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I think one of the things people, especially on the right, ignore when it comes to Trump's culpability in the insurrection attempt is that what happened (outside of, you know, the murder part) is actually a pretty logical response IF THE WORLD TRUMP CREATED WAS ACTUALLY TRUE.
Imagine for a moment that everything Trump said was true. We have a two party government that claims to have fair elections, but one of those parties is massively corrupt on such a large scale that they're literally paying voting hardware manufacturers to flip the vote for them.
One party is so corrupt and fraudulent that they can overturn millions of votes at the flip of a switch, and not only can they, they are actively doing it. IF THIS WERE TRUE... it would not only be "patriotic", but actually, our civic duty to rebel against them.
I would argue that if what Trump painted was actually true, it would be the duty of all Americans to overthrow the massively corrupt, fraudulent government, even using violence if necessary. Because we would essentially be living under a fraudulent one party state.
Our nation was founded upon rebelling against the British because of things like "taxation without representation". If one party controls everything and fixes the votes however they please, there is no representation. Another rebellion would make perfect sense.
And we know that a lot of Americans DO feel this way, and Trump absolutely egged them on. "Stop the steal" was a hugely popular phrase. And it wasn't based on this vague concept that there MIGHT be some small voter fraud here and there, it was based on the lie of massive fraud.
So yes, Trump (and most of the right, for that matter) is absolutely culpable, because they created such a vast and bold conspiracy lie that the actual, logical response to anyone who cares about freedom would be to fight to get their country back.
And this is also why so many feel betrayed by the Republicans, and then ultimately Trump, for capitulating. Because based on the lie Trump and the Republicans pushed, capitulating makes NO FUCKING SENSE. If they truly believed their own lie, they would never capitulate.
And most of us know the truth, that the Republicans, and eventually Trump, capitulated because they know this is all bullshit. They know there is no massive conspiracy involved rigged election machines and other nonsense overturning millions of votes. It was just convenient.
But the monster they created doesn't know this. The monster absolutely believes the lie. Well, some probably know it is a lie and are just using it, but others are true believers. Believe me, I know, many of my family are true believers.
So we end up with a fairly predictable result, a bunch of "patriots" descending upon the capital to do anything they can to stop the "fraudulent" election from being confirmed. This is absolutely Trump's / the Republicans monster.
Claiming ignorance that it would go this far can't absolve them. It went as far as made sense based on the corrupt, illegitimate government that was painted for these people, and the insistence from the majority of the right that they needed to "stop the steal".
In fact (and this is troubling to me because I know many on the right agree), I'd argue that it didn't go as far as it should have based on the picture painted. If this really is massive fraud to the tune of millions of votes switched to seize power, it should never be accepted.
And I think we're going to see that, in whatever ways it comes out. People "fighting back" against the "illegitimate" government. Why wouldn't we? What else should you do against an illegitimate government?
Our best hope is that the right wing masses who want to fight this don't actually have the energy, motivation, will, whatever... to fight the fight the way that it would make sense to fight it if the things they believe are true were actually true.
Because otherwise we may be in for more and more attempts to overturn the election results, and potentially more violence / death. This isn't something we can look at like weird aberration from a handful of extremists, it's the logical response if the election was truly stolen.
And since we know the election being stolen is not a fact, however, but sheer nonsense, anyone who has pushed that lie needs to be held responsible. All these calls for "unity" make no sense... they want to unify with people who stole an election? Nah. They never believed it.
The only possible unity is if they take some fucking responsibility for the lie that they pushed, a lie that would inevitably lead to "patriots" fighting back against the "steal". Otherwise, what the hell does unity even mean?
The way to unify is if the Republicans, en masse, stepped up and apologized for lying to the people, made it clear that it was a lie, and that we need to move forward understanding that the election cannot be viewed as fraudulent. That's it. That's the only path.
Any call for unity without this is empty, because the people you led to believe had their election stolen from them will, of course, not want to unify with the people you led them to believe stole it from them. Come on. Be real.
