The movement claims to stand with the #police. #Trump’s decision to pardon the cop-beaters of January 6 exposed his movement for what it is.
By Jeffrey Goldberg
#Jan6 #NeverForget #insurrection #PoliticalViolence #Trump #coup #AntiAmerican #democracy #law #Constitution #PeacefulTransitionOfPower
theatlantic.com/magazine/2026/…
MAGA’s Foundational Lie
The movement claims to stand with the police. Trump’s decision to pardon the cop-beaters of January 6 exposed his movement for what it is.Jeffrey Goldberg (The Atlantic)
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Nonilex
in reply to Nonilex • • •At 1:42 AM on Dec 19, 2020, Donald #Trump — disturbed, humiliated, livid — posted the following message on Twitter: “Statistically impossible to have lost the 2020 Election. Big protest in D.C. on January 6th. Be there, will be wild!”
In California, David Nicholas Dempsey, a 33-year-old man-child with multiple felony convictions & a profound affection for the president, answered the call. On #Jan6, wearing a tactical vest & an American-flag gaiter, Dempsey came to the Capitol.
#NeverForget
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Nonilex
in reply to Nonilex • • •Shortly before he assaulted several police officers, he shared his perspectives in an interview given while standing near a #gallows. The gallows had been erected as a reminder to Vice President #MikePence to do, in Trump’s words, “the right thing.”
#Jan6 #NeverForget #insurrection #PoliticalViolence #Trump #coup #AntiAmerican #democracy #law #Constitution #PeacefulTransitionOfPower
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Nonilex
in reply to Nonilex • • •“Them worthless fucking shitholes like fucking Jerry Nadler, fucking Pelosi, Clapper, Comey, fucking all those pieces of garbage, you know, Obama, all these dudes, Clinton, fuck all these pieces of shit,” Dempsey said. “They don’t need a jail cell. They need to hang from these motherfuckers while everybody videotapes it & fucking spreads it on YouTube.”
#Jan6 #NeverForget #insurrection #PoliticalViolence #Trump #coup #AntiAmerican #democracy #law #Constitution #PeacefulTransitionOfPower
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Nonilex
in reply to Nonilex • • •Dempsey was not an organizer of the siege, but he was one of its most energetic participants. He assaulted Metropolitan Police Detective Phuson Nguyen with pepper spray. Nguyen was certain in that moment that he was “going to die,” he later testified. Dempsey assaulted another police officer with a metal crutch, cracking his protective shield & cutting his head.
#Jan6 #NeverForget #insurrection #PoliticalViolence #Trump #AntiAmerican #democracy #law #Constitution #PeacefulTransitionOfPower
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Nonilex
in reply to Nonilex • • •Dempsey, who was heard yelling “Fuck you, bitch-ass cops!,” assaulted other officers with broken pieces of furniture, crutches, & a flagpole. Prosecutors would later argue that “Dempsey’s violence reached such extremes that, at one point, he attacked a fellow rioter who was trying to disarm him.” All told, >140 police officers were injured in the riot, many seriously.
#Jan6 #NeverForget #insurrection #PoliticalViolence #Trump #coup #democracy #law #Constitution #PeacefulTransitionOfPower
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Nonilex
in reply to Nonilex • • •I [Goldberg] attended the #Jan6 rally on the Ellipse, at which #Trump told his supporters, “If you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore.” Then I walked with the crowd to the Capitol. One woman, a #QAnon adherent dressed in a cat costume, told me, “We’re going to stop the steal. If Pence isn’t going to stop it, we have to.”
#NeverForget #insurrection #PoliticalViolence #coup #AntiAmerican #democracy #law #Constitution #PeacefulTransitionOfPower
Nonilex
in reply to Nonilex • • •What I [Goldberg] remember very well about that day was my own failure of imagination. I did not, to my knowledge, see Dempsey—he had positioned himself at the vanguard of the assault, & I had stayed near the White House to listen to #Trump — but I did come across at least a dozen or more protesters dressed in similar tactical gear or wearing body armor, many of them carrying flex-cuffs.
#Jan6 #NeverForget #insurrection #PoliticalViolence #democracy #law #Constitution #PeacefulTransitionOfPower
Nonilex
in reply to Nonilex • • •I [Goldberg] particularly remember those plastic cuffs, but I understood them only as a performance of zealous commitment. Later we would learn that these men—some of whom were #ProudBoys — believed that they would actually be arresting members of #Congress in “defense” of the #Constitution. I interviewed one of them. “It’s all in the Bible,” he said. “Everything is predicted. Donald #Trump is in the Bible.” Grifters could not exist, of course, without a population primed to be grifted.
#Jan6
Nonilex
in reply to Nonilex • • •After the riot, Dempsey returned to California, where he was eventually arrested. In early 2024, he pleaded #guilty to 2 #felony counts of assaulting an officer with a dangerous #weapon. He was sentenced to 20 years in #prison.
#Jan6 #NeverForget #insurrection #PoliticalViolence #Trump #coup #AntiAmerican #democracy #law #Constitution #PeacefulTransitionOfPower
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Nonilex
in reply to Nonilex • • •6 months later, in the summer of 2024, #Trump, who would come to describe the #Jan6 #insurrection as a “day of love,” said that, if reelected, he would #pardon rioters, but only “if they’re innocent.” Dempsey was NOT innocent, but on Jan 20, 2025, shortly after being inaugurated, Trump pardoned him & roughly 1,500 others charged with or convicted of offenses related to the Capitol insurrection.
#NeverForget #PoliticalViolence #coup #democracy #law #Constitution #PeacefulTransitionOfPower
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Nonilex
in reply to Nonilex • • •(14 people, mainly senior figures in the #OathKeepers & #ProudBoys movements, saw their sentences commuted but did not receive #pardons.)
Of the 1,500 or so offenders who received pardons, roughly 600 had been charged with assaulting or obstructing #police officers, & 170 had been accused of using #DeadlyWeapons in the siege.
#Jan6 #NeverForget #insurrection #PoliticalViolence #Trump #coup #AntiAmerican #democracy #law #Constitution #PeacefulTransitionOfPower
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Nonilex
in reply to Nonilex • • •Among those pardoned were Peter Schwartz, who had received a 14-year sentence for throwing a chair at #police officers & repeatedly attacking them with pepper spray; Daniel Joseph Rodriguez, who was sentenced to 12.5 years for #conspiracy & assaulting an officer with a #StunGun (he sent a text message to a friend, “Tazzzzed the fuck out of the blue”); & Andrew Taake, who received a 6-yr sentence for attacking officers with bear spray & a metal whip.
#Jan6 #NeverForget #insurrection #Trump #law
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Nonilex
in reply to Nonilex • • •A day after the #pardons were announced, #Trump said in a press conference, “I am a friend of #police, more than any president who’s been in office.” He went on to describe the rioters. “These were people that actually love our country, so we thought a pardon would be appropriate.”
#Jan6 #NeverForget #insurrection #PoliticalViolence #coup #AntiAmerican #democracy #law #Constitution #PeacefulTransitionOfPower
Nonilex
in reply to Nonilex • • •#Trump had something else to say during that first press conference of his new term: “I think we’re going to do things that people will be shocked at.” This would turn out to be true, but unfortunately, #shock does not last. Here is the emblematic inner struggle of our age: to preserve the ability to be shocked. “Man grows used to everything, the scoundrel!” Dostoyevsky wrote. A blessing that is also a curse.
#Jan6 #NeverForget #insurrection #PoliticalViolence #coup #democracy #law
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Nonilex
in reply to Nonilex • • •I understand that a review—even a short and partial review—of the past year might seem dismally repetitive. But repetition ensures that we #remember, & perhaps even experience shock anew.
So, in brief: #Trump has dismantled America’s foreign-#aid infrastructure & gutted a program, built by an earlier #Republican president, that saved the lives of Africans infected with HIV; he has encouraged [directed] the #UnitedStates #military to commit #WarCrimes;
#NeverForget
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Nonilex
in reply to Nonilex • • •#Trump has instituted radical cuts to US #science & #medical #funding & abetted a crusade against #vaccines; he has appointed #conspiracists, #alcoholics, & #idiots to key positions in his admin; he has destroyed the #independence of the #DOJ; he has waged pitiless war on #prosecutors, #FBI agents, & others who previously investigated him, his family, & his friends; he has cast near-fatal doubt on America’s willingness to fulfill its #treaty obligations to its #democratic #allies;
#NeverForget
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Nonilex
in reply to Nonilex • • •he has applauded Vladimir #Putin for his barbarism & castigated #Ukraine for its unwillingness to commit suicide; he has led #racist attacks on various groups of #immigrants; he has employed unusually #cruel tactics in pursuit of #undocumented immigrants, most of whom have committed only one crime—illegally seeking #refuge in a country that they believed represented the dream of a better life. Those are SOME of the actions #Trump has taken.
#NeverForget
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Nonilex
in reply to Nonilex • • •Beverley reshared this.
Nonilex
in reply to Nonilex • • •Yet, even when weighed against this stunning record of #degeneracy, the pardoning by #Trump of his cop-beating foot soldiers represents the lowest moment of this presidency so far, because it was an act not only of naked #despotism but also of outlandish #hypocrisy. By pardoning these #criminals, he exposed a foundational #lie of #MAGA ideology: that it stands with the #police & as a guarantor of #law & order. The truth is the opposite.
#Jan6 #NeverForget #insurrection #PoliticalViolence #coup
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Nonilex
in reply to Nonilex • • •The power to #pardon is a vestige of America’s pre-independence past. It is an unchecked monarchical power, an awesome power, & therefore it should be bestowed only on leaders blessed with self-restraint, civic-mindedness, &, most important, basic #decency.
We have been watching #indecency triumph in the public sphere on & off for more than 10 years now, since the moment #Trump insulted John McCain’s war record.
#Jan6 #NeverForget #insurrection #PoliticalViolence #democracy #law #Constitution
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Nonilex
in reply to Nonilex • • •For reasons that are quite possibly too unbearable to contemplate, a large group of American voters was not repulsed by such slander—they were actually aroused by it—& our #politics have not been the same. Much has been said, including by me, about Trump’s #narcissism, his #autocratic inclinations, his disconnection from #reality, but not nearly enough has been said about his fundamental #indecency, the characteristic that undergirds everything he says & does.
#Jan6 #Trump #AntiAmerican #law
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Nonilex
in reply to Nonilex • • •In an important essay, Andrew Sullivan noted this past fall that #Trump’s #indecency is comprehensive in style and substance. “It is one thing to be a realist in foreign policy, to accept the morally ambiguous in an immoral world; it is simply indecent to treat a country, #Ukraine, invaded by another, #Russia, as the actual aggressor & force it to accept a settlement on the invader’s terms,” Sullivan wrote.
andrewsullivan.substack.com/p/…
#Jan6 #Trump #AntiAmerican #law #democracy #Constitution
The Question Of Decency
Andrew Sullivan (The Weekly Dish)Beverley reshared this.
Nonilex
in reply to Nonilex • • •“It is one thing to find & arrest illegal #immigrants; it is #indecent to mock & ridicule them, & send them with no #DueProcess to a foreign gulag where #torture is routine. It is one thing to enforce #immigration laws; it is another to use masked, anonymous men to do it. It is one thing to cut foreign #aid; it is simply indecent to do so abruptly & irrationally so that tens of thousands of #children will needlessly die,” Sullivan continued.
#Trump #AntiAmerican #democracy #law #Constitution
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Nonilex
in reply to Nonilex • • •“We have slowly adjusted to this entirely new culture from the top, perhaps in the hope that it will somehow be sated soon—but then new indecencies happen,” Sullivan wrote.
The subject of #Trump’s #indecency came up in a conversation I had with Barack Obama in 2017. I asked him to name the most norm-defying act of his successor to date.
#AntiAmerican #democracy #law #Constitution #NeverForget
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Nonilex
in reply to Nonilex • • •Somewhat to my surprise, Obama mentioned Trump’s speech at the Boy Scouts’ National Jamboree earlier that year. This appearance has been largely forgotten, but it was a festival of #indecency. At one point, #Trump told the scouts about a wealthy friend of his who, he suggested, did unmentionable things on his yacht.
#AntiAmerican #democracy #law #Constitution #NeverForget #Epstein
Nonilex
in reply to Nonilex • • •Obama, a model of dignified presidential behavior (just like *nearly* all of his predecessors, Democratic & Republican), understood viscerally the importance of self-restraint & adherence to long-established norms. Which is why he was so troubled by #Trump’s decadent performance. “You can stand in front of tens of thousands of teenage boys & encourage them to be good citizens & be helpful to their mothers,” Obama said, “or you can go Lord of the Flies. He went Lord of the Flies.”
#AntiAmerican
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Nonilex
in reply to Nonilex • • •We are in a long Lord of the Flies moment, led by a man who, to borrow from Psalm 10, possesses a mouth “full of cursing & deceit & fraud.” For many people—government scientists seeking cures for diseases; FBI agents investigating corruption & terrorism; military leaders trying to preserve respect for the rules of warfare;
#Jan6 #NeverForget #insurrection #PoliticalViolence #Trump #coup #AntiAmerican #democracy #law #Constitution #PeacefulTransitionOfPower
Nonilex
in reply to Nonilex • • •&, in particular, police officers who were brutalized by Trump’s army of deluded followers—these days can seem infernal. Trump’s term is one-quarter over; a piece of advice often attributed to Churchill has it best: When you’re going through hell, keep going.
#Jan6 #NeverForget #insurrection #PoliticalViolence #Trump #coup #AntiAmerican #democracy #law #Constitution #PeacefulTransitionOfPower
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GJ Groothedde 🇪🇺
in reply to Nonilex • • •martin lentink 🇪🇺 🇺🇦📎
in reply to GJ Groothedde 🇪🇺 • • •I seem to remember someone saying he belongs in a straitjacket.
GJ Groothedde 🇪🇺
in reply to martin lentink 🇪🇺 🇺🇦📎 • • •I'm not sure he is, in fact, insane, although he might be. What I do know, is that he is deeply evil.
@Nonilex
Nicole Parsons
in reply to GJ Groothedde 🇪🇺 • • •@Eetschrijver
We got here from there thanks to wealthy people buying a corrupt Supreme Court & money-grubbing Congress.
motherjones.com/politics/2025/…
Project 2025 is a testament to human indecency.
Bradley, Koch, Coors, Scaife Mellon, Seid, Uihlein
desmog.com/2024/08/14/project-…
These are the people who bought an election for Trump. Not one has disavowed him
Want to stop the indecency before it triggers a world war?
Stop the money from The Moneyed that flows to a #MadKing & his regime
1/
6 Billionaire Fortunes Bankrolling Project 2025 - DeSmog
Joe Fassler (DeSmog)xs4me2
in reply to Nonilex • • •despicable. His name will go down in history... for what he did.
Mastodon Migration
in reply to xs4me2 • • •He had a lot of help from the New York Times.
xs4me2
in reply to Mastodon Migration • • •You can replace that by main stream media…
Godfrey642
in reply to Nonilex • • •Not enough has been said - honestly - about the indecency and violent commentary of the ⅓ of American voters who find Trump's rhetoric seductive.
And not enough has been said about the ⅓ of Americans who facilitated the undoing of world order by NOT voting at all and thus allowing Trump to win.
NormanDunbar
in reply to Nonilex • • •TomKrajci 🇺🇦 🏳️🌈 🏳️⚧️
in reply to Nonilex • • •Today would be a great day to start the General Strike.
generalstrikeus.com/
#Politics #USpol #Trump #MAGA #Fascism #Strike #GeneralStrike #Jan6 #NeverForget #insurrection #PoliticalViolence #coup #AntiAmerican #democracy #law #Constitution #PeacefulTransitionOfPower
The General Strike
The General StrikeRoy -- the dull one
in reply to Nonilex • • •Edge
in reply to Roy -- the dull one • • •Well... these days that word is a large part of my vocabulary as well, although pointed in a very different direction.
Roy -- the dull one
in reply to Edge • • •@czarbucks
That habit slips up on us, especially when we have good reasons to be full of rage. But I think we have to try to avoid overuse of "fucking" or any other pejorative word, because there's risk that a habit of speech can gradually become a habit of thinking. At least, that's my experience. Would you agree?
I'm not against the word, just saying we shouldn't let it dominate what we say. If it's over-used to an extreme, there may not be much real thinking going on.
Nonilex
in reply to Roy -- the dull one • • •@oldclumsy_nowmad @czarbucks
I think Dempsey proves your point perfectly
FinchHaven sfba
in reply to Nonilex • • •Roy -- the dull one
in reply to Nonilex • • •Tom DB 🦣
in reply to Nonilex • • •