Stop Saying Trump Did Nothing

Trump incited and encouraged an insurrection — That’s not nothing

Photo by little plant on Unsplash

Words matter. I wish everyone would stop saying Trump did nothing on January 6. On the contrary, he did quite a bit that day. First, he incited a riot. Then he watched, some say gleefully, as the violence he encouraged unfolded on national television.

When he heard the rioters shouting, “Hang Mike Pence” and saw them erecting the gallows outside the Capitol, Trump did something else: he sent out an inflammatory tweet calling Pence a coward. He told the rioting mob that Pence was personally responsible for Trump’s failure to remain in the White House. Trump deliberately stoked the mob’s anger and pointed it directly at Mike Pence, even though he knew his VP’s life was already in danger. That’s not nothing.

Trump also instructed his White House photographer not to take photographs that day. When a man as vain and self-centered as Donald Trump tells a photographer to go away, you know something’s up.

Trump also tried to convince the Secret Service to take him to the Capitol. There may be disagreement about precisely what Trump said and did when he climbed into the motorcade, hoping to be taken to the Capitol. Still, all the testimony the committee presented confirms that Trump wanted to be at the Capitol with the rioters, and he became irate when his request was refused.

Trump also ignored numerous requests from his family, members of his cabinet, and even Fox TV hosts, who all urged him to make a speech instructing the rioters to go home. It was only after it became clear that Trump’s plan to overturn the election had failed that he finally agreed to send the insurrectionists home. Then he rewrote the speech he was asked to give to stop the violence.

In a video presented at the January 6 Committee hearing last night (7.21.22), Trump is standing in front of the camera, reading from a teleprompter. After saying the words “the election is over,” Trump stops reading and says to Ivanka (who is off camera), “I don’t want to say the election is over.” Instead, he ignores the teleprompter and improvises. He tells his supporters that the election was stolen, and he feels their pain; he knows they are hurt, and he loves them.

Of course, Donald Trump doesn’t feel anybody’s pain, and he couldn’t care less if others are hurt. Trump also knows the election wasn’t stolen. He lied. Granted, he is a pathological liar. Still, that’s not nothing.

Before the hearings began, I thought it might be challenging to prove Trump’s guilt, given all the talk about how he did nothing that day. How do you prove a negative? Fortunately, this is not a challenge the January 6 Committee needs to concern themselves with.