Not only have they missed the mark; they are deliberately twisting words and projecting blame in order to rationalize the outrageous behavior of their icon, Trump, by pretending that there is no difference between Trump's blatant incitement of violence and Biden's use of a common metaphor. This is sophistry in the sense that Socrates deplored: the deliberate abuse of the arts of language in order to deceive and confuse, and to stir up a lather of rage and hatred in order to manipulate a gullible audience, rather than to illuminate reality.