On his Newsmax show Wednesday, Trumper Steve Cortes downplayed the January 6th insurrection by suggesting MAGA world is loaded and ready for something far worse.
Cortes was attacking the emotional and gripping testimony of the four officers who testified before the House of Representatives’ January 6th Select Committee Tuesday. Without the MAGA Republican disrupters on the committee, MAGA media has had to pick up the slack. Cortes tried to both suggest the insurrection was no biggie and to menacingly hint something much bigger could happen at any moment.
“January 6th was a low-level, unarmed riot, a low-level, unarmed riot,” Cortes insisted. His “proof” that we should not believe the testimony otherwise was a clip of U.S. Capitol Police Sgt. Aquilino Gonell saying that pens had been used as weapons against the officers.
Gonell obviously was not saying that pens should be classified as lethal weapons but that the insurrectionists were so intent on harm that they used everyday items to attack.
Rather than call Gonell a liar outright, Cortes insinuated that real patriots should consider him a coward who can’t take a little heat.
“Now, patriots, believe me,” Cortes said, “if the MAGA nation wanted to stage an actual insurrection, there is no lack of weapons and no dearth of tactical training among the deplorables of America.”
He added, “Instead, thankfully, tens of thousands of patriots” showed up that day “to peacefully and patriotically make their voices heard.”
Cortes acknowledged that “some people acted thuggishly,” that “battling cops is a direct insult to the whole ‘Back the Blue’ ethos of the America First movement,” and that anyone who behaved violently should be “prosecuted fully.”
But the “riot” on January 6th “lasted a few hours,” Cortes said, as if that made it no biggie. I wonder how quickly that time would have passed if he had been stuck in the Capitol when it was overrun with people shouting, “Hang Mike Pence!”
No, the real threat to democracy is Black Lives Matter, Cortes wants us to believe. Black Lives Matter "riots" "swept like wildfire across America," Cortes said. He lectured conservatives for comparing January 6th to BLM - because BLM is so much worse, in his view. He called them “apples and oranges” as far as “the scope and the level of damages.”
In other words, demonstrations for racial and social justice are anti-American to this guy while a violent attempt to overturn an election and maybe kill some elected officials in the process is a peaceful expression of patriotism.
