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Step-by-Step: Pence doesn't appeal a court order requiring him to testify before J6 grand jury [1]

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Date: 2023-04-05  

Trump indictment ‘indicated’.

Analysis: The indictment against former President Donald Trump raises thorny issues about state and federal law that could provide openings for the defense to try to get the charges tossed before the case even gets to trial. https://t.co/sRI0LZylqd

Jeff Sharlet does some ‘indicating’:

So far it's boilerplate x persecution. But I can't help noticing the unusual arrangement of flags. I think they're meant to look like wings. The martyr's angel wings, as Trump spews antisemitism, "Soros-backed," etc. 2/

Anybody who's reported on Trump for a long time knows his hair color changes event to event according to mood. Tonight, honey-blonde. Not sure how to read his colors, but I think he thinks they mean things. 3/

"All out nuclear world war III," says Trump, pitching not just to the fascist right but to the tankie left. 4/

So, good news. I've attended and watched a LOT of Trump speeches as a reporter. The repetition of boilerplate doesn't mean anything pro- or con. But when Trump's on, he's able to electrify his banalities. Now, it's like a husk. Same words, even emptier. 5/

More good news: Trump has compiled so many grievances, & now exclusively marinated them absent the jolt he got from holding power, that he's become a kind of fascist baroque, esoteric, obscure. This won't motivate any but hardcore. 6/

I've been reporting on Trump seven years and I can't follow this speech. It's not manic. It's tik tok, QAnon, down the rabbit hole, gnostic, "deep state," the meandering of a man who's used too much of the product he's been peddling. 7/

Trump gets his first and only laugh, a confused chuckle, pretty far into the speech. When Trump's on, he works the crowd like a bellows. Now, he's sucking oxygen out of the room. This is good news, because it's bad, by his own standards. 8/

All that said, there's an aspect of this inexplicable speech that remains dangerous: His voice, the way for so many of his speakers what matters more than his words are his voice. Late night am radio conspiracy whisper, very warm. 9/

"followers," not "speakers." But my error is telling, a response to what his followers experience as his weirdly mesmerizing, even--to them--comforting speaking style. 10/

Trump going into weeds on relations of his enemies. Crowing over his followers intimidating Alvin Bragg's wife into locking her Twitter account. TBH, as obscure as I experience this, I think for the base this part "works," confirms a provincial model of deep state: cousins. 11/

Ah, I don't like this: Trump doing a dark little sketch about the fate of Allen Weisselberg, not naming him, making it a fable, imitating the judge. This is where Trump grows fascism: "stories," nasty little passion plays. 12/

Oh, hell. He hit his stride. It's scary, apocalyptic, magic math, deliberately deluded, standing its ground on lies, daring followers to believe him. They will. CBS talking over closing music, but is it "Soul Man"? 13/13

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/4/5/2162290/-Step-by-Step-Pence-doesn-t-appeal-a-court-order-requiring-him-to-testify-before-J6-grand-jury

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