August 13, 2021 ☼ trump ☼ jan6
Source: The New Republic - Link
That night, after I was finally able to turn off the news, the only two things I knew with absolute certainty were: one, that for the first time in our nation’s history there had not been a peaceful transfer of power, because my uncle, who could not accept his resounding defeat and the humiliation that came with it, had attempted to inspire a coup; and two, the next two weeks before Joe Biden’s inauguration would be the most dangerous this country had ever lived through.
On November 7, after Joe Biden was declared the winner, Donald began peddling the Big Lie—massive voter fraud and cheating by Democrats had turned Donald’s landslide victory into a loss. The phrase “the Big Lie,” coined by Adolf Hitler, describes the technique of saying something so outrageously false that people will believe it simply because they think nobody would have the audacity to lie so brazenly. This has been a specialty of Donald’s since, as a teenager, he had to convince his father everything he did was always the biggest, the greatest, and the best. Back then, his lies protected him from his father’s wrath. The Big Lie about the election protected him from having to face the deep narcissistic wound he’d suffered after losing to Biden. In addition, it kept his base riled up—keeping them afraid of what a Biden administration planned to take away from them (or force upon them) and enraged by what he claimed had been stolen from them.
In Donald’s January 6 video, the Second Big Lie was born. By telling them that they are loved and special, he transformed the violent anti-American mob into patriots who had merely been trying to save their country from the Democratic Party’s treasonous attempt to steal the election from him—and therefore from them. We’ve seen how this has become a strategy for almost every single Republican politician as well. Despite the testimony given by D.C. police officers Daniel Hodges and Michael Fanone, Capitol Police Officer Harry Dunn, and Capitol Police Sgt. Aquilino Gonell in front of the House select committee on July 27, which was impossible for any empathetic human being to watch without feeling a visceral rage and profound sadness, this will continue to be the Republican strategy. They know that if midterm voters still remember the truth about January 6, they’re in trouble. The insurrection of January 6 should have been a wake-up call. It looks, instead, to have been a dress rehearsal.
This speaks for itself.
The GOP strategy since the mid 80’s has been to keep people from voting, or at least to make their votes not count for much. It’s in their strategy documents. The big lie just makes it easier for them to do that.