{"id":682,"date":"2024-02-07T00:08:36","date_gmt":"2024-02-07T00:08:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/2024\/02\/07\/trumps-house-allies-are-sure-of-at-least-one-thing-he-didnt-do-it\/"},"modified":"2024-02-07T00:08:36","modified_gmt":"2024-02-07T00:08:36","slug":"trumps-house-allies-are-sure-of-at-least-one-thing-he-didnt-do-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/2024\/02\/07\/trumps-house-allies-are-sure-of-at-least-one-thing-he-didnt-do-it\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump\u2019s House allies are sure of at least one thing: He didn\u2019t do it"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

This is one of those rare occasions when it actually makes sense to begin with a dictionary definition.<\/p>\n

Webster\u2019s \u2014 for 180 years, it has been Merriam-Webster, but who\u2019s counting \u2014 defines \u201cinsurrection\u201d as \u201can act or instance of revolting against civil authority or an established government.\u201d The Cambridge Dictionary includes additional components: \u201can organized attempt by a group of people to defeat their government and take control of their country, usually by violence.\u201d Then there\u2019s the Oxford English Dictionary, which has it as \u201cthe action of rising in arms or open resistance against established authority or governmental restraint.\u201d<\/p>\n

You can see the vagueness here. It\u2019s revolting against authority or the government, with or without weapons, to take control or simply as an act of resistance. It is a nebulous thing in its boundaries, which is either challenging or useful in the current moment, depending on how you look at it.<\/p>\n

It is challenging because it makes it harder to apply to specific actors and actions that followed the 2020 presidential election. But it is useful \u2014 to House Republicans in particular at the moment \u2014 because it allows you to find a way to describe the attack at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, as something other than an \u201cinsurrection.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Tuesday afternoon, House Republican Conference Chair Elise Stefanik (N.Y.) and Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) gathered a few dozen colleagues to announce that they were introducing a resolution in the House \u201cstating that President Donald Trump did not engage in insurrection.\u201d The resolution says little more than that, in fact:<\/p>\n

\u201cResolved, That it is the sense of the House of Representatives that former President Donald J. Trump did not engage in insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or give aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.\u201d<\/div>\n

This issue has been the subject of a lot of rhetorical jostling in recent months, thanks largely to efforts to bar Trump from state ballots under the terms of the 14th Amendment\u2019s prohibition against service in government by those who \u201cengaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same.\u201d Stefanik and Gaetz were explicit that they intended to neutralize those legal efforts by establishing formally that the government (or at least the Republican majority in one part of the government) didn\u2019t think that applied to Trump.<\/p>\n

At the news conference announcing the resolution, though, the assembled legislators \u2014 Trump supporters who had signed on to the plan \u2014 were perhaps less unified on the message than Stefanik and Gaetz might have hoped.<\/p>\n

Many of those who spoke denied that there had been an insurrection at all. Rep. Eric Burlison (R-Mo.), for example, scoffed at the idea that there could have been an insurrection if the crowd didn\u2019t have guns.<\/p>\n

\u201cNot one of the people up here was armed,\u201d he claimed, \u201cand I don\u2019t know how you\u2019re going to take over the Capitol if you\u2019re not armed.\u201d<\/p>\n

In reality, of course, there were armed individuals at the Capitol on that day, not to mention that many of those who participated in the riot had sticks, chemical irritants and other non-firearm weapons. What\u2019s more, Burlison\u2019s argument is internally contradictory: The crowd did take over the Capitol.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe welcome people telling us what we should be doing, how to vote,\u201d Burlison said later. \u201cLetting people express their frustration peacefully through their elected process and their First Amendment rights. Because as our founders have said, if they can\u2019t do it through that process, they will do it through a more violent process.\u201d<\/p>\n

This, too, was striking, given that the entire reason that people were on Capitol Hill that day was because they\u2019d been convinced \u2014 centrally by Trump \u2014 that their \u201celected process\u201d had failed, necessitating more urgent action.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the end of the day,\u201d Burlison said as he concluded, \u201cyou can\u2019t say that Trump was involved in insurrection when there was no insurrection.\u201d<\/p>\n

This line was also common: It wasn\u2019t just that Trump didn\u2019t engage in insurrection, it\u2019s that no insurrection occurred.<\/p>\n

\u201cNot one single person has been charged with insurrection. Not one single person has been convicted with insurrection. Not one,\u201d said Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.). \u201cIn every single court of our land, no one\u2019s been charged and convicted with insurrection, yet Democrats and dishonest people in the media every single day accuse President Trump of waging an insurrection.\u201d<\/p>\n

This, of course, is a strange argument. Numerous charges have been brought related to sedition \u2014 Webster\u2019s: \u201cincitement of resistance to or insurrection against lawful authority\u201d \u2014 against members of organized extremist groups. There have been convictions on \u201cseditious conspiracy\u201d charges, suggesting, by Greene\u2019s argument, that sedition necessarily occurred. Or, working the other direction, you wouldn\u2019t say that someone hadn\u2019t been killed if the killer was charged with \u201cmurder\u201d instead of \u201ckilling.\u201d<\/p>\n

Greene, like others who spoke, seemed to have an unusually broad definition of \u201cinsurrection\u201d in the first place.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen they came to Washington and protested, all of you called it an insurrection,\u201d she said, referring to those who participated in the riot. \u201cAnd then when Joe Biden was inaugurated and this entire Capitol complex was surrounded with 30,000 National Guard troops, none of you stood there and called that an insurrection. Oh no. You all stayed silent.\u201d<\/p>\n

Well, yes, since \u201cinsurrection\u201d posits a challenge to governmental power, not a transfer of it.<\/p>\n

Other legislators seemed to accept that the rioters had perhaps engaged in something insurrection-like but that Trump bore no responsibility for it.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe truth will prevail,\u201d said Rep. Matt Rosendale (R-Mont.) \u201cIt will be shown that President Trump did not cause this insurrection.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cPresident Trump did not incite violence, he did not lead an insurrection,\u201d Rep. Cory Mills (R-Fla.) said later. \u201cWhat he did is he stood for the American people.\u201d<\/p>\n

This is a different question than the one in the resolution, which \u2014 like the 14th Amendment \u2014 centers on whether Trump engaged in insurrection. And it is also a much harder position to defend.<\/p>\n

There were lots of mentions of Trump\u2019s having encouraged people to leave the Capitol (though not that this came hours after the violence began). There were quotes from his speech at the Ellipse that day in which he used the word \u201cpeaceful.\u201d There was not, however, an exploration of the weeks of false claims Trump had made about the election being stolen, or his call for people to come to Washington on that day, or his reported indifference to the presence of weapons in the crowd at his speech or to his demand that morning that his supporters fight for him and the country.<\/p>\n

Without Trump\u2019s rhetoric and calls to action, there is unquestionably no Capitol riot. This is indisputable. Whether this constitutes an incitement of the riot? That\u2019s a slightly different legal dispute.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is crystal clear that Donald Trump did not incite an insurrection,\u201d Rep. Brian Babin (R-Tex.) said. It isn\u2019t at all, but luckily for Babin et al, it\u2019s also outside the scope of the day\u2019s discussion.<\/p>\n

At multiple points, speakers took a different approach to the day\u2019s violence: Maybe it wasn\u2019t Trump supporters at all. Rep. Eli Crane (R-Ariz.) furiously attacked the media for its incuriosity, suggesting that reporters consider debunked false claims like the role of Ray Epps. Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.) echoed similar concerns about the government, as did Gaetz when questioned by reporters.<\/p>\n

\n
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Rep. Diana Harshbarger (R-Tenn.) was a member of the there-was-no-insurrection faction.<\/p>\n

\u201cPresident Trump and his supporters were vilified for doing nothing more than exercising their First Amendment rights,\u201d she argued.<\/p>\n

She later cited a Bible passage, using it to tee up a rather ironic warning.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy message to the American people is simple: Armor up!\u201d she said. \u201cAnd get ready for the spiritual battle ahead. Because it\u2019s going to be a battle.\u201d<\/p>\n

None of this effectively answered the question of whether Trump can be said to have engaged in insurrection, though none of those participating in the news conference were likely to say that he had. It was, instead, a presentation of the various ways in which Trump\u2019s allies have long defended him from criticism, including by making sweeping, false claims that often spread unchallenged in the right-wing media.<\/p>\n

What was important, really, wasn\u2019t presenting a nuanced rebuttal of the issue or a parsing of the varying definitions of \u201cinsurrection.\u201d What was important was telling America \u2014 and, obviously, Trump \u2014 that they wouldn\u2019t stand for anyone saying he did anything wrong.<\/p>\n

Whatever it was.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

This post appeared first on The Washington Post<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is one of those rare occasions when it actually makes sense to begin with a dictionary definition. Webster\u2019s \u2014 for 180 years, it has been Merriam-Webster, but who\u2019s counting \u2014 defines \u201cinsurrection\u201d as \u201can act or instance of revolting against civil authority or an established government.\u201d The Cambridge Dictionary includes additional components: \u201can organized […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":683,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-682","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/682","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=682"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/682\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/683"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=682"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=682"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=682"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}