April 15, 2022

"Mr. Trump repeatedly used the word 'we' in his remarks that day. 'We will not take it anymore, and that’s what this is all about,' Mr. Trump said."

"'And to use a favorite term that all of you people really came up with: We will stop the steal.' Mr. Miller rebutted the implication that the word 'we' indicated that Mr. Trump was trying to incite the crowd to action... arguing that it has been used in political speech for decades, including by President John F. Kennedy in reference to the moon landing."

From "Jan. 6 Panel Presses Stephen Miller on Whether Trump Sought to Incite Crowd/In about eight hours of questioning, investigators pressed the former White House aide on former President Donald J. Trump’s use of 'we' in his speech to supporters before the riot" (NYT).

Imagine spending 8 hours getting asked over and over what Trump might have meant by "we"? Everyone has access to the speech and can speculate. What's Miller supposed to say?

"We" is an important word in political speech. "We, the People." And hasn't Trump ended every rally with a litany that repeats "We will..." with various aspirations expressed, culminating in "We will make America great again"? 

It's a trope. 

Here's your palate cleanser. JFK saying "We choose to go to the moon...."


What do you mean "we," Jack? We weren't all going to the moon!

61 comments:

Rollo said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Original Mike said...

"Imagine spending 8 hours getting asked over and over what Trump might have meant by "we"? Everyone has access to the speech and can speculate. What's Miller supposed to say?"

All in the service of their own political fortunes. These people disgust me.

wendybar said...

Depends on what the definition of is, is.

hombre said...

It's the "imperial we" commonly used by politicians of all stripes. Are Democrats and leftmediaswine now pretending otherwise?

Cleve said...

Funny how no one in the MSM ever talked about President Obama's rather frequent us of the "I" word ...

Joe Smith said...

From what I've seen, Miller is really smart.

Even ganging up on him, I don't think it is fair to the committee...

Btw, the proof of how stupid we are as a nation is the fact that Adam Schiff is a committee member.

Really? The guy who has blatantly lied about everything these past many years?

That's not even in dispute, and yet he has not been sanctioned nor dumped.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

“The royal we” 👉🏽 https://youtu.be/E09LU6XVyxs

rhhardin said...

We is Trump's pronoun.

Owen said...

Eight hours of asking somebody "What did he mean by 'we'?" Pish posh: that's nothing. Look at the YEARS spent grinding down Michael Flynn, the year-plus NOT bringing charges against the J6 defendants, the way we treated the Gitmo detainees (just watched "The Mauritanian" in which Prog Hollywood again gets the vapors over the "enhanced methods" of interrogation).

These guys don't fool around. Give them what they want or they will never, never stop.

rhhardin said...

What you mean we, Kimosabe? Original Tonto joke

Michael K said...

Thank God the January 6 "committee" is about to crash and burn. It's all about the election but doesn't seem to be working.

tommyesq said...

Objection - hearsay, calls for speculation, lack of foundation.

ConradBibby said...

Isn't the more relevant question what he was calling on the "we" to do? Unless, he said, something like, "we are going to rush the barriers at the Capitol, seize the place, and physically prevent Congress from certifying electoral votes," there's no criminal case. Obviously.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

All the congressional Jan6 hoopla comes down to this?

I thought this was bigger than 9/11.

Douglas B. Levene said...

“What you mean ‘We’, kemosabee?” I’m betting Ann gets the reference. https://www.indiewire.com/2013/07/why-the-lone-rangers-anachronisms-make-its-history-lessons-hard-to-swallow-127703/

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

Flip the tables, and imagine if Trump and Facebook and the GOP hired these mules to beat Hillary in 2016..

Imagine.

Ballot Harvesters Made 5,668 Illegal Dropbox Dumps, Were Paid $10/Vote in Georgia: Election Watchdog

Achilles said...

Things are falling apart fast for the Regime.

The J6 protestors will be remembered as political prisoners maliciously persecuted by an evil regime whose "leader" failed to complete his term.

We should have a pool on which reason they use to remove Biden from office or if he does so himself.

Pillage Idiot said...

What you mean "we", Kemo Sabe?

Ralph L said...

Tonto: What do you mean "we," white man?

tim maguire said...

Typical bad faith questioning. Nobody is confused about what Trump meant by “we.” Politicians use it all the time because they want the crowd to think “he’s one of us!” Like in job interviews where you try to get the interviewer to picture you in the position and talk about the job as though you already have it.

JK Brown said...

Wait, a president is again hanging on the meaning of a two-letter word? First it was "is", now it is "we".

Jupiter said...

Eight hours of questioning. These people are vermin.

Art in LA said...

Yes we can. Si se puede ... although this means "yes you can."

Mike Sylwester said...

We will not take it anymore !
We shall overcome !!

n.n said...

We, the representative, not royal, form.

Howard said...

Imagine if we truly lived in an autocracy putting treasonous conspirators on trial. Miller would be fertilizer by now. Instead, he is harassed by hairpie wannabe prosecutors.

Tommy Duncan said...

"What you mean 'we', kemosabe?"

Tofu King said...

The Lone Ranger and Tonto found the had ridden into an Apache ambush. On the hills they saw mounted warriors on all sides. The Lone Ranger: "We find ourselves in a dire situation my friend". Tonto: "What's this 'we' shit white man?" Always cracked me up as a kid.

JaimeRoberto said...

I depends on the meaning of what we was.

Tofu King said...

What a speaker JFK was. "Almost as hot as it is here today" LOL. Compare to today's leaders. Sad.

Readering said...

Even if only a few astronauts circled the moon, we through our government spent about $50 billion on the space program from 1961 to 1973. Multiply by 10 for current dollars.

We did not storm the Capitol. Everyone who did, did so because Trump exhorted them to, and at one point said he was going with them.

Temujin said...

Tonto to the Lone Ranger: What do you mean 'we' Kemosabe.

BarrySanders20 said...

We JFK? It’s only Whitey On The Moon

Bill Harshaw said...

Just a slight difference--I believe Trump said "we" will go to the Capitol in a context where thousands of people, many of whom were clearly angry as was he, were going to the Capitol. I doubt you can find a rally where Trump used "we" in discussing actions the rally-goers would be taking immediately upon leaving the rally.

Mary Beth said...

His use of the word "we" was one of the nice things about Trump. Obama was too fond of "I".

WK said...

Maybe he was saying “oui”.
Maybe he had a mouse in his pocket.
Maybe he was sayin “whee!”
Hard to speculate....

khematite said...

Does the January 6th committee plan merely to impeach Trump for a third time? Because that's the only setting in which "we" can mean whatever the House majority wants it to mean. In any criminal prosecution, it would seem close to impossible to persuade a jury that, beyond a reasonable doubt, the use of "we" in a political speech can only refer to some conspiratorial group engaged in illegal activity.

Earnest Prole said...

In political speech "we" means everything from "me myself" to "the royal we" to "all of us together." Debating its meaning is like discussing whether cheesecake is cake or pie, or whether a hot dog is a sandwich -- the kind of thing drunken college sophomores spend all night arguing about.

TheOne Who Is Not Obeyed said...

"Everyone who did, did so because Trump exhorted them to, and at one point said he was going with them."

Speaking of lies.....

Ann Althouse said...

Comments were moderated in a group, hence the multiple Tonto stuff. I thought my Gif pointed at that meme.

Iman said...

I’d support tar and feathers for the whole stinking lot of this Jan. 6th “committee”.

Iman said...

Bug-eyed, corksoaker Schiff and his fartclam mouth. How low humankind has sunk.

Josephbleau said...

This historic video reveals the lies of the JFK quotation, white people were not first in space.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T6xJzAYYrX8

Narr said...

We got yer insurrection right here, Schiff.

Bender's line (Futurama Bender, not our very own) was improved later, to "What do you mean 'we', meatbag?"

gadfly said...

"It is the immemorial tactic of a dictatorial regime to accuse its opponents of what it is doing. Donald Trump was vilified by the left because "he lied; in fact, he was at a disadvantage because he did not lie. He was, by inclination and experience, a superb director - that is, one who achieves a goal through inspiring employees - but he had neither the inclination nor experience to rule, which is to control disparate groups through false promises, stealth, deception, propaganda, and lies. Its all there in The Prince. We don't know if todays thugs have read it, but we may be sure Marx did."

Ann requested comments on: "Those people who got so mad at Trump for lying — in Mamet's view, what really made them mad was that he did not lie. Consider that. It's the language he eschewed — the "hieratic language" — that's full of lies."

Where to start? Niccolò Machiavelli published The Prince in 1532 - and so he never met an Italian like Donald Trump unless there was something in this old book that I didn't find about politics and the Mafia.

In 1987, Leo Strauss wrote:
"Machiavelli is the only political thinker whose name has come into common use for designating a kind of politics, which exists and will continue to exist independently of his influence, a politics guided exclusively by considerations of expediency, which uses all means, fair or foul, iron or poison, for achieving its ends – its end being the aggrandizement of one's country . . . in the service of the self-aggrandizement of the politician . . . ."

Strauss, who likely never met Donald Trump either, was far more correct than David Mamet who would blame the left for Trump's personal lawbreaking and lies. Nothing was mentioned in Mamet's "Love of Trump" chapter that attributed TFG's actions to his racketeering and to his love of money and self. Obviously, Trump was supposedly right and there must be an argument somewhere to prove it.

Narayanan said...

They could have asked Hillary = when Trump says We >>> We the Deplorable [my/him/self included]

Mr Wibble said...

Does the January 6th committee plan merely to impeach Trump for a third time?
----

I think that the plan is to have blue state and county election officials ban Trump from the ballot in 2024.

Maynard said...

We did not storm the Capitol. Everyone who did, did so because Trump exhorted them to, and at one point said he was going with them.

I assume you read his speech where he talked about a peaceful protest at the Capitol. In Clintonian terms, it all depends on the meaning of the word peaceful.

We are always amazed when blatantly dishonest Democrats accuse Trump of dishonesty.

We are also concerned about freedom of speech when you say that his exhortation to peaceful protest was unlawful.

Mary Beth said...

BarrySanders20 said...

We JFK? It’s only Whitey On The Moon

4/15/22, 12:55 PM


Now I wish I had used the post mentioning Pinot Noir alcoholism to link to The Bottle. I bet if we tried, we could have made it Gil Scott-Heron week with a link per day.

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...

I wish Trump had hired more Stephen Millers and Matt Whitakers and fewer Sessions and Scaramuccis.

Chris Lopes said...

Going after ousted leaders for purely political purposes is what banana republics do. I don't like Trump one little bit, but I hate what the partisan hacks in the house are doing even worse. It's not bad enough that we had 2 bullshit impeachments which turned a Constitutional safe guard into just another partisan political tool, now we are in "lose an election, goto jail" territory. You really don't want to make the stakes that high. You really don't want people in power desperate enough to risk World War III to stay.

iowan2 said...

Readering said
We did not storm the Capitol. Everyone who did, did so because Trump exhorted them to, and at one point said he was going with them.

When exactly did President Trump "exhort", them,to storm the Capitol?

iowan2 said...

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Tonto disguises himself as a pool table, while the Lone Ranger racks his balls.

Scott Patton said...

If Trump said 10 years was a d'cade, they'd impeach him.

Wince said...

"That's metaphysically absurd, man, how can I know what you hear?"

effinayright said...

Ralph L said...
Tonto: What do you mean "we," white man?
************

By now, all people my age know that "Tonto" means "stupid" in Spanish.

So he was only acting on a long-simmering resentment.

Mr. Forward said...

What did the snail say when it rode on the turtles back?

Michael said...

Review Trumps speeches. He rarely used the word I.

walter said...

When does lectern thief guy get the firing squad?

Ralph L said...

now we are in "lose an election, goto jail" territory.

That is why Julius Caesar destroyed the Republic. Foolishly, he then granted clemency to many of his enemies. Octavian didn't, and had them killed.

~ Gordon Pasha said...

It would be right and just for the next Republican President to issue a blanket pardon, full restoration of all civil rights, and reparations to every J9 defendant. Andrew Johnson pardoned nearly the entire Confederate government and military after the impeachment against him fAiled in removing him from office