Various outtakes of Trump's speech the day after January 6th were released by the January 6th Committee. And they show Trump, who clearly resisted making the speech at all until it became clear to him that he might literally be removed from office if he did not say or do something, having a lot of trouble making the speech. The speech was supposedly to try and restore order following the chaos from the day before. But that was difficult for Trump to do, since the mob consisted of people loyal to him. Also, it is all too clear that he still cannot admit that the election is over. In other words, despite by then knowing full well that his continued resistance could and would spark outright violence, he refuses to acknowledge that he lost the 2020 election.
Matthew Pottinger, the former Deputy National Security Advisor of the United States under Trump, said that while Trump had every right to challenge the results of the election in the courts - and remember that Biden made it clear that not one avenue was denied the Trump team in challenging the 2020 election results - which they did. However, he said, once you've had due process under the law, you then have to conform with the law, regardless of how bitter you may feel towards it. This is clearly not what Donald Trump, and his most ardent supporters, did.
One thing about Team Trump: they refused to even argue massive voter fraud when they went to court, an inconvenient fact that they did not advertise to their supporters. Also, they lost court case after court case. And they lost the election itself, and every recount. They found more ways to lose a single election than anyone else in history - possibly world history - most likely. It was like pulling the band-aid off slowly, instead of just peeling it off. I personally suspect that they - and especially Trump - knew that they were going to lose the election, and that was why they concocted this whole notion of a stolen election and massive voter fraud - what many people call "The Big Lie" - in order to try and save face. Then, they perhaps themselves began to believe their own propaganda, although that much is not certain. Quite clearly, Trump sure hoped that the armed and dangerous crowd in Washington on January 6th believed it, and he urged them to do something about it. He urged them to go to Congress and to show no signs of weakness, to project strength. And we all know what happened after that.
Pottinger discusses two examples of close elections, where the official losers admitted defeat for the sake of American democracy. He mentioned Richard Nixon following his 1960 election defeat to Kennedy, and Al Gore, following his 2000 election defeat to George W. Bush. There is a need for those who care about our democracy to acknowledge defeat, if the facts show that you did not win. Trump never did that. He still refuses to admit defeat, or even to admit that the 2020 election - now almost two years ago - is over.
Nor did Trump ever acknowledge his role for what happened on January 6th. He never acknowledged the tragedy of officers defending the Capitol losing their life in the line of duty, against violent Trump supporters, fired up by their president's own urging to "take back your country." Failing to do so even disgusted some within Trump's own team, such as Tim Murtaugh and Matthew Wolking. Wolking, as this video reveals, suggested that this was not in keeping with Trump's own emphasis on praising law and order, and saying that it had all been bullshit. And Murtaugh responded to that by saying that Trump would never condemn the actions of the unruly mob because they were his people, and that, in Murtaugh's own words, "what he lit at the rally got out of control." In short, Trump would never admit to something where he could be at fault.
Even people close to Trump saw all of this, and understood it for what it was. They knew full well that Trump would never admit defeat, and would never take responsibility for something that had turned out badly, or would compromise him in any way, either in the eyes of the public, as he saw it, or especially anything with potential legal consequences. This is entirely in keeping with Trump's tradition of always denying responsibility for anything bad, always quickly and too eagerly pointing the finger of blame at anyone and everyone else. Never himself.
No comments:
Post a Comment