{"id":109714,"date":"2021-01-23T14:57:03","date_gmt":"2021-01-23T14:57:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/precoinnews.com\/?p=109714"},"modified":"2021-01-23T14:57:03","modified_gmt":"2021-01-23T14:57:03","slug":"trump-has-incited-violence-all-along-the-gop-just-didnt-care-until-now","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/precoinnews.com\/politics\/trump-has-incited-violence-all-along-the-gop-just-didnt-care-until-now\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump Has Incited Violence All Along. The GOP Just Didn’t Care Until Now."},"content":{"rendered":"

After President Donald Trump urged a riotous mob of his supporters to storm the U.S. Capitol, some Republicans have finally had enough.<\/p>\n

At least 10 Trump administration officials have resigned since Wednesday\u2019s attack, in which five people, including a police officer, died.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat behavior was unconscionable for our country,\u201d Education Secretary Betsy DeVos wrote to Trump in a letter announcing her resignation. \u201cThere is no mistaking the impact your rhetoric had on the situation, and it is the inflection point for me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even some of the president\u2019s allies in Congress are distancing themselves from him. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), one of Trump\u2019s golfing buddies, said it \u201cbreaks my heart that my friend, a president of consequence, would allow [the attack] to happen.\u201d<\/p>\n

Many of the people who broke into the Capitol Wednesday came straight from a nearby \u201cStop the Steal\u201d rally with Trump, who continued to insist there was no way he could have lost the 2020 election without fraud and cheating.<\/p>\n

He encouraged the crowd to walk to the Capitol, telling them they would \u201cnever take back our country with weakness.\u201d He said Vice President Mike Pence had better do \u201cthe right thing,\u201d and falsely claimed that Pence had the power to deny President-elect Joe Biden his rightful election victory.<\/p>\n

Pence had to be whisked out of the Capitol to a secure location, as rioters were heard talking about how they wanted to lynch and execute him.<\/p>\n

None of what happened last week was surprising. And Trump\u2019s comments inciting violence were perfectly in line with everything he has been saying since he first entered presidential politics.<\/p>\n

Republicans have long ignored Trump\u2019s habit of openly using violent rhetoric that puts people at risk. GOP lawmakers, when asked whether they support what Trump says, have consistently tried to pretend they never see his tweets. Or they insist\u00a0the tweets don\u2019t matter. Or they simply refuse to weigh in on what he\u2019s said.<\/p>\n

Others have tried to tell themselves that Trump will surely feel some shame and remorse and get better. After Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) voted to acquit Trump in his Senate impeachment trial last year, she predicted that the president had learned a \u201cpretty big lesson\u201d from impeachment, and that he would be \u201cmuch more cautious in the future.\u201d<\/p>\n

This time, what Trump did hit closer to home for GOP lawmakers. It wasn\u2019t just journalists or people of color at risk.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Wednesday\u2019s overtaking of the Capitol was a tragic, unsurprising culmination of everything Trump has said and done as a candidate, as a nominee and as president.<\/p>\n