Well the answer to “why did people still support Trump after Jan 6th” is actually “Jan 6th.”
Those people that came to DC and walked to the Capitol and stormed out are Americans who were a) pissed off and b) willing and able to travel and march and attack on behalf of Trump.
That’s not nothing in terms of power and influence. And it’s indicative of a BUNCH of people who met condition (a) but not (b). Like probably an order of magnitude or more.
Since no Republican stepped up to steal those supporters from Trump by pointing out how absolutely un-American Jan 6th was, they stayed loyal to him. So the politicians followed, the owners followed, and the media followed.
That’s not quite correct. In 2021 we saw quite a few Republicans calling out January 6th as un-American, unacceptable political violence, etc, etc. The prosecution of the J6 ringleaders had wide bipartisan support. Plenty of Republicans tried to take the mantle of leadership from Trump in the belief that Republicans wouldn’t support a criminal who’d attempted a coup.
But here’s the thing: You’re absolutely correct to say a ton of Americans implicitly supported January 6th. There were an enormous number of Americans who believed the 2020 election was stolen, or who, at the very least, had questions about it. There were a lot of conservative Americans who supported J6 because they believed having a conservative President was more important than following the law. And then there were the anons who believed in the Q conspiracy and were cheering on January 6th because they believed Trump was finally, as prophesied, going to declare martial law, dissolve the US government, and purge America of the secret cabal of billionaire Democrat child abusers - and if I remember the polls correctly, roughly one in four Republicans believed in Q.
And almost everyone in the United States - including those Republican Party leaders who tried to take the mantle of leadership from Trump - underestimated how widespread support for J6 was on the right.
And the more Biden’s FBI tried to tie Trump to January 6th, tried to get him on whatever charges they could manage, the more Trump looked like a victim of political persecution instead of a failed candidate who couldn’t accept defeat. The more Biden pressured social media to censor “election denial”, the more it looked like the Biden administration had something to hide.
So as time passed, the “election deniers” got more and more common, and got more and more influence in the Republican Party - and ordinary rank and file Republicans heard over and over again that Trump was a victim of persecution and ordinary conservatives were being censored for supporting him, and became more and more loyal to Trump. Supporting Trump in 2024 became a loyalty test - Republicans supported him because Biden was trying so hard to have him convicted and disqualified from running for office, and choosing another candidate felt like giving in.
And as they rose in power, the Republicans who thought January 6th was unacceptable got quieter and quieter, because it became more and more obvious Trump was going to be the candidate in 2024, and they knew better than to piss him off.
In other words - as disgustingly ironic as it is - Democratic attempts to get justice for January 6th were one of the biggest reasons Trump was reelected in 2024.
The second I saw he was running the first time, I knew it was going to be a disaster. Maybe I couldn’t appreciate just how much of a disaster it would be though
that escalator keeps going down to this day
Where was his cameraman when we really needed him?
I disagree (with the title but agree with you the post), Jan 6th should truly be the dealbreaker. Why? Cause it’s not even politics, it’s simple rules of games.
If you can’t accept when you lose, you don’t get to play anymore.
They had 4 years to jail him over treason and they didn’t. I said it before and I’ll say it again, Biden should have jailed him for Jan 6th.
Merrick Garland deserves a place in hell with Newt Gingrich, The Koch Family, Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch, and Mitch McConnell.
Now I personally believe that Garland was just that incompetent rather than malicious as the others are.
However, his incompetence is dammingly damaging to the future of the entire planet.
Biden should have had him and the rest of the imsurrectionists executed for trying to overthrow throw democracy. Jailing them just changes their platform for inciting rebellion.
All the trumpers would have risen up to do violence, but fuck it: execute them, too.
The only reason the Jan 6th rioters got in the Capitol is because Donald Trump specifically chose not to call in the National Guard to protect the Capitol. If MAGA had attempted a second insurrection when Trump was jailed and Biden was in office, they wouldn’t have gotten anywhere.
This is the kinda stuff I laughed about pre-last election when MAGA was calling for civil war if Kamala won. It’s not funny now, but the truth remains. An outright seizure of the Capitol/White House/SCotUS is nigh impossible unless our leader wants it. Now, the Jan 6th crowd was exceptionally stupid in not even being able to navigate the Capitol floor; but navigation abilities won’t matter when you get gunned down approaching the entrance.
also racism, they have to be careful around White people who are committing crimes too, without angering white voter base in general. alot of them pretend to be on the left, but act very wierdly around POCs.
It is what they plan for the rest of us. Fascism has always been a sort of “blindly obey the leader or die” sort of thing.
The second major problem is that a whole bunch of people are then killed, first for being the wrong ethnicity, or killed for having the wrong beliefs, or maybe you just live on land that some rich asshole wants to steal. These people will never even be given a chance to “obey” but will likely be told that they are being killed for disobedience. Or someone will be told.
And the lie will be believed, because it will be convenient to do so.
Biden should have used the bully pulpit and pushed hard to prosecute. Merrick Garland is technically the one who sat on his ass for 2 years before getting started, which is how Trump was able to delay through the election then throw out his own cases.
Based on the strong bipartisan coverup of the Epstein Files, clearly there are reasons Biden’s donors didn’t want to prosecute one of “their own.” So they didn’t, because the people don’t get represented in America, only capital owners do.
It’s because the Democrats didn’t inflict any consequences on Republicans and used the “let’s look to the future and not dwell on the past” framing on it. How can you blame voters for not taking it seriously if Democrats didn’t?
alot of the dnc are Dinos, republicans that cant get elected from the right, so they have to pretend to be Dems on some issues, but republicans on most other ones. why we get people like schumer, jefferies, fetterman
You’re speaking of long after Jan 6th occurred. The OP post is talking about on that day. As in, “how did those that would actually stand to benefit become willing to benefit at the cost of following the rule of law?” The disappointing answer is that those performing the insurrection on Jan 6th, as well as those that would stand to gain, are more concerned with being in power rather than respecting justice and the rule of law.
The disappointing answer is that those performing the insurrection on Jan 6th, as well as those that would stand to gain, are more concerned with being in power rather than respecting justice and the rule of law.
Yes you nailed it. Kamala recently expressed sadness at the level of capitulation, saying she didn’t expect it. A lot of us had a rude awakening in the days after J6 when we realized that lot of our fellow citizens did not take the lessons on democracy taught to us since grade school to heart.
They called it out and Americans didn’t care.
“those people are ignorant”
-My conservative mother, pretending Trump didn’t work tirelessly for years enraging them, tell them to do exactly what they did, and then gleefully watch for 2 hours while they did it.
In other words, she thinks trump had nothing to do with it, as laughable as that is.
Because so many Americans hate America and what it stands for. They hate anyone who isn’t like them, and they like that it bothers you. They enjoy your frustration and your confusion, because it gives them a feeling of power they would otherwise never experience on their own merits.
The only reason a sizable chunk of the country wasn’t there partaking would have been the cost of travel and time.
The current president is a culmination … a celebration … of the general dumbing down of the American public.
They spent the past 50 years just generally deluding themselves to the point where stupidity, complacency and ignorance is just celebrated and rewarded.
It’s a nation of idiots … a nation of idiots with nuclear weapons.
Trump was the perfect storm. Everybody that held some form of bigotry could see themselves in him. Because how could he be a bad person if they weren’t a bad person.
Until my final breath I’ll never understand how George W. Bush wasn’t a dealbreaker for every future Republican president. And then they voted for Trump of all people.
Like that’s it. We humans have failed evolution.
White Americans lost their fucking minds when Obama was elected
White americans voted for Obama. Blacks are only 13% of the country.
Big if true
i doubt most of them voted for obama, alot more went with the gop instead.
it isnt because evangelicals are afraid of losing thier influence in government, plus thier hold on the US, and oppression of POCs and lgbtq+ people, and are afraid of retribution and reprisal from the latter 2 groups.
Well…Americans have failed evolution.
He kind of was in a way. The 2016 primary featured a dozen Bush wannabes, and Trump just went on stage and embarrassed them all by pointing out all the things they did horribly wrong (war, healthcare, etc), he correctly identified what made Republicans unelectable nationally. People related to that anger.
its always anger or fear, these are the only 2 emotions conservatives can express.
That’s one of the most frustrating things about this right wing populism. They’re correctly pointing out problems: wealth inequality, expensive housing, warmongering, etc. The problem they then cause is that they blame the source of these problems squarely on some scapegoats and then do things that only exacerbate the existing problems they diagnosed in the first place.
Billionaire donors gaining even more power and stripping the few checks against said power, doing shit all to make groceries cheaper, and now they’re out there blowing up boats in international waters and committing large scale violence against people in this county. Yet… crickets from the folks who voted them in. Just maddening. They just wanted to shit on the scapegoats
It’s time to point to the LBJ sign again.
I’ll tell you what’s at the bottom of it, If you can convince the lowest white man he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you’re picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he’ll empty his pockets for you. – Lyndon B. Johnson, attributed by Bill Moyers
If you pour enough money/resources into anyone, you can get them to win an election. Trump was just the easiest one to pour money into: he’s easily swayed, even more easily bought, and has a certain… shudders charisma (?) that makes him more electable than a rando mild conservative.
What you’re witnessing here is just capitalism. People with a lot of money and power wanted to gain even more money and power. Trump a convenient vehicle for that. So they poured money into his campaign and he won.
Because, for his supporters, anything but them getting their own way is an injustice.
It’s the moderates and centrists that worry me. I know he had a laundry list of deal breakers. But after Jan 6th, he should have lost every sliver of support from anyone who doesn’t support treason.
The problem is that he did, in that moment, and then media and people walked it back and minimized it for 3.5 years until by the time everyone voted again, well, he didn’t go to prison so maybe they made it up or it wasn’t so bad? See also: his felonies were “political”.
Truth is that most Americans are so busy living or surviving that they don’t go learn or seek out different views to become more well-rounded. Propaganda works.
He’s the narcissist’s hero.
Same way Liberals voting for a candidate actively enabling a genocide. Their side is also full of “you’re not helping our electoral chance” politics.
If you can’t understand how January 6th wasn’t a deal breaker; but you also expect a genocide to NOT be a deal breaker at the same time. I have little hope for you to understand what is going on today and even how we got to this point.
Because you don’t understand the American voter, but Trump does.
So, given the mounting evidence for vote manipulation, I can’t believe that anymore.
10mo ago, I would have agreed though.
He defeated every Republican rival and took control of the GOP through the voters. Even if he cheated, which he did, him having support of even 40% still proves he understands the American voter in a way few do.
Oh, I don’t hate Trump. It’s just that he reminds me of the guy that sexually abused me when I was 11 years old. Same body build, same voice, same hair, same complexion…WAIT A MINUTE!
Simple. Back then were still naive enough to believe that there would be justice served.
