Amidst the post-president senile Joe Biden SOTU establishment (and otherwise) media coverage was a blurb that came out last week regarding former president Donald Trump’s promise to “release the J6 hostages” if elected president to a second, non-consecutive term this November.
Trump’s vow came as part of a brief social media post where he elaborated on what he intended to do early in his new administration, which (somewhat) served as a marked contrast to what the broken-down ol’ bucket o’ bones senile Joe Biden shouted during his national address and also has been spouting in his increased public appearances since the controversial oration a week and a half ago.
Americans had to figure that the January 6, 2021 topic was bound to play an important role in this year’s campaign, not because there’s any lasting physical damage or other signs that things got out of hand up on the vaunted Capitol Hill well over a thousand days ago, but because Democrats and Biden are completely devoid of anything substantive to talk about, so they need to revive the ghosts of bad memories long past to motivate their easily angered and frightened base to contribute to the party – and vote for them.
Trump isn’t taking the issue sitting down. Just like with the other emotion-stirring topics he takes on standing up, the J6 prisoners will be center stage in this year’s campaign. Imagine senile Joe being asked a question about his justice department’s handling of the unjustly incarcerated – and watch the old fart’s brain misfire and smoke.
“Former President Donald Trump has vowed to release individuals imprisoned over the Jan. 6, 2021, breach of the U.S. Capitol if he wins the 2024 election in November. President Trump made the comments in a statement on Truth Social on March 11, noting that it would be among one of his first acts upon taking office in the White House.
“The Republican said shutting down the U.S.-Mexico border and increasing oil drilling as part of efforts to make America more energy independent would also be among his first actions as president. ‘My first acts as your next President will be to Close the Border, DRILL, BABY, DRILL, and Free the January 6 Hostages being wrongfully imprisoned!’ President Trump said…
“However, the Republican stressed he would not pardon all of those imprisoned, telling the audience that ‘a couple of them, probably they got out of control.’”
Hence Trump, even when he’s sworn an oath to appease his base, hasn’t totally created territory for his enemies to accuse him of giving in to the “insurrectionists” (their word, not mine) who were present that day. Laws were indeed broken on that afternoon and those who broke them should be punished accordingly – including law enforcement officers. Sitting at Nancy Pelosi’s desk? The guy who did that probably didn’t care what happened to him afterwards, but he must’ve figured he wasn’t going to just get away with it.
But the passage of time heals most wounds, and certainly has in the case of the events of January 6, 2021. As is usually the scenario, the Democrats have tried in earnest to use the nation’s initial shock and horror at the imagery to stamp a brand on all Trump supporters as legitimate authority challenging yahoos who placed their candidate’s grievances far above their own personal safety.
That just isn’t the way it was, but the frustrations that led to the enormous turnout at the demonstration showed itself once again this year by re-nominating Trump for another presidential ballot. In the process, conservatives and Republican voters thumbed their noses at the ruling classes of both parties, the establishment media and every other snob who said it just couldn’t (or shouldn’t) be done.
In that sense, Trump is the living embodiment of “democracy” at work. Shouldn’t senile Joe Biden and his Democrat followers at least acknowledge this?
Then there are the images of the actual riot itself, where serious looking people confronted police, resisted the anti-crowd measures and did some things unbecoming of a patriotic American. Most people, including Trump, aren’t advocating letting the violent protesters completely off the hook, though it would be nice if they were granted due process, access to the full complement of the government’s video evidence and generally permitted to advance a thorough defense.
There are two sides to every story. One side is not necessarily adequately told because the investigatory powers of the government are unmatched. Plus, the presumption of innocence doesn’t always prevail when there are partisan, biased people filing the papers and having drinks with the judges and paying their salaries.
The old saying goes that the victors write the history narrative for successive generations. If Trump does end up winning, the J6ers at least have a fighting chance to have some sway in how posterity recalls that day. The way it is now, we’ve got senile Joe Biden and cackling Kamala Harris pontificating about how the riot was a democracy-cancelling “insurrection” bent on stopping the peaceful transfer of power.
Baloney. But will the truth come out?
Time will tell. Biden himself could initiate a big step towards national unity simply by being proactive and calling off the ongoing witch hunt for January 6 participants, stopping the prosecutions of most of them under the auspices of the hopelessly ambiguous “Obstruction of an official proceeding” statute (passed for a much different purpose) and, going even further, issuing pardons for those who’ve already been convicted for trespassing and other non-violent infractions.
Time served would have to suffice for the people who simply were drawn into the emotion of the day and walked around the capital when they shouldn’t have been there. I know some folks who’ve argued that it was a government building and is open to the public, but come on, if they were inside the building on the day that the Electoral Votes were to be counted, they probably should have realized that they shouldn’t have been there, right?
Of course, the police let a good many of them inside the building. Some were caught in the mob and couldn’t escape being forced to move in the crowd’s direction – and entered the opened doors because it was the only available space around them. Water flows to the place with least resistance, correct?
Some sort of Biden concession on the subject could signal that Democrats were genuine in their desire to “restore the soul of the nation”, but harmony is not something they’re truly interested in. As has been proven time and again, Democrats want vengeance and retribution against those who oppose their programs or question their causes. With senile Joe Biden as their figurehead, they’re mean, nasty, merciless people.
But the real question is, will Trump’s J6 promise hurt him politically?
If they could do it, Democrats would run January 6, 2021 over and over again like the Bill Murray character endured in the movie “Groundhog Day”, doing something slightly different each 24 hours until they perfected what they had to do to ensure the maximum level of outrage from the voting public. But that didn’t happen.
And notice that Trump’s other promises – to close the U.S. border with Mexico and ramp up carbon-producing energy production – haven’t forced the Democrats to fly off on a tizzy. It’s the J6 subject that truly animates them. Oh, the insurrection! The poor illegal aliens will be locked out of the country and the earth’s atmosphere will burn and be destroyed, but let the “hostages” go — and the crows at “The View” will be mighty ornery!
Trump’s pledge to “free the hostages” probably won’t have much, if any, impact on the election. The Democrats who would be enraged by such a proposal already hate Trump so intensely that it’s not possible for them to increase the temperature over this issue – and they’re the ones who are so amped up that they’ll vote. The less motivated don’t care about this topic and are more inclined to worry about non-issues like LGBTQ+++ rights or cultural wokeism than “insurrection”.
Some police-hating Democrats might even sympathize with the fate of the prisoners who’ve been pursued unfairly, the victims of a rights trampling, freedom squelching police state.
By the same token, it’s unlikely Trump would gain many votes from this topic, either. Justified or not, most Americans are more focused on Trump’s close-the-border promise than what he does about the 2020 election or the J6 individuals. And there’s always the group that loves cheaper energy, who will be pleased with Trump’s vow to increase production.
Democrats have labeled Donald Trump a “dictator” for previewing the executive actions he plans to take on the first day of his new administration, accusations that aren’t likely to cease now that the former president said he intends to release the non-violent J6 prisoners within hours of his swearing in. The move is the right thing to do, even if it’s politically uncertain. Trump doesn’t hide what he’s thinking, and that’s a good thing.
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2024 presidential election