Trump’s pardon of the J6 Terrorists is about encouraging future MAGA violence
Trump is copying the fascist playbook
I hope your blood is boiling after Donald Trump’s pardon of approximately 1,500 terrorists who attacked our Capitol on Jan. 6. And yes, Trump’s own hand-picked FBI Director testified before Congress that Jan. 6 was an “act of domestic terrorism.” So those people Trump has now pardoned—which includes those in the video below you can see brutally attacking police officers—are terrorists. This is akin to Bin Laden pardoning those involved in the 9/11 terrorist attack.
Overall, the pardons covered more than 600 rioters who had been charged with assaulting, resisting or impeding law enforcement officers at the Capitol. Approximately, 175 of these Trump allies used deadly or dangerous weapons in the attack--including toxic sprays, baseball bats, two-by-fours, crutches, hockey sticks and broken wooden table legs.
Those Trump pardoned include people like Julian Khater, who pled guilty to “assaulting law enforcement officers with pepper spray,” including Officer Brian Sicknick, who died the following day. And Ronald Colton McAbee, a former sheriff’s deputy who was sentenced to nearly six years in prison for assaulting police officers. As DOJ detailed, McAbee held down a police officer who had been “knocked to the ground, kicked, and stripped of his baton by other rioters” enabling the crowd to viciously beat him. As a result, “the officer sustained physical injuries, including a head laceration, concussion, elbow injury, bruising, and bodily abrasions.”
Daniel Joseph "DJ" Rodriguez who used a stun gun on Metropolitan Police Officer Michael Fanone and was sentenced to 12.5 years for his bevy of crimes. And David Dempsey who prosecutors called “one of the most violent” Jan. 6 attackers—who assaulted and injured numerous police officers by spraying then with pepper spray and hitting them with various items including a metal crutch, chairs and a long wooden pole. He pled guilty and was sentenced to two decades in prison.
Then there are the leaders of the militant groups the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys who had been convicted of “Seditious Conspiracy”—which is almost as serious as Treason. As DOJ noted, the Oath Keepers leaders “plotted to oppose by force the lawful transfer of presidential power” and then came to Washington, D.C. on Jan. 6 “with paramilitary gear and supplies including firearms, tactical vests with plates, helmets, and radio equipment.” Yet Trump freed them from prison despite their sentences of nearly 20 years.
These are violent and dangerous people—including many with military experience and tactical planning skills--who Trump pardoned and released from jail. Why? Trump—like any other aspiring dictators—wants to make a public showing that if you commit crimes and violence on his behalf, he will have your back.
However, there is also an even more sinister reason for Trump’s pardons of the most violent attackers. Trump wants to incentivize others in MAGA to do the same in the future—with the implicit promise being “I will pardon you like I did the Jan. 6 terrorists.”
That is not just my view. That what authoritarian expert Ruth Ben-Ghiat explained to me last year when I interviewed her about Trump’s praise of the Jan. 6 attackers and vow to pardon them. She first shared that Trump—like other fascist leaders—is trying “to change the perception of violence. To get people to see that violence is not negative.” Trump is thereby conditioning his supporters to believe that. “Violence is sometimes morally necessary and even righteous, and even patriotic.”
As to Trump’s promise of pardons, Ben-Ghiat explained, “All authoritarians use pardons because why do you want people sitting in jail--the worst people in the world--who are for you the best people and could serve your goals?”
Ben-Ghiat then shared the bone-chilling truth about why Trump would pardon the Jan, 6 attackers if he won. As she noted, “The pardons are about encouraging people to do more violence, thinking that they're not going to pay any consequences.” She added, “That's actually the essence of authoritarianism and fascism: You arrange government so that you can be violent and corrupt and get away with it.”
Some were likely shocked when Trump pardoned the violent Jan. 6 attackers given leading Republicans like Trump’s own Vice-President J.D. Vance last week declared on national TV: “If you committed violence on that day, obviously you shouldn’t be pardoned.” Even House Speaker Mike Johnson said recently that “peaceful protesters should be pardoned, but violent criminals should not.”
But Trump doesn’t care what his Vice President thinks—after all Trump intentionally put his then Vice President Mike Pence’s life in jeopardy on Jan. 6. Nor does Trump care that polling finds two-thirds of Americans oppose pardoning the Jan. 6 attackers—especially those who committed violence that day.
Trump, as always, only cares about his MAGA base-after all they are the ones who have committed violence in his name before. So what does the MAGA faithful think about pardoning the Jan 6 terrorists? A recent poll by The Washington Post found 60 percent of Republicans and nearly 70% of self-identified MAGA members support pardoning these people. That should not be surprising given MAGA knows the violence was waged by their fellow MAGA members and it was all in the service of their beloved Trump.
Given fascists and aspiring autocrats follow the same playbook, don’t be surprised if Trump next forms his own personal MAGA militia the way Hitler created his Brownshirts--who were “infamous for their operation outside of the law and their violent intimidation of Germany’s leftists.”
And come January 6, 2025, expect Trump to hold a ceremony to honor those who waged the Jan. 6 attack—and especially Ashli Babbitt who was killed by the police when she attempted to enter a secured area in violation of the officer’s demands. After all, that is exactly what Hitler did after he came to power with his annual tribute to those killed in his failed 1923 coup attempt—as I recently wrote about.
Trump is not a genius but no one understands his base better than Trump. He knows how to inspire them to vote, buy his scam products or engage in violence. The pardoning of the Jan. 6 terrorists is all part of Trump’s plan to wield power by any means necessary.
Below is another clip of Trump’s MAGA terrorists in action. Every person you see below attacking police officers has now been pardoned by Trump and released from prison. Again, I hope your blood is boiling!
Boiling is not the word. Subatomic head explosions!
The problem is that I have friends who call them patriots; there’s no way to bridge the divide…they believe the election was stolen, and the ‘pediphiles’ had to be stopped. As long as the disinformation works, Trump can do anything.