Will it make a difference to “law and order” Republicans that Trump has essentially declared the Capitol Police officers who put their lives on the line for democracy to be his party's opposition?
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An increasingly fascist-sounding Donald Trump has recently talked about “the enemy within,” and how the military may be needed to combat this threat.
So, who is that “enemy within?”
The former president’s allies like to pretend that he is referring to violent immigrants… even when confronted with direct quotes indicating otherwise.
Trump, on the other hand, has been explicit in explaining that he is also talking about “sick” and “evil” Democrats. In separate events this week, he singled out Rep. Adam Schiff (CA) and “the Pelosis,” which presumably means former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (CA) and her elderly husband Paul, who was attacked by a Trump supporter with a hammer two years ago, as such enemies.
On Wednesday, during a town hall event on Univision, the former president, who has a pronounced “us vs. them” mentality, provided another glimpse into who he views as his opposition.
When asked about his response (or the lack thereof) to the January 6 insurrection, Trump left no doubt with whom he sided on that day.
“There were no guns down there. We didn’t have guns,” he said. “The others had guns.”
In case you are wondering, “we” in this case means the violent Trump supporters who stormed Congress, and “the others” refers to the armed Capitol Police officers guarding democracy and the country’s elected officials while being assaulted by those insurrectionists.
The former president, of course, has a different take on what transpired.
Trump said he totally disagreed with his former Vice President Mike Pence, who refused to participate in his coup attempt and whom the insurrectionists wanted to hang because of that.
Calling January 6 “a day of love,” he washed his hands of what happened when “hundreds of thousands of people” (the actual number was closer to 50,000 but definitely below 100,000) descended on Washington that morning.
“They didn’t come because of me,” the former president said. “They came because of the election. They thought the election was a rigged election.”
That’s obviously a ridiculous assertion.
If Trump hadn’t spent the previous two months claiming that the election was “stolen” from him (without ever presenting any evidence), nobody would have bothered to show up that day.
For him to shirk the responsibility for the violence is like ISIS disavowing a suicide bomber whom they radicalized and taught how to make explosives.
Will it make a difference to “law and order” Republicans that Trump is essentially declaring the Capitol Police officers who put their lives on the line for democracy as the opposition?
Likely not, because, to most of them, it’s not about law and order at all.
In his Navigating the Insanity columns, Klaus Marre provides the kind of hard-hitting, thought-provoking, and often funny analysis you won’t find anywhere else.
