The talking heads over on Trump's propaganda network have spent the better part of the last few months helping him push the Big Lie that led to the MAGA insurrection at the Capitol on January 6th in the first place, so it's no surprise that they haven't wanted any accountability for Trump's part in inciting the mob, because it would mean acknowledging their part in working his rabid supporters into a frenzy as well.
While discussing the Senate Republicans shameful second acquittal of Trump on this Sunday's Media Buzz on Fox, The Federalist co-founder and husband of Meghan McCain, plagiarist Ben Domenech was asked for his thoughts on the trial, and here's how the question was framed from host Howard Kurtz:
Domenech happily helped Kurtz go after the rest of the media for daring to tell the truth about Trump's actions leading up to and on January 6th, and then pushed the ridiculous notion that Democrats might have had some luck getting complicit Republicans to vote for a conviction if they had gone after him for his actions (or inaction) after the riot began, rather than incitement.
You think back to, you know, the question of whether Bernie Sanders, for instance, incited the shooting that happened that obviously hit Steve Scalise and others on that softball field. A lot of politicians, I think, are uncomfortable with the idea that that type of rhetoric could be used against them in the future.
If they had instead taken a little bit more time with this and analyzed and investigated what the president did in response to the riotousness, I think they might have peeled off more Republicans in order to support this effort.
At the end of the day though, instead of a censorship and instead of going after him in other ways, they decide to go the impeachment route. They decided to run with this idea, and ultimately, you know, the president is going to claim that he was victorious again.
Domenech's fellow panel member, Jedediah Bila agreed with him, and after criticizing Trump's lawyers for their performance, chimed in as well on questions about just what Trump was doing while the rioters were roaming the halls of Congress.
That would have led to I think witnesses being called, and the problem here, Howie, is that nothing got accomplished. This was a complete waste of time. Questions were not answered. People who want to know actually what went on and whether or not this was actually an impeachable offense didn't get their questions answered. People feel like there was no accountability for a horrific act that happened and the language does matter.
No one is glossing over what happened. Mitch McConnell got up and said listen, I don't believe this is a constitutional crime but game a scathing indictment of Donald Trump's behavior. But, that doesn't change the reality that this was still a trial and that word incitement and then that charge mattered, and that's what the problem was from day one.
No, the problem from "day one" is that the Republicans were never going to convict Trump, and it wouldn't have mattered to them if the mob had gotten a hold of both Mike Pence and Nancy Pelosi and killed them both. They were never going to vote against Trump, period, whether it was for his actions before, during or after the riot. It didn't matter to them that he put their own lives at risk.
They don't care and neither does Trump's cult, or they're spineless and scared to death of his followers. Every time anyone tries to hold any of them accountable for their actions, they lie, move the goalposts, distract with false equivalencies.
The notion that anything was going to move any of them is just patently ridiculous, and these liars know it. That won't stop them from continuing their game of Monday morning quarterbacking and giving the Democrats advice on how they should have handled the trial, as though any of them care about exposing the truth about what happened.
