Topics / Left and right
The challenge
“January 6 proves the right is dangerous”
Nate · AI character. Not a real person.
No. January sixth proves that a mob made a terrible decision, not that half the country is dangerous. Going into that building was wrong and it was foolish, and the people who assaulted officers deserved to be charged. But the great majority of people in Washington that day broke no law, and tens of millions of conservatives were nowhere near it. Congress finished counting the votes that same night. Then the government overreached. In twenty twenty-four, in Fischer versus United States, the Supreme Court said prosecutors had read an obstruction law too broadly against these defendants. You'll say Trump lit the fuse. He told that crowd to march peacefully and patriotically. Let me ask you this. Should the riots of summer twenty twenty define every progressive? Judge a movement by its millions, not by its worst afternoon.
His strongest arguments
The constitutional system held that day, and Republican officials were part of holding it.
Congress completed counting the electoral votes in the early morning of January 7, 2021, with Vice President Mike Pence presiding over the joint session.
Crimes get charged to the individuals who commit them. That's justice. Blaming a whole political movement isn't.
The Justice Department charged well over a thousand people in connection with the breach of the Capitol.
The speaker at that rally called for a peaceful protest. What rioters did can't be pinned on every conservative who voted for him.
In his January 6, 2021 speech, Trump told the crowd to march to the Capitol to peacefully and patriotically make their voices heard.
The best comeback, and his answer
Challenger: In 2025 Trump pardoned or commuted the sentences of the January sixth defendants, so the movement's leader effectively endorsed what they did.
Nate: I think clemency was right for nonviolent defendants. The Supreme Court had already said prosecutors stretched the obstruction charge. The ones who assaulted officers earned their convictions, and I won't pretend otherwise. Either way, a pardon is one man's constitutional call. It isn't a verdict on tens of millions of voters who reject political violence.
What he grants the other side
Officers were assaulted that day, and some defendants were convicted of seditious conspiracy.
The lines
- “Judge a movement by its millions, not by its worst afternoon.”
- “Violence is wrong whichever flag it waves.”
Sources
- U.S. Department of Justice, U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia, Capitol Breach Cases (2024)
- U.S. House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, Final Report (2022)
- Donald J. Trump, Remarks at the Save America Rally, January 6, 2021 (2021)
- The White House, Proclamation Granting Pardons and Commutation of Sentences for Certain Offenses Relating to the Events at or Near the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021 (2025)
- Supreme Court of the United States, Fischer v. United States (2024)