Impeachment Trial Will Show Foolish Demagoguery as Constitutional, Not an Incitement of Insurrection

by johndavis, February 9, 2021

Impeachment Trial Will Show Foolish Demagoguery as Constitutional, Not an Incitement of Insurrection February 9, 2021 Vol. XIV, No. 2 4:13 pm Foolish demagoguery is constitutional Donald Trump brings out the worst in everyone, friend and foe alike. He brings out the worst in friends when he expects blind loyalty to everything he says or
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Impeachment Trial Will Show Foolish Demagoguery as Constitutional, Not an Incitement of Insurrection

February 9, 2021 Vol. XIV, No. 2 4:13 pm

Foolish demagoguery is constitutional

Donald Trump brings out the worst in everyone, friend and foe alike. He brings out the worst in friends when he expects blind loyalty to everything he says or does, even if his expectations explode angrily from a narcissistic temper tantrum rather than the wise counsel of presidential advisors.

Think of these former Trump Administration officials who were summarily dismissed and thrown under the bus by Trump in a tirade of insulting tweets because they refused to grovel sufficiently:

Per the website Trump Twitter Archive, a compilation of the 26,237 tweets he posted during his presidency, Trump tweeted that his first Secretary of State Rex Tillerson was “dumb as a rock and totally ill prepared and ill equipped to be Secretary of State.” He tweeted that his first Secretary of Defense James “Mad Dog” Mattis was “our Country’s most overrated General…he was terrible!”

Of his first Attorney General Jeff Sessions, Trump said, “He’s not mentally qualified to be Attorney General.” He called National Security Advisor John Bolton a “washed up Creepster…a lowlife who should be in jail,” and said his first Chief of Staff John Kelly “went out with a whimper.”

The Trump Twitter Archive documents that President Trump has sent 234 tweets with the expression “loser;” 222 tweets with the expression “dumb” or “dummy;” 183 tweets with the expression “stupid;” 156 tweets with the expression “weak;” and 117 tweets with the expression “dope” or “dopey.”

In hundreds of additional tweets President Trump used insults like “incompetent,” “pathetic,” “moron,” and “lowlife.” On 83 occasions, Trump used the word “fool” in his tweets, which, along with all the other thousands of slights, puts him on the short list of America’s most foolish presidents.

However, foolish demagoguery is not unconstitutional, nor is it an incitement of insurrection.

On January 6, 2021, at the “Save America Rally,” Trump continued to insist that the presidential election was stolen. The fact that no court or state official, including in GOP-led states, had found indictable evidence of election fraud was irrelevant. He believed there was fraud.

Refusing to accept the rulings of state and federal courts, including the US Supreme Court, on the constitutionality of election law changes necessitated by the pandemic may be foolish, and firing up the MAGA crowd to march to the US Capitol and protest their sincere belief that those courts and election officials were wrong, may be doubly foolish, but both are constitutionally protected speech.

Domestic terrorists and violent extremists exploited Trump protest

Domestic terrorists and violent extremists were identified by the Department of Homeland Security in their Homeland Threat Assessment published in October 2020 as those “who seek to force ideological change in the United States through violence, death, and destruction.”

A particularly relevant section of the Homeland Threat Assessment report is titled, Exploitation of Lawful and Protected Speech and Protests. It describes an “alarming trend of exploitation of lawful protests causing violence, death, and destruction in American communities.”

That is what happened on January 6.

The officially permitted “Save America Rally” got out of hand at the Capitol when domestic terrorists and violent extremists in the crowd exploited an otherwise peaceful march. They assaulted cops, overran the security perimeter, broke into the Capitol, destroyed property, and disrupted a Joint Session of Congress. It was violent anti-government, anti-authority anarchists who struck a Capitol Police officer with a fire extinguisher so violently that he died the next day from his injuries.

Per the Homeland Threat Assessment report, “As of the date of this publication, we have seen over 100 days of violence and destruction in our cities. The co-opting of lawful protests led to destruction of government property and have turned deadly. Indeed, Department of Homeland Security law enforcement officers suffered over 300 separate injuries and were assaulted with sledgehammers, commercial grade fireworks, rocks, metal pipes, improvised explosive devices, and more.

Domestic terrorists and violent extremists also exploited otherwise peaceful Black Lives Matter marches all over the country, turning them into insurrections characterized by arson, looting and violence against cops. Domestic terrorists and violent extremists are the insurrectionists, not Trump.

On January 6, Congress was forced to adjourn at 2:20 pm because domestic terrorists and violent extremists were ransacking the Capitol. At 2:38 pm, President Trump tweeted, “Please support our Capitol Police and Law Enforcement. They are truly on the side of our Country. Stay peaceful!”

He should have sent that tweet earlier. He did not. That makes him foolish, not an insurrectionist.

So, here we are, February 9, 2021, the first day of former President Trump’s second impeachment trial. A trial that will likely be equal in its foolishness to anything President Trump has said or done because it will be seen as an abuse of House authority, motivated by revenge and partisan politics under the leadership of Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Donald Trump brings out the worst in everyone.

But nothing said or done by either President Trump or Nancy Pelosi compares to the foolishness noticed worldwide on January 8 this year, two days after the storming of the US Capitol. Go to website Trump Twitter Archive and look at the top of the page. There you will see the following:

“Twitter has permanently suspended Trump’s account (January 8, 2021)”

The most foolish of all are those who would deny any American the right to be foolish.

When all is said and done, former President Trump’s second impeachment trial will likely show that foolish demagoguery is constitutionally protected speech, not an incitement of insurrection.