
And it’s been shocking to see tinges of it here at Ricochet.
I think we need to separate Trump from the insurgents he himself has condemned. That the left takes 10 and turns it into a trillion doesn’t mean there was never a 10. Trump in no way incited violence or an insurrection, but what video I saw of the events in the capitol would fit that term, whether done by BLM, Antifa, or a no-name mob. My guess and prayer is that most Americans will see the left’s BS for what it is. The mis-educated will not, but those grounded in physical things will, I expect.
Oddly I agree with Henry and you guys on this. Henry is speaking reasonably and you are talking tactics. So we have to remind ourselves that the speech was not incitement, and then maybe we have to go full Alinski on them. How many of us have even read Alinski, I wonder.
Is this possible? If everyone who voted for Trump shut down their Facebook and Twitter account and moved to Duck Duck Go for searching, would it hurt their incomes enough to be noticed. Of course, that’s a big if. Most people just want to live a life and will shrug anything off. As I recall, the American Revolution was not supported by everyone, far from it.
I agree, of course. But what if we say, “If what Trump said is incitement, then what Biden said must be also”? And then used terms like “hypocrite” and “liar” for those who refuse to concede the point? We need to valorize intellectual honesty in this country or we are indeed doomed. I am going to bet on the American sense of fair play. If that is actually gone, then there isn’t a whole lot left to defend anyway.
While I don’t think that Trump’s behavior rises to the level of criminal incitement, clearly his language rises to the level of an Abuse of Power. Impeachment does not require the need to show a criminal offense, period.
Perhaps the critics are taking the President seriously instead of literally?
He isn’t literally saying “storm the Capitol” but he is serious in the mistaken belief that his landslide election is being stolen and his multitudes need to “stop” this from happing.
They probably won’t notice it much.
The short term focus should be establishing safe havens that can’t be censored, while long term undoing section 230. Can’t repeal it right now since we don’t have any branches of government, so that will have to wait.
I think I’m going to make a post for the libertarian, free market case for removing Section 230 protections.
@henryracette
This was a good post and needed to be said. Watch as the goalposts move because the left can’t claim incitement for violence as reason for impeachment.
Yes there was violence. It wasn’t insurrection.
That was supposed to have been done already. Ajit Pai, supposedly working for the President on our behalf, was ordered to do it in October. He dragged his feet until Thursday this week when he said, “Nah, I’m not doing anything about Section 230.” And then the bannings began. Coincidence? I don’t think so.
Maybe the President should fire that traitor on his way out the door.
Sure, the critics are taking him seriously and not literally. Could be. The problem is that he’s not figuratively asking anyone to storm the capitol either.
EDIT: I deleted a way over the top portion of this comment.
The same could be said of when Biden demanded a prosecutor be fired for investigating Hunter
I did provide Trump’s inciting language in my comment on your last post on this subject, comment #41. I’ll copy it over:
In addition, Trump repeatedly said “to fight” nand “to stop the steal.” And his rhetorical flourishes got the crowd into into a frenzy where the crowd on cue from his words chanted “Bullshit! Bullshit! Bullshit!”
Now just because he did not directly call for breaking into the Capital does not mean the logic of his rhetoric could not lead others to conclude to do so. As I said above, a logical conclusion from piecing together the elements of his speech, tone, and actions could lead to what happened. Let me put this in bold. If someone in a crowded movie theater says he saw someone playing with matches in the last row and also says he smells smoke, he didn’t yell fire but he drew the crowd to that conclusion. That’s what Trump did.
If that were to happen Dunk Duck go would some how be shutdown. Just like Parlor is being tamed, brought to bend a knee or destroyed. The internet is no long an open platform for all.
Actually, he didn’t even indirectly call for breaking into the Capitol.
EDIT: Wrong thread.
Specifics on the language, please. Something more persuasive than what we’ve received so far, hopefully. You now, something real along the lines of “Let’s head for the Capitol and show those SOB’s what’s what in their own house.”
And under the law that isn’t incitement.
Look at the Deray Mikkelson case.
I just finished a Scott Turow book in which the mantra “People will see what they want to see” was thematically repeated over and over. It’s very true.
I agree. I do not want him impeached at this point. But I do believe this was an impeachable offense. Whether I would convict if there were a substantial amount left to his term, I don’t know. Depends on his defense.
I’m not a lawyer. Are you?