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DEBATE AND DISCUSS: "1/6 was the darkest day in our nation's history where the light of democracy was nanoseconds from being extinguished forever and its altars profaned in service to the dark lord" versus "no it wasn't" Just to get the ball rolling I picked an argument from each side that I think is more or less representative and wasn't spread across multiple posts and back-and-forths, if your argument is better and I didn't quote it sorry, just repeat it in here or whatever NutShellBill posted:Speaking as someone from outside America, yes. Gumball Gumption posted:Why would Democratic state governments go along with this?
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# ? May 18, 2024 18:42 |
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I hope everyone on both sides of this argument can mutually agree that the day of remembrance dems are planning for the anniversary is gonna be deeply embarrassing ![]()
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The only thing we can all agree on, and that is undisputably true, is that one brave patriot tazed himself in the balls until he died of overly-tazered balls ![]()
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I am of the opinion that One Six was bad. I also can't help but wonder if the people who are falling over themselves to minimize it are doing so because it demonstrates that the differences between Democrats and Republicans are huge and important. Like, right now our government is dealing with a very low level of Maslow’s [Governmental] Hierarchy of Needs - we need to prevent a full-blown fascist takeover of America, which means voting for the party with a ton of out-of-touch and/or right-leaning old people in office, because they are the ones who are not attempting a fascist takeover. the_steve posted:The only thing we can all agree on, and that is undisputably true, is that one brave patriot tazed himself in the balls until he died of overly-tazered balls ![]()
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Mellow Seas posted:I am of the opinion that One Six was bad. If anything I'd say the opposite: the worse 1/6 is, the less important the differences between Republicans and Democrats. Where Republicans and Democrats agree on 1/6: -no one getting charged with conspiracy or insurrection -especially not the the ringleaders like the former president and his allies in congress -more money for the cops who let the rioters inside in the first place (or were the rioters) -no federal legislation to stop the next coup by defending voting rights or banning gerrymandering, or stopping gerrymandered state legislators from just overturning the popular vote -whether we need a strong Republican Party ("yes") Where Republicans and Democrats disagree on 1/6: -whether we should have a ceremony about it for solemn hand-wringing If 1/6 was just a joke then what the Democrats are doing is fine (embarrassing themselves, trying to fundraise off it, etc). The more deadly serious it was, the more the Democrats are looking like they're abetting insurrection. They're still going to cocktail parties with the people I'm supposed to believe tried to have them murdered, what VitalSigns fucked around with this message at 17:43 on Jan 3, 2022 |
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VitalSigns posted:If anything I'd say the opposite: the worse 1/6 is, the less important the differences between Republicans and Democrats. I dunno, dems are about bovine enough to keep going to parties with folks that want to kill them.
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Srice posted:I hope everyone on both sides of this argument can mutually agree that the day of remembrance dems are planning for the anniversary is gonna be deeply embarrassing The question is more or less embarrassing than suicide by tazerball
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VitalSigns posted:If 1/6 was just a joke then what the Democrats are doing is fine (embarrassing themselves, trying to fundraise off it, etc). The more deadly serious it was, the more the Democrats are looking like they're abetting insurrection. They're still going to cocktail parties with the people I'm supposed to believe tried to have them murdered, what Not to mention having a bipartisan panel about it! If I felt someone tried to murder me, well, I sure wouldn't want them on a panel about it.
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I mean part of the Democrats' figuring on how to deal with 1/6 is the fact that not all Republicans supported it. (If they all had, Donald Trump would probably be President right now!)![]() Yes, the shittiest Dems will still hang out with the most moderate Republicans on their dumb houseboat, but I don't think any Democrats are going to lunch with Josh Hawley or Lauren Boebert. They are going to throw Mark Meadows in jail.
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I'm still amazed that there are people who think this wasn't an insurrection.
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I think everyone involved in 1/6 thought they were committing a coup. I think they also had a child's understanding of the government and had no real path to taking and holding power. Trump winning and turning 1/6 into a way to hold power would have required an insanely apathetic response from many groups who would have zero benefit to not fighting that. He didn't have the military, he had a minority of the legislature, a lot of loyalty with police but no plan to mobilize them. Lacks support in major economics centers. I just don't see a viable path to Trump taking power through this that doesn't involve people just shrugging and rolling over. And if you do think the general reaction would be apathy then why worry about any of this? The system is so rotted out that it's going to collapse soon no matter what.
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Srice posted:Not to mention having a bipartisan panel about it! If I felt someone tried to murder me, well, I sure wouldn't want them on a panel about it. There's a fundamental flaw in their ideology that makes them totally incapable of doing anything else. They believe in meritocracy and just world theory, the people in charge are there by merit and must be there to shepherd the dumb hoi polloi into living correctly. Any doubt in any institution, even the institution of the Republican Party, is dangerous because if the Republican Party gets destroyed, what replaces it my fall under control of the wrong people. That's why they're so desperate to reassure us that the Republican Party is good and we need it to be strong. Democrats think they just need to help Republicans cut out the guy who corrupted it with populism, even though Trump might be one of the good old boys at the end of the day and Democrats are happy to lock in his tax cuts, uphold the legitimacy of his supreme court, and expand his unconstitutional domestic surveillance programs, he also set the GOP on the dangerous road of being controlled by its voters and not its establishment elites by stoking populist anger against JEB etc (this is also why Trump and Bernie are equally bad in their minds). This is why they're incapable of doing anything substantive to stop the next coup. If it were just about shaming Trump and getting people out to VOTE for good Republicans like Joe Biden's good friend Fred Upton, they'd be all over it. If it were just about partnering with their good friend Mitch McConnell to strip Gosar of committee seats for posting an anime of him murdering AOC they'd be all over that too. But the GOP itself is passing laws to stop Democrats voting, to keep control of a majority of states regardless of the popular vote, and to ignore elections and select the Electoral College themselves Democrats can't do anything about that without implicating the GOP itself and ideologically they can't do that. The GOP is protecting those legislators who were accomplices to conspiracy, attempted murder, insurrection, etc so Democrats can't do anything about that either without implicating the GOP itself and yep you guess it: ideologically they can't do that. The two-party system exists as a one-way ratchet towards more wealth and power for the elites and gently caress everyone else. Republicans get in, do a bunch of terrible stuff. Then Democrats co-opt the public anger against this, tell everyone to VOTE, and then when Dems win they just lock in everything Republicans did and it becomes the new normal, people get depressed and stop voting, Republicans get back in, rinse and repeat. And that system works great for everyone at the top. More money for their friends, more campaign donations, everyone gets on the gravy train. Only it's becoming unstable, people are getting angry, the trust in the system is collapsing, and fascists and reactionaries are realizing they can take it over and the neoliberals are ideologically incapable of stopping them as long as the reactionaries control enough institutions to allow them to abet or carry out a coup in a superficially correct and formal way. Gosar tried to kill the Vice President? Sorry we won't vote to expel him. Want to use the DoJ to just charge and prosecute him, that will make the Republican Party look bad, you don't want to hurt public trust in the two party system do you? I didn't think so. VitalSigns fucked around with this message at 18:24 on Jan 3, 2022 |
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Oh poo poo I gotta pick up some charcoal for my 1/6 "Death to America" barbecue.
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Mellow Seas posted:I mean part of the Democrats' figuring on how to deal with 1/6 is the fact that not all Republicans supported it. (If they all had, Donald Trump would probably be President right now!) Is Mitt Romney going to vote for HR 1? No? Then he supports a coup because that's what his party is doing at the state level. You have fallen for marketing and PR. Romney gets up, makes a big angry speech against some dumb angry realtors and small business owners who sat in Pelosi's chair and tazed their own balls, and wanted to murder Pence but ran away when one of them get shot, and you go "oh gosh gee look there are still good Republicans who support Democracy", meanwhile Romney takes part in filibustering any legislation to actually do anything about the very real and legal-seeming threat to democracy that's underway right now. 1/6 was a show, it was the former president giving his supporters the fight they wanted, he had no real plan to overthrow the government (aside from hoping for a Bush v Gore situation where he declares victory on election night while he's ahead and stops the count and the court rubber stamps it, and he lost too badly for that to be possible. And he didn't even plan that, when his people showed up to reenact the Brooks Brothers Riot, the election officials just ignored them and kept on counting). The powers that be had already moved on and acknowledged Biden would be president and they had no reason to overthrow the election, Biden is just as good for their bottom line as Trump and they already got everything they wanted from Mr Art Of The Deal and didn't need him anymore. The real threat is what nobody in Washington is even pretending to do anything about anymore: the voter suppression and gerrymandering at state level, and the plan to take advantage of archaic provisions in our aristocratic constitution that say the elites are the real choosers of the president and not the people. Their own neoliberal ideology makes them powerless against that, so instead we just get some hand-wringing ceremony about how bad it was that the altar of the senate chambers was profaned with pleb cooties. VitalSigns fucked around with this message at 18:36 on Jan 3, 2022 |
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For something useful for this thread, here's an article with a searchable table of the currently known and accessible charges/convictions of insurrectionists: https://www.insider.com/all-the-us-capitol-pro-trump-riot-arrests-charges-names-2021-1 From a cursory glance the vast majority of the charges are effectively just some form of "trespassing" or "illegally demonstrating". Only roughly 17% (done via page number results as it's not very granular with the website's system) have any mention of "assault".
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Mellow Seas posted:I am of the opinion that One Six was bad. Agree with this and will cross post what I just wrote in the US NEws VitalSigns posted:I made a thread for it if people wanna discuss more about 1/6 since I'm getting the feeling the discussion is too big and interesting to be confined to just current events. You don't have to post in that thread but be aware if you don't it will hurt my feelings Thanks for starting this thread. I still can't believe that on this site of all places and just a year later people are all "haha. what a bunch of morons" instead of really grasping how scary and historic that poo poo was. It was a dress rehearsal. These types aren't going anywhere and even just the implication that the election wasn't legit has been enough to pass a ton of horribly restrictive laws and get people who supported the insurrection into the halls of government. We keep laughing at these idiots and these idiots we're laughing at keep gaining ground. If you can find it, go back and read the USpol thread from that day and see how loving funny it was. I'm not even calling "too soon". I'm saying it legit frightens me and I think for good reason. I work with (and for) some of these people and hear the poo poo they believe. I overhear them talking when I shop or go out to eat. The President of the United States (who will likely be president again in 3 years with nothing but revenge on his mind), gathered and dispatched a mob into our halls of government. It wasn't a 100 dumb dumbs in Dealy Plaza waiting for JFK, Jr. to rise from the dead or some street preacher siccing his flock on an abortion clinic (which is bad enough). Flip it around and see how funny it would be if it were a BLM march and people were getting hurt or killed, which could still easily happen, except if it goes down that way they'll be scrubbing brains and blood off the Capitol Building steps for a year and jailing everyone who so much as walked through the mall. The reaction to 1/6 says as much about us as the event itself and it's weird to see posters chuckling that it was pathetic simply because Pelosi, Pence and AOC (luckily) were not murdered. I don't think we've seen the full ramifications yet because we haven't have had a big election since and from here on out, anywhere a Republican loses, it's gonna be "they did it again! FRAUUUDDD!!!" and, like everything else RWM and conservative propaganda does, it'll gradually become more and more normalized. 1/6 was the cultivation of DECADES of RWM disinformation and Evengelical hucksters gone mainstream.
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I agree, it wasn't the world's biggest boat owning dorks wandering through the remains of our rotten and completely hollow institutions, it was dangerous and powerful insurgents on their way to seize the Democracy Cube for the Trumpenreich
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1/6 was hyped as a coup for months by the people who participated in it and then when it didn't work they suddenly went "Coup? Why I've never heard of such a thing! This was just a peaceful portest, in fact the CIA MADE us do it!" And that shift in narrative in real time was interesting to watch.
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Crain posted:For something useful for this thread, here's an article with a searchable table of the currently known and accessible charges/convictions of insurrectionists: https://www.insider.com/all-the-us-capitol-pro-trump-riot-arrests-charges-names-2021-1 This is the problem right here: they say it was a coup and democracy almost got overthrown and Pence almost got raped and murdered, but they don't act like it. Is anyone being charged with any of those serious crimes. No. What are the charges? Mostly trespassing, some assaulting an officer. So mostly they're angry that people didn't buy tickets I guess. So what's the lesson for the alleged coup plotters: just try it again, as long as you don't personally break any windows you're all good. Everyone is comparing this to the Beer Hall Putsch, but the government isn't even taking it as seriously as Weimar took the Burgerbraukeller. Adolf Hitler was charged with treason two days after the attempted coup. The trial began three months after the event. Here we are a year after 1/6 and Trump is only in Twitter jail and it's not looking likely any more will happen to him and his cronies than that.
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Space Cadet Omoly posted:1/6 was hyped as a coup for months by the people who participated in it and then when it didn't work they suddenly went "Coup? Why I've never heard of such a thing! This was just a peaceful portest, in fact the CIA MADE us do it!" And that shift in narrative in real time was interesting to watch. poo poo, at my workplace, that happened within the span of a day. Early on when it happened, chud co-workers cheering them on about how they were finally going to stop the steal. The loving picosecond that it was obvious that it was going to fail, they seamlessly pivoted to how it was actually all an Antifa false flag operation.
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This even is, in my mind, going to be far more important in a historical sense as a harbinger or turning point. On it's own January 6th is bad enough because it showed just how lax any sense of "security" is when it comes to our halls of power. Resistance was nominal, the response was delayed and stifled due to the event being instigated by a sitting President, and the aftermath is nothing but a bunch of hubris with those who were targeted feeling like there's no reason to worry since this time they got away and weren't harmed. Can we focus for a minute about the implications of the military/police delaying their arrival and support against the insurrectionists for a second? The new report out with statements from the Secretary of Defense saying that he feared them arriving at the Capitol would 1) itself cause a constitutional crisis and 2) that the president would ultimately invoke something to activate the National Guard/Military to aide the insurrectionists. For #1, what good is it to let a constitutional crisis occur just because you fear creating one? There was already a constitutional crisis occurring because the capitol was breached in an attempt to subvert the government. So we're just supposed to accept that the military won't act to defend the country because it's a bad look? For point #2: Be really worried. Not just because Trump was seen as being willing to try and invoke either the Insurrection Act or another statute to try and seize power, but because the Secretary of Defense and the Joint Chiefs were hemming and hawing about whether or not they would follow such an order. That was the worry! IF they were there and Trump told them to help the insurrectionists they weren't sure if they would or should follow his orders. In their mind the "not being on site" part was only to give them time to decide on whether or not to follow orders. Sure, you can read it in a positive light as "we needed time to delay in that eventuality to avoid actively supporting a coup", but that's not what they said. They weren't looking for time to find a way to stone wall Trump, they wanted time to deliberate on whether or not to join in a military coup on the US Government. They fact that is even a question should be massively worrying to EVERYONE. You don't follow illegal orders of the president to take over the government. But they know that is not a hardline, well supported position in the military. This whole event was far closer to being a death knell than anyone wants to admit and I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of the "lol just laugh at it" is due to people just not wanting to think about the alternative. Yes, many things happened on January 6th that were massively funny. It was ultimately a comedy of errors and it is so loving stupid from every angle. But something being a comedy of errors doesn't mean terrible, deadly consequences won't result from it. The Assassination of Archduke Ferdinand is a goddamned Coen Brothers film when put on paper. It lead to roughly 20 million deaths all told with around 40 million casualties, military and civilian, by the end of WW1. Crain fucked around with this message at 19:12 on Jan 3, 2022 |
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Thanks for posting the thread, OP. I know the OP is on the "tends to discount the importance of 1/6" side of things, and I don't meen to dump on the arguments or posters that he chose to quote, but I do think the thread would benefit from a little bit more grounded take on how an attempt to overrule the presidential election on 1/6 could have succeeded. The basic argument goes to the text of the 12th amendment to the US constitution, which reads (emphasis mine): US Constitution, Amendment XII posted:The Electors shall meet in their respective states and vote by ballot for President and Vice-President, one of whom, at least, shall not be an inhabitant of the same state with themselves; they shall name in their ballots the person voted for as President, and in distinct ballots the person voted for as Vice-President, and they shall make distinct lists of all persons voted for as President, and of all persons voted for as Vice-President, and of the number of votes for each, which lists they shall sign and certify, and transmit sealed to the seat of the government of the United States, directed to the President of the Senate;—The President of the Senate shall, in the presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the certificates and the votes shall then be counted;—The person having the greatest Number of votes for President, shall be the President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of Electors appointed; and if no person have such majority, then from the persons having the highest numbers not exceeding three on the list of those voted for as President, the House of Representatives shall choose immediately, by ballot, the President. But in choosing the President, the votes shall be taken by states, the representation from each state having one vote; a quorum for this purpose shall consist of a member or members from two-thirds of the states, and a majority of all the states shall be necessary to a choice. And if the House of Representatives shall not choose a President whenever the right of choice shall devolve upon them, before the fourth day of March next following, then the Vice-President shall act as President, as in the case of the death or other constitutional disability of the President—The person having the greatest number of votes as Vice-President, shall be the Vice-President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of Electors appointed, and if no person have a majority, then from the two highest numbers on the list, the Senate shall choose the Vice-President; a quorum for the purpose shall consist of two-thirds of the whole number of Senators, and a majority of the whole number shall be necessary to a choice. But no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice-President of the United States. The procedure under the Constitution for choosing the president is thus:
(2) The electors meet in their respective states and vote for President and Vice President; (3) The states send the results of their electoral college vote to the President of the Senate--i.e., the Vice President, per Article I Section III; (4) The President of the Senate opens the votes in the presence of a joint session of Congress; (5) (a)If a candidate takes a majority of the electoral votes, they become president; (5)(b) If not (i.e., winning a plurality is not good enough) the question goes to the House of Representatives; (6) In the election in the House, the various state delegations each vote as a unit--i.e. one vote for each state. With that background, the basic argument for "1/6 really could have been a successful coup" goes like this:
(2) Now, by this point it was almost certainly too late for those legislatures to change their method for choosing electors in order to give Trump the win outright, but they could potentially create enough controversy in the public discourse to call into question the validity of their state elections--and by extension the votes of the presidential electors chosen in those elections; (3) The Vice President, as President of the Senate, could arguably use that controversy as a pretext not to count the electoral votes from those states--the precedent for this being the 1876 election between Rutherford B. Hayes and Samuel Tilden; (4) If Pence had taken this route (as he was evidently being pressured to do) then the election would have been decided by the House--and although Republicans were by now in the minority in the House, they controlled the congressional delegations from a majority of the states and thus could hand the election to Trump. I will admit that by this telling, there was no way for the mob Trump unleashed on the capitol on 1/6 to effectuate a coup on their own. Rather, I think the primary idea (other than Trump just plain venting his pique, which I am sure was part of the mix) was for the mob (and the other demonstrations Trump & Co had been promoting in DC in the days leading up to the certification) to add to the pressure already being put on Pence and--if possible--buy more time and cover for an effort to kick the vote to the House. As it happens, we know that Trump and his allies used the delay in certification caused by the riot to do just that. This isn't to make a hero out of Pence for refusing to go along with this plan, or to suggest that the whole thing hinged on his decision, but if he had chosen to go along I am not sure what recourse there would have been within our constitutional system. Counting ballots is, on it's face, a ministerial process (i.e., one that does not require exercise of discretion and that a court ought to be able to mandamus an official to carry out), but that would take time and the delay could have been used to further push a movement to kick the question to the House. And I cannot imagine the military would intervene because (a) as was mentioned in the other thread, Trump was still commander-in-chief; and (b) if the question was kicked to the House, what exactly is the military supposed to do? That's literally the mechanism prescribed by the Constitution. TL;DR: Don't count on your institutions to save you. EDIT: For further background, this is the memo that was being shopped in the days leading up to 1/6 by John Eastman, the lawyer who was spearheading the effort for Trump's camp. (PDF) Aegis fucked around with this message at 19:30 on Jan 3, 2022 |
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Space Cadet Omoly posted:1/6 was hyped as a coup for months by the people who participated in it and then when it didn't work they suddenly went "Coup? Why I've never heard of such a thing! This was just a peaceful portest, in fact the CIA MADE us do it!" And that shift in narrative in real time was interesting to watch. It's a perfect demonstration of the power of the right-wing media. Most rank-and-file Republican voters correctly saw the insurrection as a horrifying, inexcusable thing while it was happening, and if you had somehow gotten an impeachment conviction vote on Trump on 1/7 or 1/8 he probably would’ve actually gone down. But within a matter of days the RWM had given them whichever set of excuses they wanted - mostly, “oh, it was just a tour that got out of hand”, and “oh, it was secretly antifa” (with the former taking precedence over the latter, over time). Anything a right-winger wants to believe, even if they are not creative enough to figure out how to rationalize it themselves, will be given to them gift-wrapped by your Hannitys and Carlsons. The explanations don’t even have to make sense, which is why the main two misdirects on 1/6 are directly contradictory - there just has to be something, anything to fall back on to avoid reexamining their views, and right wing media will get it to them piping hot and ready to serve within hours.
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Aegis posted:Thanks for posting the thread, OP. Not at all, I started trying to find the best argument I could, but since a lot of the good ones were parts of back-and-forths that I'd have to edit into a readable op, I just found a couple of self-contained posts that I thought were good and stood on their own and figured if there were better arguments people could just make them in here. Thanks for contributing ![]()
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Everything that happened that day was horrible. But the fact that Trump never at any point attempted to quell the crowd is the most unforgivable part of Trump's actions that day. During his morning address to the crowd, he told the crowd "I'll be there with you" but he hid away like a coward while that mob was vandalizing the capitol and assaulting police officers in his name. He never made any public appearance to tell the crowd to stop. He could have appeared on television from the oval office and firmly condemned the violence and destruction, or he could have actually appeared in front of the crowd and told them to stand down. But he never lifted a finger to even try and stop them. Sure, he came on television and said "we have to have peace" but that was only after hours of rioting and destruction had already happened. It's unknown how much effect that would have had, as that crowd seemed out for blood. But there's absolutely no excusing the fact that Trump hid in the shadows while that shitshow was happening.
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BiggerBoat posted:I still can't believe that on this site of all places and just a year later people are all "haha. what a bunch of morons" instead of really grasping how scary and historic that poo poo was. It was a dress rehearsal. These types aren't going anywhere and even just the implication that the election wasn't legit has been enough to pass a ton of horribly restrictive laws and get people who supported the insurrection into the halls of government. Do you think that they're going to stop gaining ground if we stop laughing at them? I asked this in the CE thread but never got a serious answer: what's the alternative? What can we as common citizens actually do about this? It seems to be entirely in the hands of a political class that is either totally indifferent, or only interested in going after the rabble rather than the ringleaders. There are multiple people who still have seats in Congress who should have been arrested on 1/7. And yes, you can arrest politicians for doing obvious crimes. Humor is a coping mechanism for a lot of people when things are out of their control. I don't disagree with people that 1/6 was a really bad thing. I just don't think that it's beyond the pale to laugh about it, like some folks seem to be saying. Furthermore, Srice posted:I hope everyone on both sides of this argument can mutually agree that the day of remembrance dems are planning for the anniversary is gonna be deeply embarrassing
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Apparently, Trump was (still is?) planning on holding a press conference on the 6th to regurgitate his complaints that the election was stolen. He's getting push back from all sides on this. https://www.newsweek.com/trumps-tone-deaf-plan-jan-6-press-conference-slammed-republicans-former-aide-1664869 quote:Former President Donald Trump plans to hold a news conference on the anniversary of the January 6 Capitol attack, but the prospect has drawn criticism from fellow Republicans and an ex-White House aide who believe he should avoid making controversial remarks.
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Space Cadet Omoly posted:1/6 was hyped as a coup for months by the people who participated in it and then when it didn't work they suddenly went "Coup? Why I've never heard of such a thing! This was just a peaceful portest, in fact the CIA MADE us do it!" And that shift in narrative in real time was interesting to watch. As mentioned, it was also thousands of Antifa undercover operatives disguised in MAGAgear. Kevin Sorbo went from "It's happening!" to "what a shame about this cop killing, disgraceful false flag" in like a matter of hours. VitalSigns posted:
Well...maybe the democrats have decided that since that didn't work with Hitler, we should just try a softer approach? Also crazy to me how it gets to be everything at once. It was Antifa all along. No, no...they were invited in and were peaceful. Wait, hold on, no those people being arrested are political prisoners. It was just a few bad apples. What riot? What about the REAL riots (BLM)?
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the problem i have with taking 1/6 seriously is Baked Alaska was involved, and you could literally have me on my knees for an ISIS beheading video and if Baked Alaska walked into the room id be like "okay fellas this is getting silly"
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Srice posted:I hope everyone on both sides of this argument can mutually agree that the day of remembrance dems are planning for the anniversary is gonna be deeply embarrassing Of course the only thing we can agree on is that the dems suck rear end at actually doing something about it: like that's not even in question What is in question is how much of the government apparatus was willing to go along with the Q Putsch, which is to say a hell of a lot of Republican Congress Critters It does seem like the military at that point had it come down to it were willing to tell Trump to shove it based on the evidence that has come out. Doesn't change the fact that their were government officials actively in kahootz with the President to use their propaganda addled minions for a coup. TulliusCicero fucked around with this message at 19:42 on Jan 3, 2022 |
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paranoid randroid posted:the problem i have with taking 1/6 seriously is Baked Alaska was involved, and you could literally have me on my knees for an ISIS beheading video and if Baked Alaska walked into the room id be like "okay fellas this is getting silly" "Look, I'm not thrilled with the direction this is going, but you know what? Respect for your commitment to the bit, Baked."
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Aegis posted:I will admit that by this telling, there was no way for the mob Trump unleashed on the capitol on 1/6 to effectuate a coup on their own. Rather, I think the primary idea (other than Trump just plain venting his pique, which I am sure was part of the mix) was for the mob (and the other demonstrations Trump & Co had been promoting in DC in the days leading up to the certification) to add to the pressure already being put on Pence and--if possible--buy more time and cover for an effort to kick the vote to the House. As it happens, we know that Trump and his allies used the delay in certification caused by the riot to do just that. Power isn't some kind of board game where you get to the winning square or find the magic chachkies and you win game over. The vote had already been held, the electoral college chose Biden, if any of the states were going to pull an 1876 and send a competing slate of votes to congress they would have done so by 1/6 already and they didn't. 1876 didn't come down to one guy saying "no my side wins gently caress you" because everyone would have just ignored him, it came down to two institutional powers cutting a deal to basically give the other side everything they really wanted from the presidency (an end to the experiment of democracy in the South) in exchange for giving up the title. Pence could not have single-handedly changed this, the law is clear on this point (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electoral_Count_Act), if he got up there and just started counting votes for Mickey Mouse, he would be overruled by both houses (note that unlike the procedure for the House electing a president, certifying the vote does not require the House to vote by delegation with one vote per state, it is done by a simple house majority and Democrats were in the majority). And anyway there were simply not enough Republicans willing to overrule the vote. There were only objections to two state counts (Arizona and Pennsylvania), the votes against those objections failed by bipartisan majorities, and even if they had succeeded it wouldn't have changed the outcome, Biden would still have had 275 EV without those states and it's 270 to win. To pull off a coup and take over a government you need some combination of: popular support, military power, institutional support, backing of the rich and powerful. Trump and his private jet chardonnay realtor army on 1/6 had none of that. Popular support: he lost decisively and the public reaction to 1/6 was overwhelmingly negative, there was no swell of popular support for an illegal coup (note this differs from Bush v Gore, where Bush was officially ahead in the count and most people generally believed he probably won or at least weren't sure that he didn't) Military power: he tried to get the joint chiefs on his side and they said gently caress no and eventually found a way around him and deployed the national guard to clear out the Capitol. You aren't holding a country of 330 million people with a few hundred cowardly weekend warriors in the Capitol who turn tail and run the second it gets real and one of them gets shot Institutional support: No Republican state government sent competing electoral votes, no Republican secretaries of state agreed to help him find fake votes when he called them, no court took his lawsuits seriously, Republicans weren't even able to mount challenges to enough states to change the outcome, and all of those challenges failed because they weren't unified behind them and they didn't have a house majority anyway (this differs from 1876 when Republican states did send competing electors and did dispute enough states to change the outcome and also controlled the House, and differs from Bush v Gore when courts did side with Bush) Rich and powerful: were fine with Biden, already got everything they wanted from a Trump presidency, had no reason to upset the applecart for him VitalSigns fucked around with this message at 19:46 on Jan 3, 2022 |
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Crain posted:2) that the president would ultimately invoke something to activate the National Guard/Military to aide the insurrectionists. Also, that it's a greater than 50% chance he's elected again and gets a second chance. We know how petty, egotistical and sensitive he is at the slightest perceived slight and how much he relishes adoration and loyalty above anything else. What's Trump 2.0 going to be thinking about and singularly focused on 24/7 if he's re-elected? Trump IS the modern GOP and will be for the foreseeable future. Frankenstein monster and all that. And good points people are making about the influence of RWM. They not only largely created the circumstances that made that horrible day happen in the first place, but had gift wrapped explanations ready to go and delivered within 24/48 hours even though we have text messages from them being shocked and horrified as it was going down. We've seen what happens to the few Republicans willing to call it what it was. 40-45% of voters and almost all of the GOP being cool with this is a LOT and people should worry about that.
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Not to get all "one weird trick to save democracy" or whatever, but 9/11 could have been prevented if the planes had locking doors between the passengers and the pilots (we have those now btw, all the other TSA stuff is just theater) Is there anything like that on a technical level that could be done to the security at the Whitehouse that could prevent "1/6 but this time we've got our poo poo together" from happening?
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BiggerBoat posted:Also, that it's a greater than 50% chance he's elected again and gets a second chance. Eh... I actually think his love of his own vaccine farts is his undoing. He thinks HE made the vaccine, and the GOP base hates the vaccine. A ton of the more online hardcore loons are disowning him in droves. It's his own silver bullet, created by him, which narciccists love to do
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VitalSigns posted:Where Republicans and Democrats agree on 1/6: I'd argue that the reason Trump isn't in jail or barred from office for 1/6 isn't because Democrats don't want him to be, but because they can't achieve it. Just look at Trumps second impeachment, over this very topic. "Trump isn't in jail therefore the only thing Democrats disagree with Republicans on is the ceremony memorializing it" is reductive to the point of absurdity.
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CommieGIR posted:Oh poo poo I gotta pick up some charcoal for my 1/6 "Death to America" barbecue. honestly, 1/6 turning into an annual "gently caress America" day would be the best possible outcome. i'd love a gently caress America day. furthermore, we should get it off work.
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quote:The chair of the Jan. 6 Select Committee, Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Mississippi), said that he and the committee are currently following the money to determine who paid for so many people to come to D.C. for the “Stop the Steal” rally and subsequent attack on the Capitol. ![]() It came way too close; I feel like Mike Pence was the real target of the coup: either he agrees to plunge the country into chaos by not certifying, or he gets killed. That intention is what January 6'th revolves around, imo. ---- "People are going to go, 'What the gently caress is going on here?'" Bannon said while planning. "We're going to bury Biden on January 6th, loving bury him." "All Mike Pence has to do is send them back to the States, AND WE WIN. Do it Mike, this is a time for extreme courage!" President Trump urged that morning. "You'll never take back our country with weakness," Trump told the demonstrators as they set out. "You have to show strength and you have to be strong. We're going to the Capitol, and we're going to try to give our Republicans the kind of boldness that they need to take back our country." "Hang Mike Pence! Hang Mike Pence," the rioters chanted as they marched into the Capitol. "Execute the traitors!" a man with a megaphone shouted outside the building. "I wanna see executions!" "Bring out Pence! Bring out Pence," as rioters roamed the halls searching for the Vice President. "Victory or death," chanted a paramilitary organizer, having been promised a pardon should he succeed. ![]() The rioters were less than 100 ft away, they entered the room less than a minute after Pence fled. Pence's detail guided the group down a staircase to a secure subterranean area, where the vice president's armored limousine awaited. "I'm not getting in the car, Tim." "I trust you, Tim, but you're not driving the car," Pence told his lead agent. "If I get in that vehicle, you guys are taking off. I'm not getting in the car." Reports are that Pence feared conspirators within the Secret Service, who would try to aid the President; he feared that if he got in his car he would happen to drive by/to insurrectionists or he would be taken to, like, Alaska, where he would be kept, unable to certify the election. ---- In the intended outcomes, with Republican leaders rallying behind open corruption and with Pelosi/Biden trying to take momentary/early control of the Presidency, 'men with guns roll in to clear the place out' was the overall plan for determining control of our national government. Ultimately, the people being 'cleared out by men with guns' were to be either the national Democratic leaders asserting control or Trump, not mere protesters. It was to force a division in the armed forces of the state to either back President Pelosi or President Trump. But for a truck with guns not being cordoned off, or Pence being ambushed leaving, or Pence deciding otherwise about his role in certifying, or any small event changing, that day could have ended with madness. Even Trump losing in the ensuing struggle legitimizes electoral violence and gives an even more open and clear reason for neo-confederates like Desantis to ignore federal authority. Rather than aiming for a successful 1933 Nazi-ish national unification under Trump, I think the January 6'th attempt is best compared to Boris Yeltsin's coup against Russia's Supreme Soviet and his Vice President, with a nationally centralized rule of law totes shredded, elections openly determined by corruption and coercive violence, and the country suddenly on the brink of civil war regardless of who wins. President Yeltsin’s 1993 coup was against the legislature after they impeached him. It was a moment where a corrupt President of a large country shattered the rule of law just to remain in office, and where the elements of the state had to make a sudden decision of whether to support the current executive or the legislatively announced new leader. Such a moment of unsureness is what coups turn around. This, more than any other event post USSR imo, formally cast Russia into unchecked corruption. Although I think it would have ended differently, I feel like Russia’s 1993 coup is about as direct a comparison we have when considering the possible paths that could have stemmed from Jan 6’th. Its not like a perfect match, but I think its valid and illustrative when considering what may have been. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Su4TpenSnF8 "Many officers and especially rank-and-file soldiers had little sympathy for Yeltsin. But the supporters of the parliament did not send any emissaries to the barracks to recruit lower-ranking officer corps, making the fatal mistake of attempting to deliberate only among high-ranking military officials who already had close ties to parliamentary leaders. In the end, a prevailing bulk of the generals did not want to take their chances with a Rutskoy regime. Some generals had stated their intention to back the parliament, but at the last moment moved over to Yeltsin's side." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y5GVL3xN4KI Supreme Soviet Chairman, Ruslan Khasbulatov posted:The Supreme Council introduced the concept of separation of powers. There was a Constitutional Court, we had jury trials. All the democratic institutions were represented in this system. Vice President, Aleksandr Rutskoi posted:I strongly support an investigation not to settle scores with anyone, but to let people know the truth about these tragic events so they're never repeated. Because it's a fratricidal war. Sergei Filatov, former Chief of Staff to Russia's President posted:Most important, of course, is in that fight with the opposition all contact was lost between the President and the Parliament. Confidence between each other was completely lost. And most importantly, there was strong interference in the efforts to carry out economic reforms. ![]() I think its scary and bad how close we came to deplorable madness. The insurrection is not just some triviality being pushed by Democratic politicians out of ~embarrassment~ like the OP has claimed. atriptothebeach fucked around with this message at 20:21 on Jan 3, 2022 |
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BiggerBoat posted:Also crazy to me how it gets to be everything at once. It was Antifa all along. No, no...they were invited in and were peaceful. Wait, hold on, no those people being arrested are political prisoners. It was just a few bad apples. What riot? What about the REAL riots (BLM)? This is standard fascist tactics, using their enemies' morality and sense of fair play against them. Fascists don't care about fair play, but they know their enemies do, so whenever fascists are in a position of weakness they try to turn other people's sense of fairness to their advantage. If they think they are strong and they can win, gently caress you go on the attack and show no mercy. If they realize they're in a position of weakness: play the victim, cry that they're the oppressed underdogs and being treated so unfairly, appeal to the enemies' decency and try to shame them into backing off and letting the fash regroup and try again. Was what's her name (googling: oh yeah Ashli Babbit) a false flag crisis actor or a brave martyr, she's both and neither, she's whatever suits their strategy of the moment. They're getting heat for being murderous pieces of poo poo, oh she's anti-fa it was a false flag to make us look bad you meanies! See here's a picture of her at a BLM rally holding a sign with the words conveniently cropped out that proves she's a Democrat. Later the heat is off and they want to angry people up against the government, she was a martyr murdered for her freeze peach!
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# ? May 18, 2024 18:42 |
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Fister Roboto posted:Do you think that they're going to stop gaining ground if we stop laughing at them? I don't know. I just didn't find it funny and still don't. I don't write them off as a bunch of hosed up goofballs either. Lot of guns, lot of bibles, lot of anger and a lot of fear. Man, it's loving depressing. It's also not just "the democrats aren't doing anything about it". They're not I agree. But also only like 2 or 3 Republicans are speaking out either and they're losing political ground for doing so. And moving forward, no one in that party will sniff a nomination without openly endorsing this poo poo. There are no more moderate Republicans and, sadly, the number of moderate democrats seems to be increasing.
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