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Bigger Than Trump
Having now reviewed everything I can find on what the President actually said at the protest in D.C., I can state with confidence that he did not cross a line into legally actionable speech. The bar set for classifying speech as criminal is pretty high, and the President did not even come close to meeting it.
Try to set aside what you think about President Trump. That’s a stretch goal for a lot of us, but let’s stretch: consider, for just a moment, that there might be an issue here that’s bigger than the President himself, and that could have repercussions that go far beyond January of 2021.
Those who call for the President’s removal from office are asking that punitive action be taken — in fact, that the most punitive action which can be taken, in the case of the Chief Executive, be taken — for his exercise of constitutionally protected speech.
Let that sink in. If the most powerful man in the United States can receive the highest punishment which Congress can mete out for the non-crime of speaking in a way that offends many people, then what protection does anyone have to speak freely? What does it mean to set a precedent that a sitting President can be removed from office for constitutionally protected speech?
During the Kavanaugh hearings, I argued that it was critical that the Senate confirm the nominee following the vague and unsubstantiated allegations made by Ms. Ford. A failure to do so would diminish the Senate’s authority by signaling that any future nominee could be derailed by nothing more than an unverifiable claim of past misbehavior.
Something even greater than that is at stake here. If we remove the sitting President, a man who received, barely two months ago, the support of more than seventy million Americans, that decision should be rooted in the most profound and solid Constitutional reasoning. Anything less elevates virtue signaling above the Constitution, and both endorses and enshrines the left’s view that the right not to be offended transcends freedom of speech and the rule of law.
If this disregard for law and the Constitution were coming only from the left, from people who already held neither law nor the Constitution in high esteem, I could almost overlook it as merely more of the unprincipled toxicity of the progressive movement. But some on the right are falling for this too — as evidenced by Ricochet’s own misguided rush-to-judgment piece a few days ago.
It’s time to put one’s feelings about the President aside, and to take a hard-headed look at the law and the Constitutional principles that are at stake. Everyone’s right to free expression is in the dock right now. That serves a left that has already embraced censorship and controlled speech. We on the right must do better.
Published in General
It remains far from certain, perhaps far from even likely, that it was actual Trump supporters who initiated/caused/conducted the real violence. BLM/Antifa agitators at the events have been identified.
I’m sorry, have you not met Gary before?
Some have been arguing, perhaps based on video time stamps etc, that events at the capitol started while Trump was still speaking. Which might indicate that the agitators etc didn’t have their timing coordinated properly.
Which then leads to the question, who started the mob that others got caught up in? Perhaps BLM/Antifa, on purpose? It sure wouldn’t be the first time.
I’m undecided on impeachment. But what I do know is this – everyone who fell for Trump’s con after the election was his mark. They were the targets, not the Democrats.
We’ve been told for years it was important to take Trump seriously, not literally, so I’m not going to parse each and every word. What did he think was going to happen when he fired up people for two months with nonsense about Dominion and fraud, fraud, fraud? Anyone with a lick of sense knew within a couple of weeks that he wasn’t going to litigate his way to success, as many pointed out here on Ricochet. Anyone without even a lick of sense knew it was over on Dec 14 when the electors cast their ballots. Yet he went on and on, inflaming his followers with nonsense that a ceremonial event on Jan 6 was their opportunity to stop the fraud. He would tweet anything supportive of him, no matter how stupid. He simply didn’t care if it was accurate or even plausible.
And we all know that if it hadn’t been just a few hundred crazies assaulting the Capitol, but 25,000 holding Congress hostage and forcing them to change the electoral vote certification Donald Trump would have been pleased as punch. And because Donald Trump is all improvisation and not thinking ahead, then what? Joe Biden would still be our next president.
After mid-November he had one job to do. Help hold the Senate. He had one job to do and he sabotaged it. Someone who really was thinking about America and his supporters would have taken a different path, but that was not Donald Trump, because in the end it was all about him, not us.
He betrayed all of us who took a chance on him and now we are left holding the bag. We would be chumps if we did not understand that.
I’ll be sure to let you know when God punishes me for opposing Trump. Only He knows how much damage I’ve caused but I’m sure it’s quite a tab. Hope He takes credit cards!
That’s not what “punishment/suffering along the way [to getting over it]” would be, of course, but thank you for being consistently ridiculous.
I really really hate being on Gary’s side now but to my understanding a president does not have to commit a crime to be impeached. If for instance there was more time to Trump’s stay in office and he continued to coordinate more marches “to stop the steal” after what just happened, then yes impeachment and removal would be warranted.
One thousand “Likes” for this comment. Trump’s actions and speech throughout these two months contributed to what happened at the Capital. He wasn’t man enough to accept defeat graciously and work toward the future. Instead he created the atmosphere for an insurrection.
Hell, if he just hadn’t run for President in 2016 this wouldn’t have happened. Every rally he has had since then has contributed to this.
Stop trying to think your way into that position.
Also assuming facts not in evidence. How eager are YOU to be “graciously” cheated out of something you at least arguably won, especially without a real chance to prove it? Especially when the stakes are so high.
Think my way into what? It’s true.
I understand that this is a more palatable option, but if it’s true: who are they?
There are an awful lot of fact checking sites that say there is no proof of Antifa members being present for the violence, and some even disprove some claims. It would be good to see the claims supported as well – because any crowd is vulnerable to infiltration by motivated actors, be they from the Left or from the Right.
It makes sense that they would have been there.
The press was really pumping up the idea that Trump was not going to leave quietly or on time. It seemed to me to be a rationale for why the Antifa and BLM agitators would already have been there anyway.
Stop trying to explain away his asinine behavior over the past two months. He played right into the hands of his worst enemies. We will pay the price.
Here’s the most recent example I saw, starting at comment 78. there have been others.
https://ricochet.com/860612/just-yesterday-i-wrote-that-ricochet-should-join-the-conversation-never-mind/comment-page-3/
And there would have been less reason for them to actually be at the speech, rather than immediately go to the capitol building. Which could also explain why they started “too soon” without giving time for people to get there after the speech was over, to make it appear more authentic.
If that’s true, Trump was just the very end of it, the path was already set by NTers and others who voted for Biden, in addition to media fraud, and at least arguable election fraud. Why only blame the tail but not the dog?
Doc, I think DA is actually probably right about this. The definition of “high crimes and misdemeanors” is left to Congress, which has interpreted it pretty broadly.
I happen to think that Trump does not meet that standard based on any reasonable definition, but if you wave your hands sufficiently quickly and use sufficiently inflammatory language, and close one eye and stand on one foot, you can kind of get there.
Everytime Trump’s lawyers had a chance to substantiate fraud claims they backed off. Instead we were left with the Dominion Software/CCP/Mossad/MI6/pedophile conspiracy lawyers and apparently all sorts of GOP figures who’d been 100% with Trump like Kemp, Ducey, Pence were now part of the conspiracy because they refused to endorse the lunacy. Purely as a legal and a political matter this was obvious by mid-November but apparently no one could talk sense into Trump. You got played.
Oh please. When a court of law substantiates any of these claims of fraud, then I’ll believe it. Otherwise we have hearsay and fake news. You may not believe this, but there is fake news on the right as well as the left. Who do you see in any level of responsible office still claiming that there was wide scale fraud? As the Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger told Trump when Trump told him to find 12,000 votes:
No court of law has found any wide scale fraud. You want to believe the garbage on TV or internet outlets or just plain BS across blogs and even Ricochet, you do so to create an alternative universe. Trump fed on that BS and stoked the problem these last two months.
Didn’t that happen about a year ago? Then when he was defending himself, he was wasn’t paying enough attention to the ‘Rona.
I agree with you, Manny. Because there are no more legal recourses open to him, and anything he did from here forward would be extra-Constitutional.
But I was in favor of him exhausting every legal remedy, not because I wanted or expected him to prevail, but because I wanted fraud exposed. He exhausted every legal remedy. I don’t think we’ve succeeded in exposing the fraud that occurred. It think too many people, even on our side, have prioritized removing Trump over securing electoral integrity. And that’s unfortunate.
I honestly don’t care whether it was Trump supporters or left-wing plants who broke into the Capitol building. They should be dealt with appropriately. My impression, based on on-the-scene reporting, is that it was a generally nonviolent event, different in character to the burning and looting to which we’ve all become accustomed. But be that as it may, the law should be upheld.
“Trump supporters” include everyone from the hard-core Trump-is-always-right extremist, to someone like me, to someone who grudgingly supports a man they really dislike. The fact that it’s a big group of diverse people is good, and if some of them behave badly, that’s to be expected. Uphold the law, but don’t tar the lot with the bad behavior of a few.
News item to add to the mix:
Edit: I should add, though I personally think what he did is impeachable, I hope they don’t do it. It’s not worth the further division in the country. Everyone should just let the transition go quietly.
Absent a clear statement of justification, these “I think he did an impeachable thing” comments are merely political posturing, regardless of who says them.
I think a lot of people are opportunistically distancing themselves from a man they believe is toxic. I think they’re behaving poorly, rejecting principle and reason in favor of political economy. But that’s hardly unusual.
The claim of infiltration by Antifa and BLM smacks of more conspiracy theories or fake news. Someone throws a claim out there, it gets picked up on the internet, and millions of passionate people suddenly believe it. This goes on with the left and the right. We are all living in alternative universes built on delusions and lies.
Though over some time in these two months I grew to disbelieve any of the fraud claims, I too wanted him to exhaust every avenue. I supported the Senators and Congressmen who were going to vote against the election confirmation. It’s too bad the mob broke into the Capital. I would love to have seen the outcome. Perhaps we would have gotten real election reform as an outcome. Now we really get nothing.
There really was at least one BLM supporter there (thank you @kedavis), though he’s apparently also been arrested since this article was published. How significant he was I don’t know.