3823

Can Trump pardon them before they are convicted?

3824

Yes…

3825

Yes.

See Nixon et al.

3826

Can he give them the Medal of Freedom without pardoning them?

3827

But I have read speculation that pardoning them is potentially viewed as tacit approval of what they did, and could hurt his chances at defense when the law comes for him. So he may throw all of them under the bus to save his own ass, as per standard Trump rules.

3828
3829

I would guess that it’s unlikely he would do it because he doesn’t care at all about them and probably blames them for failing to murder Pence.

In addition there’s the potential that pardoning them could have negative consequences for him personally so he would rather they spend their lives in jail than he risks anything.

That said, tommorow he will probably just pardon every white person in America.

3830

I don’t know about violence, but it certainly wasn’t terrorism!

3831

that is hilarious and likely

3832

Nope. Only white republicans.

3833

Finally! I can go out of my house again.

Wait.

Covid. Nevermind.

3834

That’s like legal baptism! Gotta git all my sins in tonight!

3835

Does the pardon include the sons of my sons? No? No deal.

3836

Trump:

I don’t need a Vice President!

3837

At the end of the day, my semantic point is related to a non-semantic point, which is that calling them anything other than rioters glorifies their motives. The rioters see themselves as revolutionaries or insurrectionists, and therefore think violence is justified. It takes away their “nobility” by calling the rioters as they are: as rioters, and nothing more. There are non-violent ways to protest but they choose not to, and that crossed the line.

Roughly 47% of the popular vote went to Trump. It is frightening to think even a majority of those (i.e. 25% of the US population) can approve of the riot as “necessary” to “stop the steal”. It appeals to those people by calling the US Capitol attack as rioting, and sticking to their cherished “law and order” platform and may be, just may be, they can be convinced to drop the support.

The bigger question is how to rescue those people who fell into the rabbit hole. Capitulation of course doesn’t work (capitulation NEVER works). Standing the ground and say “that is too far” is a start. Changing the narrative IMO would be another step, that Trump is on the side of lawless not law and order.

3838

Certainly, he doesn’t give a rat’s ass about any of these folks. But doing it primarily just to piss off a good majority off people especially now that he got booted off of most social media channels… I’d say it’s not unthinkable.

3839
3840

Yeah but they attacked the Capitol to stop Congress from ratifying the presidential election. They are insurrectionists (albeit stupid ones). Maybe it glorifies them but there is something to be said for using the appropriate word.

That said I do get the glorification concern. Jill Lepore in the New Yorker wrote that she hopes this doesn’t go down in history as the Storming of the Capitol, as that would make the right wing yahoos very happy.

3841

I believe that we haven’t seen unthinkable yet.

3842

I can’t wait to see this guy bawl his eyes out during his sentencing.