Now isn’t this interesting? He’s a rioter who escaped the Trump MAGA mindset and is, thankfully, one who saw what the riot was doing. He saw the police get overwhelmed. He looked at himself and discovered he didn’t like what he had become. From Raw Story:
When President Donald Trump issued more than 1,500 pardons to rioters who stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, one insurrectionist who spent time in prison for his role in the attack told the president in no uncertain terms he didn’t want forgiveness. “I don’t regret refusing the pardon by any means, but I’m kind of stooping myself to Trump’s level when I tell him to shove it up his a–,” Jason Riddle told Raw Story. “I actually emailed the White House, apologizing for saying that.”
Personally, I commend him for doing so. He told Trump to shove it. After what he saw happen, he said No, I don’t want it. At least one person regretted what he did. There’s something. The MAGA lunacy was and is incredible. I can’t understand it. He got sucked in and was part of the crowd that day. He knows it from both sides. And he got out.
Still, Riddle has been pushing for the White House and the Office of the Pardon Attorney at the Department of Justice to formally acknowledge his refusal of the pardon — because the country is “heading to a real dark place” again under Trump, he said. “I absolutely want it official that I’m against this because people that support this are going to be complicit with wherever this is going,” Riddle said.
He saw what we knew. A dark place. How appropriate. Trump is losing his mind. His dementia addled brain is thinking, always about himself. He feeds on the MAGA crowd that gives him what he needs – praise and an absolute, fanatical dedication to him. They’re not dedicated to the country. They’re dedicated to Trump. Whatever he asks and needs is what they’ll give him.
Riddle knows better than most where Trump has taken America already. He became a Trump supporter after watching him command the crowd during the Republican primary debates for the 2016 election. Now, Riddle says formal acknowledgement that he refused a pardon for what he did there — stealing a bottle of wine and a Senate procedure book — would be part of his process of leaving behind the “unhealthy obsession” with Trump that brought him to that point. “You need to be in a state of tension to be a Trump supporter,” Riddle told Raw Story.
“You need to believe in something that’s not healthy to believe in. It’s only a matter of time that either consumes you, or you can free yourself.” While following the MAGA movement, Riddle said, “I didn’t have any sort of normal friends.” “My whole family kind of gave up on me. My husband and I, it wasn’t going well, and he thankfully stuck it out.”
“It wasn’t illegal, the life we were living, but it felt almost like being in a gang or [being] a gangster,” Riddle said. Another attack in Washington won’t be out of the question at the end of Trump’s second term, Riddle said, “especially if he’s forced to be removed.” “I don’t see him going peacefully,” Riddle said. “It looks like Trump’s literally setting the stage for it to happen, with the putting in the military in D.C.”
Wow, Jason. He lays it all out there, plain as day. I request you read the rest of the article. It’s worth the time. He tells us what it was like being in the MAGA sycophants. And he warns us about what could happen on the day of the confirmation and/or inauguration. We probably ought to be thinking about this now, so we’re not caught flat-footed again. It’s going to be worse this time. Count on it.
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