WorldNetDaily columnist Larry Elder is a Donald Trump suck-up and apologist who has pretended that Trump didn’t mock a disabled reporter and didn’t praise neo-Nazis in Charlottesville. He took another stab at Trump revisionism in his July 27 column:
In an editorial called “Trump’s Silence on Jan 6 Is Damning,” the New York Post wrote: “His only focus was to find any means – damn the consequences – to block the peaceful transfer of power. There is no other explanation, just as there is no defense, for his refusal to stop the violence. It’s up to the Justice Department to decide if this is a crime. But as a matter of principle, as a matter of character, Trump has proven himself unworthy to be this country’s chief executive again.”
I disagree.
Former President Donald Trump felt robbed, understandably so. NPR’s Domenico Montanaro said, “Just 44,000 votes in Georgia, Arizona and Wisconsin separated Biden and Trump from a tie in the Electoral College.”
Elder rehashed the usual attacks on mailing ballots to all voters in Michigan and greater access to drop boxes, complaining that the Trump campaign’s challenges to them were dismissed on procedural grounds — but offered no proof that any of those things resulted in any election fraud.
Elder then insisted that Trump did no incite the riot by citing … another Trump yes-man:
As to fomenting an “insurrection,” Kash Patel, chief of staff for the acting secretary of defense, said that on Jan. 4, “Mr. Trump unequivocally authorized up to 20,000 National Guardsmen and women for us to utilize should the second part of the law, the request, come in. But those requests never did.” Patel says he testified under oath to the Jan. 6 committee that he was in the room when Trump made this authorization.
What part of “peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard” – as Trump said in his Jan. 6 speech – do the Jan. 6 committee members not understand? Yes, the speech ended with, “We fight like hell. And if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore.” But politicians have long used rhetoric like “We’re going to fight,” or “We’re going to take back America,” or “This is war.”
Trump made unsuccessful legal arguments against the certification of the election, as did congressional Democrats following the presidential elections of 2000, 2004 and 2016. But when they did so, the media did not characterize them as “undermining our democracy.”
Perhaps because Democrats kept their objections in the proper legal venues, accepted the results and did not incite a riot inside the Capitol to attempt to overthrow the election.