Tuesday, January 14, 2025

TRUMP WON AFTER JANUARY 6 BECAUSE MUCH OF THE COUNTRY THINKS THE GOVERNMENT IS BRIAN THOMPSON

Donald Trump is the president-elect, and Donald Trump committed crimes:
Jack Smith, the special counsel who indicted President-elect Donald J. Trump on charges of illegally seeking to cling to power after losing the 2020 election, said in a final report released early Tuesday that the evidence would have been sufficient to convict Mr. Trump in a trial, had his 2024 election victory not made it impossible for the prosecution to continue....

In his report, Mr. Smith took Mr. Trump to task not only for his efforts to reverse the results of a free and fair election, but also for consistently encouraging “violence against his perceived opponents” throughout the chaotic weeks between Election Day and Jan. 6, 2021, when a mob of Trump supporters stormed the Capitol, injuring more than 140 police officers.

Mr. Smith laid the attack on the Capitol squarely at Mr. Trump’s feet, quoting from the evidence in several criminal cases of people charged with taking part in the riot who made clear that they believed they were acting on Mr. Trump’s behalf.
It happened. We all saw it. And four years later, Trump was elected president again. Why didn't January 6 matter?

I think it's because it was an attack on the government, and the feelings many Americans have about the government are similar to the feelings they have about murdered UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson.

Americans want a government that makes their lives better, one that works for them and not the rich and powerful. That's also how they feel about health insurance -- they want it to ease the financial burden of healthcare, not to make CEOs and stockholders rich.

From the response to Brian Thompson's murder, we know that millions of Americans believe health insurance in America is a scam. They're sick of having claims rejected and paying huge out-of-pocket costs. Many of them know that the murder of Thompson was wrong, but they don't think it was very wrong.

I think millions of Americans feel that way about the attack on the Capitol. I'm not talking about Republican voters, who mostly believe that any Democratic electoral victory is illegitimate. I'm talking about the swing voters and occasional voters who chose Trump or stayed home in November despite knowing that the January 6 insurrectionists were criminals and Trump was the instigator of their attack. I think most of them believe January 6 was wrong, but they don't think it was very wrong.

Americans have felt that the country is on the wrong track more or less nonstop since the 2008 financial crisis:



On January 6, 2021, 62.3% of Americans thought the country was on the wrong track, according to the Real Clear Politics average. Only 28.6% thought it was on the right track.

A newly released USA Today/Suffolk poll says:
By 54% to 32%, those surveyed said the country was on the wrong track, not headed in the right direction.
So they're not terribly upset at an attack on institutions of government that they feel have failed them, under Republicans and under Democrats, for as long as they can remember.

I'm not endorsing this view. I'm just telling you what I think is going on. The January 6 insurrectionists attacked the government, and much of Ametrica shrugged, because the government isn't a sympathetic victim.

No comments: