Joe Biggs, a Proud Boys leader convicted of seditious conspiracy who the government says “served as an instigator and leader” during the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, was sentenced to 17 years in federal prison on Thursday.
It is among the longest sentences in Capitol riot cases. The record is the 18-year sentence given to Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes, also convicted of seditious conspiracy, after prosecutors sought 25 years in federal prison in his case.
Trump was perfectly situated to build a coalition of easily manipulated rural blue collar workers who felt (rightly in many cases) that they’ve been abandoned by the Democratic party…wealthy elites who saw one of their own and felt comfortable and confident that he’d protect their interests…and closet racists, bigots, and neo-fascists all across the country who heard his dog whistles loud and clear.
Combine that with party discipline to fall in behind whoever the party tapped and he ended up with just enough people in just the right locations to snatch the 2016 election.
Unfortunately for Trump, over the next four years, he failed to deliver much of any value to those rural voters, and failed to inflict enough cruelty for the far right contingent, and was too volatile for comfort for enough of those elites that he couldn’t put together enough of an effort to take 2020.
While I don’t want to jinx it, I feel like 2016 was an absolute perfect storm for him and he’ll never be able to scrape up the necessary votes in the necessary states to win another presidential election.