The Donald Made Me Do It

Love is a Physics experiment gone crazy.
"Equal and Opposite Reactions" by Patti Liszkay
http://amzn.to/2xvcgRa

​THE DONALD MADE ME DO IT

    Were these people really thinking that they could go to Washington one day, riot, smash into the Capitol, break into the Senate, zip-tie members of Congress, hang Mike Pence and Nancy Pelosi, overthrow the United States government, then go home and go to work the next day? 
     The above question was pondered by my son-in-law Miguel,

...in the days after the Washington D.C. riots as the FBI began showing up at the doors of rioters and making arrests, much to the surprise and distress of said rioters.
    But if the insurgents were so unaware that there would be consequences for the damage, destruction, violence and terror they wreaked and the injuries they caused when they stormed the Capitol building,

...then what in the world were they thinking?
    Apparently this was a terrorism day trip. A democracy-overthrow outing. A attempted assassination afternoon. The rioters posted selfies, tweets, instagrams, photos, videos, slathered themselves all over social media while committing acts of violence and Federal felonies.

     Then when Federal agents were waiting for them as they stepped off their planes or came to their houses days later, the FBI having gleaned their identities from tips from friends, family, and by all the social and news media postings, 

...they were caught like deer in the headlights.
     However after these people were arrested, charged, and able to avail themselves of the counsel of lawyers, clarity finally emerged and they came to the realization of why they had thought and behaved as they did: Donald Trump made them think it. Donald Trump made them do it.
     They acted, so they claimed, not of their own volition, but were following the command of their beloved President, who told them to "march down Pennsylvania Avenue" to the Capitol and to "fight like hell."

...which they subsequently ​did. And took plenty of pictures of themselves doing it.

     And now:
     ― Jenna Ryan, a Texas realtor who was arrested for taking part in the siege said she was answering the call of her President and that now, "I just want people to know I'm a normal person, that I listen to my President who told me to go to the Capitol."

      This self-described "normal person" is now pleading for a Presidential pardon from Donald Trump.
​        ― The lawyer for the man who invaded the Capitol wearing horns, fur, and face paint said that President Trump was culpable for his client's actions.

     “Does our President bear responsibility?” said the man's laywer. “Hell, yes, he does.” The horned warrior, now in prison, is also begging Donald Trump for a pardon.
      ― A retired firefighter charged with injuring Capitol Police officers with a fire extinguisher said he went to the Capitol following “the President’s instructions.” 
      ― A New Mexico county official and founder of Cowboys for Trump who was charged with with breaking into the Capitol pled that he merely became "caught up in the crowd."
​        Et cetera. 
     And so, if the hundreds of rioters who are now facing punishment for their crimes and the hundreds or thousands more who will be brought to justice knew not what they were thinking at the time, now they do. They're thinking that it wasn't their fault. That their President made them do it. And that, sometime before noon tomorrow, they want a Presidential pardon. 

     Good luck to them in getting one.
​

References:
​https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/17/nyregion/protesters-blaming-trump-pardon.html

https://www.yahoo.com/news/capitol-rioters-trump-told-them-123643116.html