Us and them
By 
Trump is no longer even pretending that the 1/6 rioters aren’t on his team:
Shortly after the dust settled on Jan. 6, 2021, Donald Trump’s allies went to great and strained lengths to distance the then-president from the insurrectionists who had stormed the U.S. Capitol. They falsely linked the attack to antifa and supposed government “provocateurs” — claims that had no basis then and still don’t.
“These people don’t look like Trump supporters,” Newsmax host Greg Kelly claimed. Fox News host Laura Ingraham declared rioters to be “people who can only be described as antithetical to the MAGA movement.” Trump’s impeachment lawyers claimed he was “horrified” by the violence.
In the intervening four years, though, Trump himself has expressed an increasing amount of sympathy for the rioters — not just for their humanity and purported legal persecution (he has repeatedly floated pardons), but also for their actions. He has clearly sought to retcon that day from one of national shame to one that is to be, in many ways, celebrated.
That culminated Wednesday night with a very choice word: “we.”
Appearing at a town hall hosted by Univision, Trump was confronted by a self-identified Republican named Ramiro González who cast Trump’s actions surrounding Jan. 6 as a dealbreaker for him. González challenged Trump to win his support.
But Trump made no apologies for that day. What he instead did was actually link himself to the rioters — stronger than he ever has before.
“There were no guns down there; we didn’t have guns,” Trump said, before repeating: “The others had guns, but we didn’t have guns.”
The first thing to note is that’s false; Trump supporters did have guns and many other weapons. But also consider what Trump has done rhetorically. He cast the insurrectionists as a “we.”
It does not get said enough that Mitch McConnell knew perfectly well what Trump was, and did not even make a serious attempt to disqualify him from future office. Trump is a made man, he knows it, and he has no reason not to openly embrace the insurrection (not least by making being pro-insurrection a non-negotiable demand for his running mate.) You vote for Trump, you’re voting against American democracy.