It’s not the style of Trump’s speech that caused the violence; it’s the substance

Senator Ted Cruz has found Donald Trump guilty of excessive “rhetoric” in the President’s speech just before the assault on the capitol. Meanwhile, journalists and Democrats have been combing through the speech looking for words and phrases that could be seen as inciting violence.

But in this case, the devil is not in the details; it’s the main point of the speech. And the problem isn’t Trump’s rhetorical style; it’s the substance, the message, not just in that speech, but in many speeches and tweets since the election — a message that Cruz has helped to perpetuate.

To understand the impact of Trump’s words, try to put yourselves in the shoes of Trump’s most fervent supporters. (Given all that has happened, that may be difficult, but try.)

For weeks, a person whose word you trust has been saying, not just that there were “irregularities” in the election (as if anything could be “regular” in this time of pandemic), but that the election was stolen. Trump has been telling you that he won by a landslide, but that Trump votes were thrown out, and fake Biden votes were manufactured, to make it look like Biden won.

You voted, but due to foul play, your vote doesn’t count. How does that make you feel?

The storming of the capitol has been called “an assault on democracy,” and it was, but in the minds of Trump’s supporters, they were doing just the opposite. Trump had been telling them that our democracy is broken, and they were trying to fix it.

We have been taught that we should always choose ballots over bullets, but Trump has been telling his followers: “you tried ballots, and it didn’t work.” What is left but bullets?

When the voice of the people is ignored, when the will of the people has been thwarted, the people have no choice but to rise up in rebellion. That is the principle on which the American Revolution was fought.

Perhaps I have an easier time seeing things from the Trump supporters’ point of view because I have been where they are, mentally, myself. In the weeks after the election, I was saying to myself (it is the pandemic, after all, and my cat is tired of listening) that if Trump somehow manages to steal Biden’s win, I will take up arms and march on Washington myself. And this is coming from a guy who, in all his long life, has never fired anything more powerful than a B-B gun.

I’m not saying we should let the pro-Trump rioters off the hook. They should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. But the problem is not that they are bad people. The problem is Trump’s lying and their willingness to believe him. We should direct our anger at the man responsible for inciting the riot.

I say lock him up. We have been reluctant to level criminal charges against a president because jailing ex-presidents is something they do in banana republics. But when a president is trying his damnedest to turn this country into a banana republic, there has to be a severe penalty.