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“The attack at the Capitol was the outcome of years of eroding the line between fact and fiction and right and wrong,” mentioned Rory Cooper, a Republican strategist. Mr. Cooper argued there was a gap now for a “conservative candidate” to definitively decouple appeals to legislation and order from the selective enforcement of the Trump period, “but we’re some distance from that time.”
Other Republicans insist no floor has been misplaced on the problem — that the social gathering will doubtless retain the higher hand within the eyes of voters. “I think Republicans right now have the advantage of law and order and still do, regardless of” what occurred on the Capitol, mentioned Chris Russell, a longtime Republican guide and advert maker.
And ought to Democrats “persist with a defund-the-police message,” Mr. Russell added — although Mr. Biden has denounced it — Republican candidates will doubtless proceed to seek out success in framing their social gathering as extra dedicated to public security, extra supportive of legislation enforcement.
All of which squares with how some Republican lawmakers have rationalized the Capitol assault. They insist that the ocean of marchers and rioters was not the outgrowth of months of indulging the president’s lie that the election was stolen, was not reflective of the social gathering’s core, certainly was not reflective of the social gathering in any respect. Across the nation, Republican officers have claimed falsely that the deaths and harm have been attributable to antifa.
Hogan Gidley, a spokesman for the president, argued Mr. Trump’s message of affection had not included those that stormed the Capitol. “The president was not talking about those people; clearly it was the people who were there to peaceably assemble, peaceably protest,” Mr. Gidley mentioned, although Mr. Trump had not specified this reality. “Because we believe in protecting not just the concept of law and order, but the actual brave men and women who institute law and order.”
Yet if legislation and order means a dedication to equal safety and justice, not even Mr. Trump’s personal aides appear positive that, within the ultimate days of his presidency, his supporters will abide it.
And so the law-and-order presidency ends like this: tons of of National Guardsmen posted behind a seven-foot fence looped by razor wire, defending the Capitol not from the individuals Mr. Trump spent his presidency demonizing, however all those he didn’t.
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