The Conservative Cult of Victimhood
Many of President Donald Trump’s crooked schemes are so ill-thought that even his intimates cannot take them seriously.
Asking Russia to hack your opponent’s emails during a press conference? Who would do that? He must have been joking!
So it was on January 6.
What Trump was trying to achieve that day was so flat-out delusional as to defy belief.
Trump had gotten it into his head that the vice president could overturn a national vote, kicking the certified tallies back to the states, which could subtract enough legitimate votes on the grounds of fraud to hand the election to Trump. This plan was both illegal and impossible, and Vice President Mike Pence said as much to Trump. But Trump did not quit. His admirers devised a Plan B for him. If Pence would not willingly overturn the 2020 election, then Pence could be strong-armed into doing so.
That was the mission for which Trump summoned thousands of his supporters to Washington, D.C., on January 6. As he told the crowd at the Ellipse immediately before the attack on the Capitol: “We’re going to have to fight much harder, and Mike Pence is going to have to come through for us.” That’s why those supporters brandished nooses and shouted death threats against Pence as they surged through the halls of Congress. That’s the thought that had the Trump family dancing to “Gloria” before the attack began: Mike Pence compelled by the pressure of the crowd to do the right thing for Trump.
