There have been a lot of potential defenses thrown against the metaphorical wall by the ex-president and his allies. This is not surprising, for any of us that choose to remember the last five years, or for New Yorkers. “Seeing what sticks” has always been the MO of the man who served before President Joe Biden. Often, something catches hold with the public imagination or wherever he finds he has to defend himself, and it keeps any potential prosecutors, creditors or debunkers on their toes. The MO is a Gish Gallop of “I didn’t do it,” until something finds its way through.
And so, here we are again.
He can’t be convicted because he served his term.
He can’t be held to consequence because of a conspiracy theory that he was forced from office by fraud, and so he was defending the interests of the nation by keeping himself in office by insurrection.
Objective reality is an illusion, because his lawyers and allies were taking way too many drugs while trying to understand thought experiments about quantum theory.
He wasn’t even at the Capitol, so he couldn’t have been leading an insurrection.
It is this last one that is, if not the most audaciously mind-bending … that would be the “there is no truth” fascist’s defense … it is the most telling.
First of all, it is a reframing of the truth. He was there, at least in all the important ways.
He said he would go with them. This was a lie. However, it was meant to bolster the nerve of anyone still wondering if they should go violently assault the Congress in an act of brazen intimidation against the democratic procedures of the Republic. He was willing to go, so he was taking the risk along with them. Of course, this was meant to gull the marks. It was, to turn a phrase, just words. But, he promised to be there, so he was leading the charge.
He was in their minds and on their minds. They weren’t going because they thought their vote was thrown away. Some of them hadn’t even voted. They went because he lost, and they were looking to overturn it. Because he was telling them he agreed that they should overturn it. He had convinced them to help him overturn it, because that was what was stolen, his victory … that he convinced them was their victory.
And this is the other way he was with them. For five years, dating back to his candidacy, he had told them the standard fascist sales pitch. The system was so broken, that only he as a strongman smashing the system could be their voice. Over half a decade, he slowly made them believe that he and they were the same thing. Not just aligned in interest. Tied at the hip. What he said was what they thought, and eventually everything he said they believed were their own original thoughts. Like Inception boiled down to its most elementary particles. If he told them to fight, this was not going to be at the level of extended metaphor. If he told them to remain peaceful once they were smashing everything in sight, they heard “remain where you are.”
This was amplified by his continuing to communicate with them, and only reluctantly telling them to go home once the National Guard had been activated despite his underlings’ efforts to halt them. He didn't just lie about going with them, and then walked away in silence. He kept tweeting out communications that justified their actions. Members of militias whose steadfast loyalty he had previously publicly appreciated were leading the charge and carrying his flags. With his name all over them.
Secondly, he wasn’t just communicating with the violent insurrectionists. He kept calling Senators and Representatives who previously said they would whip support for overturning the election outcome. He did so as these members were in hiding from the coup’s foot soldiers. In the modern world, calling into an attack site with a message that aligns with the attackers would count as a terrorist threat. He was there. He had demands. His physical location is immaterial. So is his not saying the magic words “you can make this all go away.”
Thirdly, this argument counts on us to be misled by the failure of the coup. Had Eugene Goodman not thought fast on his feet, and had the insurrectionists killed or captured Senators and/or VP Pence, does anyone seriously believe that the former president would not have embraced the chaos? That he would say, “Oh no, I thought I was cheated, but I cannot possibly accept the presidency from a handful of surviving Congresspeople loyal to my cause. Congratulations Joe Biden.”? He was there in terms of aims, carried by his zealous followers and aligned Congresspeople, as highlighted earlier. He appeared to have never been there in this way, because the zealots were swept out the door by law enforcement and the Congressional collaborators were outvoted by a very much alive and angry overwhelming majority. Had the coup succeeded, we wouldn’t be having a Senate trial, so this is what Speculative Fiction fans call a Xanatos gambit. It works no matter what the outcome of a play is, like the Galactic Civil War in Episodes II and III of Star Wars: Whether the Confederacy of Independent Systems or the Galactic Republic wins, Palpatine takes control. But he was there, even though he failed.
Finally, and most telling, this is the defense of cult leaders, terrorist masterminds, organized criminals and toppled dictators. Just as the cogs in their networks claim they were brainwashed and/or merely following orders, so their actions should not have moral implications, the men at the top of the pyramid claim to be misinterpreted and/or not taking the criminal actions.
Charles Manson didn’t actually attempt to assassinate Ford.
Osama Bin Laden didn’t take the controls of Flight 93.
Stalin wanted collectivization, not the forced starvation of the Kulaks.
It’s such a core phenomenon, a repeated defense of the wicked, that it makes its ways into the collective unconscious of our stories.
President Luthor had no idea that supervillains might try to collect reward money by killing Batman and Superman.
Emperor Palpatine never set foot in the Jedi Temple.
Of course.
And the thing is, because of the Secret Service stopping Squeaky Fromm and the passengers of Flight 93 stopping the Al-Qaeda hijackers on their plane, it was the January 6th Insurrectionists who got closest to successfully attacking the democratic functioning of the US Government. Eugene Goodman and other Capitol Police, National Guardsmen, and various area police officers made a last minute save.
Now, admittedly, we have Representatives that seem just as comfortable as Manson in conflating the cross and the swastika, some of whom also contest that OBL was behind the 9/11 attacks. Luckily, even the most quisling Senators do not break this starkly from objective reality and shared American values. And that is where this trial to bar the former president from ever running again will take place. In the Senate.
Senators might try to shield him from consequences through the procedural defenses. Lord knows his lawyers are trying to keep most of their defense of him there. But watch carefully for them accepting the other ones. That maybe he is president. Maybe we can't know anything. These are bordering on an acceptance of post-truth reasoning, which Professor Timothy Snyder of Yale categorizes as thinking that precedes the victory of fascist regimes in a nation. Nothing is knowable, everything is possible, debate is won by the loudest (or most threatening) voice in the room. This might be voiced or accepted as a result of cowardice.
Yet, if a Senator voices that he can't have incited the insurrection because he wasn't there ... as comparatively innocent as that sounds at first when viewed against the other defenses ... it is the most worrisome endorsement of them all. It is not just a defense that he should not be barred from office. It is an invitation that he never have any limit in office at all.