What is the purpose of the NSA and FBI if they can’t prevent something this obvious? Wasn’t the supposed bargain that nearly unlimited surveillance of Americans would prevent terrorism? What should be done with agencies incapable of fulfilling their most basic functions?
Blurting out the words "be peaceful" during a half hour word salad about the evil Democrats stealing an election isn't "explicit", it's a pathetic attempt at doublespeak and plausible deniability.
It's not fooling anyone but the brain dead and comatose.
Even his mid event video was the same. A quick "you need to go home" sandwiched between minutes of babel about how he thinks they are doing the right thing and that he loves them.
> Blurting out the words "be peaceful" during a half hour word salad about the evil Democrats stealing an election isn't "explicit", it's a pathetic attempt at doublespeak and plausible deniability.
I'm sorry to say it, but you're a textbook example of what a confirmation bias is. You ignore what doesn't fit your conclusion and fill the holes with what you the same conclusion.
The proof that this is BS is simple, if it was "clear" he called for the storming of the Capitol, it would have been "clear" for everyone and more security measures would have been taken and news organization would were digging actively for this kind of stuff would have jumped on that story. But they didn't, because there was no call by Trump except in the head of those who want it to be true after the fact.
I keep coming up against this phenomenon when discussing online. People on both sides take license to interpret the words of Trump to mean whatever they want it to.
Calling this confirmation bias is too generous. Trump's statements are simply a Rorschach test at this point. The content of his statements is immaterial to the conclusions drawn from them.
Maybe be telling people for weeks that the election was a fraud (without providing proof, and presenting "bogus" proof), that he actually had won, and saying the result would not be accepted?
P.S.: I'm not american and never have been to USA.
If "telling people that the election was a fraud" is equivalent to encouraging insurrection, you'd need to convict everyone who pushed the Trump/Russia narrative for years. So basically every leftist media entity and person and many of the politicians too.
Hell, we can go back to 2000, butterfly ballots, Diebold voting machines, and so on and so forth.
People are allowed to question election integrity.
>People are allowed to question election integrity.
Of course they are but at what standard of evidence do they hold themselves to to accept that it might not be true in the end?
You can question anything you want but there is a point where being a doubtless unwavering sceptic biased toward a particular cause will make you slip into cynicism and denial.
Too many people here are unable to distance themselves from their ideological contempt for Trump to be able analyze this with a clear mind. There is not much of a case that Trump "incited" a riot. The fact that this was planned for months only further cements that.
Check your own biases. He was telling a huge crowd that the election was stolen, he would show proof the same day (we are still waiting), and they “will not stand down”. What else is needed to make that case?
Like it or not, Trump is allowed to dispute the results of the election. He's also allowed to do so openly and to a crowd. Language like "will not stand down" is obviously in reference to the "fight" for his "case" and falls in line exactly with the language he had been using at previous rallies and on Twitter. Was he "inciting" a riot then?
I hate that I even have to say this, because it seems childishly unnecessary, but I am not a fan of Trump. But I feel there is enough to condemn him for without grasping for straws.
I think we can at least agree that despite his double-speak, the fact that he has been stirring his crowd to act on the 'steal' is not inconsequential.
It seems unlikely that he would not have been briefed on the plots that were being organised and the dangers of feeding this crowd that rhetoric.
He has a large responsibility in inciting the level of denial that have led to his supporters to intimidate or threaten officials, many from his own party no less.
Allowing this to go for weeks without disavowing or distancing himself publicly has only embolden a crowd that believed in the legitimacy of their actions because the president would not say otherwise.
Maybe we can be generous and say that things got out of hand but that would only show some lack of responsible judgement on his part and I'm not sure it's not somehow even worse.
But the president should have a moral obligation to only talk about actual fraud, not things he wants to have been fraud.
He spent months before the election saying how the postal votes were fraudulent, had his allies set the rules on counting so they would be counted later than other votes (in critical states) and then used that pattern of lots of "late votes" "appearing" as evidence of fraud - when in fact it was the entirely predictable consequences of how it was setup up.
What else is needed to make that case is actually incitement. He did no such thing, although the speech was obviously irresponsible. Here in the States incitement has a strict legal meaning and its conditions are nowhere near satisfied by his speech.
The Pulse nightclub shooter was reported directly to the FBI for being suspicious at a gun store prior to the attack. They did nothing. The surveillance was rolled out under the guise of protecting you, but it never has. It's for control.
