Of Course They’re Trying to Blame the Coup Attempt on Antifa.
Sitting congressmen like Matt Gaetz are actually blaming the left for what happened at the Capital on January 6th.
As virtually anyone with a television or a phone has heard by now, a violent mob of Trump supporters overtook the capital on January 6th, forcing congress to evacuate as an hours long standoff between police and armed rioters took place. After the violence finally subsided and a woman was left dead, lawmakers reconvened as the Senate resumed its certification of the electoral college votes, and naturally, Congressman Matt Gaetz — among others — felt the need to do what in hindsight almost seems inevitable: blame the violence on “antifa” and the left.
Teo Armus with The Washington Post writes:
“Citing a widely contested article published by the Washington Times, Gaetz admitted he does not know “if the reports are true.” But, he said to audible boos, “some of the people who breached the Capitol today were not Trump supporters. They were masquerading as Trump supporters and in fact, were members of the violent terrorist group antifa.”
In fact, many of the Trump supporters who stormed into the Capitol openly boasted about their participation, live-streaming as they forced their way past police and bashed the building’s doors and windows…”
Gaetz was joined by fellow congressmen Paul Gosar, Mo Brooks, FOX host Laura Ingraham, and none other than the MyPillow founder Mike Lindell.
As TIME national political correspondent Molly Ball observed on Twitter:
“The amazing thing about ‘it might have been antifa’ is that Trump literally summoned these people to DC, spoke at their event, offered to walk them over to the Capitol and then praised them afterward.”
And yet, when we stop to think about it, can we really be surprised?
Donald Trump may indeed have fractured the current Republican party beyond repair, but it seems only fitting that even when Republican lawmakers themselves are put in harms way by the monster they helped to create, some will never acknowledge the reality of what they have enabled and emboldened. Rather than coming to terms with the fact that the events of January 6th were a culmination of everything ugly that has been allowed to fester within the United States for not just the past four years but decades and centuries before, the blame is instead being placed on those who have seen this coming long before it even happened.
All that said, it truly is a testament to the rot pervading throughout our governing bodies to see these types of baseless allegations being brought to the floor of the House of Representatives. It should disgust each and every one of us that some of our lawmakers are so concerned with nothing more than the preservation of their own power and career ambitions, that even their own safety being put into jeopardy is not enough for them to change course and reflect on the gravity of these events.
Trump’s reign in the oval office might be coming to an end, but clearly there are still incredibly dark times lying ahead.
